About Us
Traditional production methods - Made in Wales
Set
back from the village of Sling in Gwynedd with views of the Irish Sea, Puffin
Island and the Welsh ponies of Moel y Ci (means hill and dog) it is hard
to imagine the sun drenched savannas of West Africa, the mountains of Chile
and the lush and exotic land of Jamaica but it is from these far away places
that Laughing Bird have discovered a wealth of natural resources used by
men and women for skin care.
The
business partners, Mark Thistlethwaite and Helen Lowe, spent over 15 years
working in South London for the medicinal herbalists G Baldwin & Co. It
was here our interest in using plants for health began and as many of the
customers at Baldwin & Co originate from the West Indies, the African nations
and South America we absorbed from them an abundance of information on exotic
plants and oils for use in their skin care regimes that we’d never heard
of before. In addition to this we were introduced to essential oils and
aromatherapy from France which was just becoming popular in Britain.
Having sold the raw materials for a good few years we felt inspired, so we put all the valuable information we had gleaned together and made (what we believe) the most delicious and nourishing creams and soaps on the market! After a while of battling through the Elephant and Castle shopping centre and navigating the Walworth Road underpasses carrying heavy rucksacks laden with our products to sell we realized to properly develop our dream we needed space.
We then decided to
up root and build our business in the countryside. Many of Helen’s relatives
hail from Wales so this is where we came. It seemed a natural choice, home
from home, and with the perfect set up of cottage and barn we have set down
our body care business. Mark still works part time at G Baldwin & Co which
is great for customer feedback and he being mostly in London keeps us in
touch with anything new on the market.