About
My name is Rose Swan. I grew up in the Western Mountains of Maine, next to a beautiful pond. When I was a child, I remember the warmth of the wet mud on my feet as I played next to a small stream near my childhood home. I also remember seeing my great uncle’s garden, and being completely amazed at the smell of the fragrant tomatoes and the spiky feeling of the cucumbers growing there, and staring at beautiful flowers in my mother’s beautiful garden. Something in those experiences rooted deep in my heart, and eventually led me to begin my long and circuitous path as a maker and gardener 26 years ago.
Along that way, I’ve had two very formative professional experiences that have inspired my work in creating Swan Botanicals. The first was when I worked on a biodynamic farm on Glorieta Mesa just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I went there after I returned from Europe, post high school graduation and apprenticed for the growing season. While there, I learned all about the magic of starting seeds and tending seedlings from a truly exceptional biodynamic farmer/gardener. This gifted gardener/farmer was also the first to teach me how to make herbal infused oils, and to make salves with those oils.
Years later, after I graduated from college, I was hired to be the garden coordinator for a nonprofit retreat center close to the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington State. This experience really gave me the understanding and the language to articulate the healing power of beauty in nature. The retreat center offered no-cost retreats to people whose lives were affected by cancer. As the gardener, I watched people come in at the beginning of these retreats, walking the grounds usually with a heaviness of spirit about them, and then I watched their transformation over the time they spent there. When I read their evaluations of their retreat experience (as all staff were encouraged to do) I would frequently see comments about how healing the beauty of the gardens felt to participants.
My work co-creating creams, balms and butters with the natural world is inspired by this direct understanding of the healing quality of beauty in nature. Each of the products is created and made with natural ingredients and heartfelt intention. My vision is that each of the Swan Botanicals products infuse each person’s life with a bit of natural beauty, calling forth their own beauty in that process, and thus providing nourishment for the skin and heart.
