In the awards autumn series of blog posts, we get to know the brands and people behind the nominee products of the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards 2021. In this post, we are proud to share more about the Finnish skincare brand Soil Of Beauty and the founder of the brand, Henna Uusikallio, as told by Kalle Rosenberg:

Every company is an image of its founder. Their values, life experiences, and interests are always present in the decisions and the solutions. Maybe it is wise to describe how Henna Uusikallio is as a person and what she appreciates and values she supports.

As early as Henna can remember, she had a deep love relationship with horses. When she was ten years old, she edited her hand-drawn horse magazine. The walls on her room were, of course, full of pictures of horses. She could not imagine anything more wonderful than a forest walk with a pony. I’m sure that all horse lovers can easily relate to that.

Henna also had a strong interest in herbalism since she was a child. She used to collect the herb cards, and she had quite a collection of them. When Henna got her first horse, she started to put her herbalism knowledge into practice. She observed what the horses ate from nature for a particular ailment. Observing horses opened up a new perspective on herbal medicine, teaching Henna to contemplate nature through animals.

She put her observations into practice. If the horse had an upset stomach, she would take it to the forest and let it eat what it wanted. More often than not, it worked wonderfully.

Henna has always had a strong tendency to help animals and people to improve their health and find balance. Her interest in treating people led her to choose beautician studies even if she didn’t have much interest in them.

After graduating from school and working as a skin therapist, she was very close to losing her interest in the beauty industry. She was already thinking about quitting and finding another career. That was because there were not many natural solutions in skincare at that time. When she started studying, she had hoped that being a skincare therapist would lead her back to her passion for using herbs in holistic therapies. But it never really manifested.

When she was just about to give up, something happened. She got a chance to participate in a facial acupuncture course. Less than a year after that, she found herself studying Chinese medicine and acupuncture.

That was a game-changer in Henna’s life. After she started using facial acupuncture in her work and began to work as an entrepreneur, her customers began to get astonishingly good results with their skin. Facial acupuncture worked like a charm. It was something she had been looking for but didn’t know where to find. She felt that treating only the skin would not bring the results she was yearning for; she had to look deeper.

Acupuncture offered that, and for the first time in her professional career as a skin therapist, she was happy with her work, content on the inside.

We have to go quickly back to her school years. She did her thesis about how to make natural skincare products at home. It was something entirely new at that time. One of her classmates told the class that Henna would someday have her skincare line. Of course, who would’ve believed it at that time? Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who knows.

Through a series of fortunate coincidences, she got an opportunity to develop her first skincare product, Essence Balm. Her customers have been grateful ever since for it.

Henna’s goal was to develop a skincare product that goes beyond the surface. She used her understanding of plant synergy that animals and nature had taught her. Combined with traditional Chinese medicine’s wisdom, the Essence Balm worked essentially like facial acupuncture. That is because it contains adaptive plants that support each skin’s rhythms, always seeking balance.

Henna describes the nature of Essence Balm as follows: “It has many characteristics that refer to the soil. It is nurturing, supporting life and the ecosystem of the skin. It is soft in its structure, gentle in its character. Yet, in its deep essence, there is strength, like in the soil that supports our every step.”

Essence Balm is an image of its creator, Henna, who is passionate about nature and animals and a nurturing person. She might be a bit of an introvert, but that’s what makes her work extraordinary because she knows how to listen.

Nominated in the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards 2021:

Soil Of Beauty – Essence Balm

Get to know Soil Of Beauty even better on their website at soilofbeauty.com and follow the brand’s beauty journey on social media, such as on Soil Of Beauty’s Instagram Account >