By Angela Clifton, founder of Edenwild
Jump to: frankincense · bakuchiol · tallow · jojoba · whole botanicals · helichrysum · sea buckthorn · aloe vera · honey · myrrh · french green clay · who this is for · FAQs
Quick answer: None of the ingredients in this article were invented in a lab. They were discovered by people paying close attention to what worked, passed down for generations, and in many cases only studied by modern researchers centuries later. Edenwild formulates with several of these ancestral ingredients today. Here's where they come from, how they were traditionally used, and why they've earned their place for this long.
skincare rooted in transparency
Ancestral Formulas, Made for Modern Families
Every Edenwild formula starts with a question: would we put this on our daughters' skin? If the answer is no, it doesn't make the cut. Formulated near Yellowstone.
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frankincense resin
Frankincense was valuable enough in the ancient world that entire trade routes formed around it. Caravans crossed the Arabian desert, ships moved it through Red Sea ports, and Egypt and the wider Mediterranean all reached for the same resin. At points in antiquity it was worth roughly its weight in gold. That's not incense-shop nostalgia. People organized economies, taxes, and trade alliances around this ingredient.
The resin comes from the Boswellia tree, harvested by cutting the bark and letting the sap weep out and harden, a process that hasn't changed much in thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians used it in embalming and skincare preparations alike. It shows up in religious texts across multiple traditions, burned in temples and applied to skin in equal measure. The line between the sacred and the cosmetic wasn't nearly as sharp as it is today.
Here's the distinction most modern brands skip. Frankincense essential oil is made through steam distillation, which captures the resin's aromatic compounds but leaves its heavier, non-volatile compounds behind. So the choice isn't "resin is right, essential oil is wrong." It's about what a formula is for. When we want the whole ingredient, we slow-infuse the resin itself. When a formula calls for frankincense's warm, resinous scent, essential oil is the right tool. Golden Root Antioxidant Balm uses both: slow-infused resin for the whole ingredient, plus frankincense essential oil for its aroma. Nectar Face Serum uses slow-infused resin only. Read more about why the form of frankincense matters.
bakuchiol
Bakuchiol comes from the seeds and leaves of Psoralea corylifolia, known as babchi in the Ayurvedic tradition, where it has been part of herbal practice for centuries. It also appears in traditional Chinese herbalism, valued for generations before Western researchers isolated the specific compound.
Nobody in either tradition had a molecular explanation for why they reached for it. They relied on direct observation passed down over generations, the same way most traditional knowledge accumulates, long before anyone had the tools to isolate a compound and study it in a lab.
That's usually how these ingredients go: tradition gets there first, and modern research shows up later. Bakuchiol had that moment more recently than most ingredients on this list, which is part of why it rose so quickly in modern skincare over the past several years. It's a rare case of an ancient ingredient becoming a headline story almost overnight. Read more about bakuchiol. Edenwild uses CO2-extracted bakuchiol in Nectar Face Serum, alongside stable vitamin C and slow-infused frankincense resin.
tallow
Rendered animal fat predates petroleum-based moisturizers by most of human history. Long before anyone was refining crude oil into cosmetic ingredients, cultures on nearly every inhabited continent were rendering fat and using it on skin. European, Native American, and various African and Asian traditions all developed their own version of this practice, independently.
That's the detail worth sitting with. When unrelated groups of people, separated by oceans and centuries, land on the same practice without ever comparing notes, it says something about how consistently it served them.
Part of the reason is simple: tallow's fatty acid profile is close to the lipids your own skin produces. Learn more about what makes grass-fed and finished tallow different. Edenwild's balms are built on grass-fed and finished tallow from suet, with botanicals slow-infused into jojoba oil and blended in. Happy Baby Balm, Golden Root, and Morning Dew all use this base.
jojoba
A small correction before we go further: jojoba isn't technically an oil. It's a liquid wax ester, a distinction that matters more than it sounds. Indigenous peoples of the Sonoran Desert, where the jojoba plant is native, used it for generations on skin and hair, pressing the seeds long before "wax ester" was a phrase anyone used in skincare.
What makes jojoba unusual is how closely its structure resembles human sebum, the oil your skin naturally produces. That similarity is why it absorbs the way it does instead of sitting on top of skin like a heavier plant oil. It's also why almost every Edenwild formula starts here. Jojoba is the base we slow-infuse botanicals into across our serum and balm line. It's less an ingredient on a label and more the foundation everything else is built on. Read more about why jojoba is the foundation of our formulas.
whole botanicals
Before anyone was buying skincare in a bottle, they were making it at home. Dried flowers, leaves, and roots were steeped in oil or fat for days or weeks, slowly drawing out what the plant had to offer. It was one of the oldest ways to make skincare, and it's still the way we make ours.
Every plant we infuse comes with its own history. Calendula has centuries of folk-herbal use across Europe, often grown right in kitchen gardens. It wasn’t an exotic import. It was something a household could grow and use itself. Chamomile carries a similarly long European herbal history, used on skin and as tea for generations. Marshmallow root goes back to ancient Greek and Egyptian use, and its natural mucilage, a gel-like substance, is part of why it earned such a lasting reputation for comfort. Yarrow appears across European and Indigenous North American herbal traditions, and butterfly pea flower has been part of Southeast Asian tradition for generations.
