EcoProducts Archives - Our Greenish Life

My hubby has a weird (!) skin condition called urticaria. You would probably not notice it, but when he’s been tucking into the gooey cinnamon buns and double thick milkshakes (errrrmmmm read: eating particularly badly), round red-ish spots appear on his arms, ankles and sides of his chest (mainly). Not cool.

For the most part, he’s just dealt with it, and then it flairs up, itches and bugs him, and then he just tries to ignore it and it tends to go away.

Enter: Baobab Oil by EcoProducts.

Baobab oil is made from baobab seeds found in the fruit of the baobab tree. (Side note: my son has this African Alphabet CD and ‘B is for Baobab Tree (the big, beautiful baobab tree’), so the tune is running through my head as I type this. Hysterical). It is cold pressed and the oil is therefore squeezed from the seed. 100% pure. What I like to see.

The uses? Basically, go ahead and smother your entire body with this good stuff; in the shower, in the bath, over dry patches, eczema, scarring, stretch marks, acne, sun burn and and and. Being natural and fabulous, it is safe on pregnant mums and children, just don’t drink it. You can find more uses for baobab oil here.

Baobab oil not only nourishes and moisturizes your skin, but it is packed with all natural goodness including omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids.

So I gave the bottle to my husby to try on his sensitive skin. I am certainly the more excited, spontaneous, optimistic and convinced-these-things-will-work of the two of us. So after a few days (only!) when he came to me saying the baobab oil not only diminished the urticaria spots fairly dramatically, but had almost immediately stopped the itching, I was thoroughly impressed. As was he.

But we all love a good story behind a good product don’t we?

Meet Dr. Sarah Venter – founder of EcoProducts (on the very right).

For thousands of years, baobabs have made an important contribution to people’s livelihoods for food, fibre and medicine in Africa. More recently, the global trade in baobab powder and oil has become an important source of income for many rural families. EcoProducts works with rural people, producing baobab powder and oil which is then sold to the manufacturing and retail sectors. This provides the local Venda communities with employment and much needed income.

However, Dr. Sarah Venter felt that there was still so much more that can be done to promote not only environmental awareness, but also social upliftment. She decided to create a non-profit organisation, the EcoProducts Foundation so that she could make a stronger connection between global markets and the source of baobab fruit. This allows for benefits to flow directly to the care for these ancient trees and to the lives of the women and children who live around them. As I said in the title – Africa at its finest.

Caring is a big deal to Dr. Sarah Venter. She’s encouraged Creating a Culture of Caring because she believes caring for ourselves, others and our environment is desperately needed in the world right now. Caring needs to become not just something we do every now and then, but what we do on a continual basis so that to care becomes naturally embedded in our culture.

Birthing from this idea of intentional care, came two key areas – the Baobab Pre-School Programme and the Baobab Guardians Project. It.is.incredible what is going on behind the scenes of the simple baobab oil and powder products. For more info, please follow the links to learn more.

EcoProducts also holds the following impressive accreditations: