Pearlescent perfumed beauty parlours? Us neither. Honest Skincare’s thistle tinctures and charcoal soaps, on the other hand, should be in all of our washbag arsenal during winter party season low-points and beyond.
Katie Fisher is the founder of the organic, independent skincare brand Honest with whom Folk has rustled up four bundles of restorative potions, candles and creams. Two for men, two for women. She’s a real salt of the earth person. I called her on Sunday evening for a ten-minute business call to hear about the collaboration; we spoke for an hour. She’s Birmingham born and bred (‘Can’t you tell!’); making Christmassy dream bags of goods with Folk came about – forgive – organically, the brands know of each other, and she knows Steve who runs the Lambs Conduit and Golborne Rd stores, ‘because he’s also a Brummie’.
What’s her story? She’s always been into skin health, has always had very bad excema herself – about which she is both thoughtful and pretty gung-ho, saying ‘I don’t talk about it that much, don’t want people feeling sorry for me!’ – so trained in beauty therapy and after a God-awful reaction to a famously ‘all natural’ much-respected brand, she did the research, read the books and started her own brand. ‘I started messing about with essential oils, making lotions and giving them to friends and family to try out,’ she says. ‘And I’m not just saying this, their skin was amazing.’ This lives on as the Calming cleanser – a unscented, sweet almond oil and beeswax best-seller (that you’ll find in the Nourish & Repair bundle). Honest now do candles, soaps, balms, oils and bath salts. ‘We’re all about healing, I really care about people’s skin. I have the best job,’ she says when signing off – but not before I pick up a pen and find myself taking down a secret recipe of grapeseed oil and sea salt that I am told I must put in the bath.
Folk x honest bags of good, put together by Katie and Folk, in studio-designed canvas bags, are on sale now in our Lambs Conduit Street stores and Soho store.
Words by Charlotte Brook