Earth and Community Care

environmental sustainability

Esse is based in Africa and has been formulated using Africa's incredible plant diversity. Local communities sustainably harvest the African plants that we use under Fair Trade conditions. The populations of these plants are externally monitored to ensure that rate of harvest is sustainable.

We use Baobab, Marula and Rooibos along with a myriad of other African extracts to sooth and protect your skin. African extracts and oils are sourced from a wide variety of sub-Saharan countries including Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Ghana, Swaziland, Zambia, Angola, Rwanda and Congo.

Esse is packaged in recyclable glass

All our products are biodegradable and free of parabens, free of petrochemicals, free of synthetic fragrance and free of synthetic colourants

Esse is for people that want to buy effective, healthy and natural products that protect their skin as much as their environment.

biodiversity preservation

South Africa is home to more than 20 000 species of flowering plants. Even the small province of Kwa-Zulu Natal (home base for Esse) has eleven times as many tree species as the whole of Europe. This plant diversity is an enormous resource and has already yielded many new actives for skincare and several pharmaceuticals.

Our plants are, however, under considerable threat from vastly increased human pressure on the environment, invasive alien plants and unsustainable harvest to supply the local “muthi” market.

We are making an effort to retain genetic diversity of plants that are under particular threat. 5% of our net profit is directed toward growing threatened plants from seed and maintaining populations of these plants.

We are also very conscious of how our raw materials are sourced. The community projects that harvest many of our raw materials from the wild are externally monitored to ensure sustainablility. These projects have given the bushveld a commercial value to the local people and will help to protect these vast tracts of pristine land.