I have poured my whole being into making Red Flower alive and worthy of your attention. Red Flower is so many things to so many people - a candle to come home to and light, a therapeutic bath to cure all that ails, a personal remedy of layering scent, a perfect gift to delight a host, a skin boost to see radiance restored, a relief from sunburn, a fragrant kiss, a hot shower with a favorite citrus burst, an aesthetic message, a hand written letter scented with petals, a tiled water sanctuary in the best hotel of its kind, a dinner enhanced with scented time, an expert hand warmed with technique, a spa in its true connection to healing, a perfume with oils and a story so ancient and rare it transforms, a walk in the woods, a plunge in the ocean, a meditation near a roaring fire, an exuberant garden ready for the sun. Thank you for bringing your spirit to this secret world where everything is special and the feeling is good and the story is yours - a welcome invitation to sing in the shower and a recognition that simple things done well matter.
Red Flower launched in December of 1999 in New York City. We made it because it needed to be made - the conversation and experience of beauty in the USA at that time was only about the exterior with limited interest in ingredients or health. I saw a need for beauty as an emotional connection, as a means for feeling good and as a kind of curative escape. Red Flower is the pioneer in bringing wellness to beauty and we continue to be so in an industry cluttered by noise and excess, quietly focusing on the things that are important - ingredients, textures, scents, traditional application techniques, quality craftsmanship and caring, responsive service. It is the art of being slow and steady in a fast and hectic world. It is also about being authentic and refusing to be less than the best - not perfect, but great.
Looking back, one of our key early Red Flower statements, along with “even the most subtle details matter” and “luxury is personal and takes a lifetime,” was “take time” - and it does take time - how are you supposed to rush sourcing roses and waiting for the right harvest? It is an act of cultivation, of gentle stirring to find the very best texture slowly turning cloud berries into cloud cream. Yes, doing it right takes time - and finding the way to do it also takes time.
A great example is the ohana gingergrass bamboo scrub - the most wondrous textural gift to restore the body energy and skin health. It starts in one form and transforms into the most sponge-like lightness - it is as challenging as making a perfect meringue and then carrying it across the country on a unicycle - but you are never supposed to make something beautiful look hard. Like a ballet, it should just dance, and the effort is sheltered in the effortless leap. To make this scrub, we had to build our own scrub factory right outside of New York City…truly, there is not anyone in the world who can or would know how to make this miracle product… and that will to take on the challenge that no one else would has enabled Red Flower to make products that are unlike anything else available - a rose serum with thousands of petals distilled into skincare gold, a cloud cream light as clouds, a minty purifier that applies like a clay river, a masque that has so many nutrients its list of benefits continues to grow after a decade, a little bottle of perfume that brings frankincense and pink grapefruit together in a hum, a soft-water mist that recalls the bright plums that grow in Japan, a face and body clay made with real jasmine flowers and a dusting of sugar for extra skin softness and of course the list goes on. The list that takes time and care to offer into your life.
There is so much to discover and delight in here. Thank you for walking through our secret garden and for continuing on this path of making, doing and being. It is serious work to help people feel the breeze and look up at the sun, even if only for a moment. My wish is for Red Flower to change the way you feel, to uplift and know beauty at its most generous.
-yael