In a charming video on the True Botanicals Web site highlighting the brand’s addictive new Nature Bathing Forest Bath Soak, founder Hillary Peterson welcomes viewers into the private garden and “secret outdoor bathing area” at her Mill Valley, Calif., home. Up a flight of stone steps, tucked behind a wooden door surrounded by dense foliage, sits a claw-foot tub where Peterson has been known to kick back with a gin and tonic from time to time.
“We’ve had it for about 10 years,” Peterson says of the chic al fresco sanctuary. “My most memorable baths have included listening to coyotes, owls and hawks. It’s such a lovely way to relax and connect with nature.”
A bit further north, Canadian neuroscientist and eco-enthusiast Maria Ramey is also communing with the great outdoors. In fact, her skin-care brand, Understory Botanicals, is named for the vegetation growing beneath the main canopy of the forest.
“When I was thinking about a name for my brand, Understory just fit perfectly,” Ramey notes. “The understory is the middle ground of the forest — a place that is forever changing, yet effortlessly balanced. It symbolized exactly what my brand stands for, the balance between plants and science, between the garden and the lab.”
Ramey drew inspiration from her childhood, which included family walks in the Carolinian forest of southwestern Ontario. “Whether going to beautiful national parks like Point Pelee or smaller local forests,” she says, “the feeling of being among trees always puts me in awe.”
Jennifer Walsh, author of the “Walk Your Way Calm” interactive journal, couldn’t agree more. A faculty advisor to Massachusetts General Hospital’s Brain Health Initiative, Walsh has been leading Wellness Walks in Central Park, which help participants clear their heads, get some exercise and breathe in phytoncides (aka healthy volatile compounds that activate our immunity-boosting “natural killer” cells). Think of those park jaunts as the New York equivalent of shinrin-yoku, or Japanese forest bathing.
Can’t hang out in the woods right now? No problem. Simply spritz on the Nue Co.’s wildly popular Forest Lungs. Crafted by perfumer Guillaume Flavigny, the unisex “anti-stress fragrance” features a blend of woodsy and citrus notes, namely pine, cedar and bergamot. The scent, which has garnered more than 800 positive reviews on the Nue Co. site, deploys olfactory chemistry to replicate phytoncides — essentially bringing the outside in. That’s good news when you consider the fact that, per the brand’s research, Americans spend upwards of 90 percent of our time indoors. And by 2050, 75 percent of the global population is expected to live in cities — far removed from nature’s bounty.
But with all the tree-hugging beautifiers available now, don’t let the urban sprawl stop you from getting your forest fix.
Nature Bathing Forest Bath Soak, $38 at True Botanicals
Mountain Pine bath oil, $81 at Susanne Kaufmann
Canadian Pine & White Sage body wash, $28 at Pangea Organics
Forest Lungs anti-stress fragrance, $95 (50 ml) at The Nue Co
Boy Smells Cedar Stack scented candle, $32 (8.5 oz) at Standard Dose
Pāpr Coastal Forests cedarwood and cypress deodorant, $14 at Paper Cosmetics
Balsam Fir essential oil, $20 (10 ml) at Saje
Bamboo Forest body lotion, $60 at Le Verden
Blue Velvet Foundational Cleansing Balm, $46 at Understory Botanicals
Cedar + Sandalwood bar soap, $12 at Alpine Provisions Co