We use the whole flower, leaf, or root rather than an isolated extract, and we give it time. Each formula gets its own blend of botanicals, chosen for what that formula is meant to do, and slow-infused into jojoba oil or, in some formulas, directly into tallow. It’s slower than buying a ready-made extract, and that’s the point.
helichrysum
Also called immortelle, a name that tells you how long people have believed in this one. Native to the Mediterranean, particularly its coastal regions and islands, helichrysum has been valued there for generations, both for its distinct scent and its place in traditional skin care.
The plant itself is unusual to look at. Its small, papery yellow flowers keep their shape and color long after being cut, which is likely where the "immortelle" name comes from. That same resilience shows up in how the plant has held its place in skincare tradition across centuries, largely unchanged in reputation even as formulation methods around it have modernized.
It still earns its spot today. Edenwild uses helichrysum in Nectar Face Serum.
sea buckthorn
Sea buckthorn grows in genuinely brutal conditions: high altitude, extreme cold, and poor soil across Tibet, Mongolia, and Siberia. It survives where very little else does, which may be why it turned out so nutrient-dense. Plants that have to work harder to survive often concentrate more into what they produce.
Traditional herbalism across that region has relied on the berries, seeds, and oil for centuries, long before sea buckthorn made its way into Western skincare. What's notable about the oil is the unusually wide range of naturally occurring fatty acids in a single plant. Most plant oils lean heavily toward one or two, while sea buckthorn carries a broader profile than most.
Edenwild uses sea buckthorn in Alpenglow Face Serum and Golden Root Antioxidant Balm.
aloe vera
Ancient Egyptians reportedly called it the plant of immortality. Dramatic, maybe, but it has stuck around in skincare for thousands of years since. References to aloe appear in Egyptian medical texts, and it's tied to beauty rituals attributed to both Cleopatra and Nefertiti, though how much of that is verified history versus enduring legend is hard to untangle at this distance.
What's better documented is how far its reputation traveled. Its use as a skin-soothing botanical carried through Greek and Roman practice, and separately developed across parts of Africa and Asia where the plant grows natively. Multiple, largely independent traditions landed on the same use. It's still one of the most trusted botanicals in skincare today, and a reputation this durable is rare for any single ingredient.
honey
Ancient Egypt used honey in skin preparations alongside milk and oils, a combination referenced in surviving texts and continued through Greek and Roman tradition. Cleopatra's reputed milk-and-honey baths are probably the most famous version of this practice, even if the historical record on the specifics is thinner than the legend.
Nobody in the ancient world had the vocabulary for "natural humectant," but they clearly understood the effect. Honey draws moisture from the surrounding air and holds onto it, which is part of why it was reached for across so many eras and regions. It's not a new discovery. It's just a new word for an old, often-observed effect. You'll find honey in some of our soap bars.
myrrh resin
If frankincense was one of the most valuable resins in the ancient world, myrrh was right beside it. The two traveled the same incense routes out of southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa, were traded by the same merchants, and often show up together in the same historical records. Myrrh comes from the Commiphora tree, harvested the same way as frankincense: the bark is cut, and the sap seeps out and hardens into reddish-brown tears.
Ancient Egyptians used myrrh in skin preparations, perfumes, and embalming, and it carried forward into Greek and Roman practice. It also holds a long place in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese herbalism. Like frankincense, it sat right where the sacred and the everyday overlapped, burned in temples and blended into the ointments people put on their own skin.
Myrrh is one of our newer additions, and one we're especially glad to work with. Edenwild uses myrrh resin in Morning Dew Balm and slow-infuses it with our botanicals in Alpenglow Face Serum, the same whole-resin approach we take with frankincense.
french green clay
Different continents, different cultures, same instinct: put mineral-rich clay on your skin. Egyptian, Roman, and various Indigenous traditions across the Americas all developed their own uses for clay independently, separated by oceans and centuries.
French green clay gets its color and mineral profile from the particular geology of the regions in France where it's mined, with decomposed plant matter and iron oxides mixed into the clay bed over a long geological timescale. It's one of the few ingredients on this list with a truly global ancestral story. Clay use wasn't handed down from one source culture. It was discovered again and again by people with no way of knowing anyone else had done the same.
who this is for
If you're drawn to skincare with real history behind it, not a trend that showed up last year but ingredients cultures have reached for across generations, this is the whole philosophy behind Edenwild. We didn't invent a single ingredient on this list. We formulate with them the way they've traditionally been used: minimally processed, given real time, and chosen because they'd already earned their place long before we got involved.
Would we put this on our daughters' skin? That's the question every Edenwild formula is held to. Formulated and made by Edenwild, a Wyoming-based ancestral skincare brand near Yellowstone.
read more
- bakuchiol vs. retinol: a natural anti-aging serum that works
- frankincense resin oil vs. essential oil: why the form matters
- the wyoming approach to wellness
- tallow skincare: the ancestral ingredient making a very deserved comeback
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