Flower and Spice: Luxury Modern Apothecary Skincare

If ever I was overdue to talk about a product or company, it's this duo from Flower and Spice.  I started doing some (non-blogging) work for Flower and Spice last summer and Karmen,the company's founder and formulator, kindly sent me a Discovery Set to try out at that time.  The Discovery Set retails for €69.00 and includes smaller sizes of Flower and Spice's two best-selling products: the Midnight Beauty Rich Revitalizing Serum and the Soothe and Repair Daily Moisturizer.  

Flower and Spice was created when Karmen decided to leave the stressful world of fashion, video production, and marketing in lieu of applying her longtime passions for green living, cooking, and flowers, herbs, and spices to creating a natural skincare line.  Karmen studied organic skincare science at Formula Botanica and Flower and Spice was born! 

Flower and Spice's products were formulated by Karmen in the Netherlands, but are currently produced in a leading natural skincare lab in Switzerland.  The entire line is 100% natural and all products are free of nasty ingredients, animal testing, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.  



Before jumping into things further, I do want to stress that I've mulled over how to best approach this review -- or even to do it at all -- since I have an extra connection to the company, but after using the products on and off for several months, I really do want to share my thoughts on them.  I was not asked to write this and, as always, all opinions are honest and my own.  

Keep reading for all the details!

Winter Favourites ft. Osea, Batty's Bath, Consonant, Luk Beautifood + More

My biggest issue with blogging these days is that there's just never enough time to write about everything I want to share.  I've been more active over on Instagram the last couple months, but I know not everyone follows me on there, so I always want to keep current here on the blog too.

With that in mind, today seemed like the perfect time to talk about some recent favourites.  These 6 standouts are products that I've been loving and consistently reaching for over the last few months.  We've had some crazy cold temperatures here in Toronto, so, not surprisingly, these all ended up being products that excel in the moisture department.




REN Evercalm Stop Being So Sensitive Kit

I've always felt strongly about accessible green beauty, but my idea of what fits that label has changed a bit over the years. Initially, I saw it as almost exclusively based on price, but I think physical availability is an important factor to consider too. Not everyone can order online -- or necessarily wants to -- so with my new website reboot, I want to start a series featuring brands with wider in-store availability. Due to logistics, these are often products from larger companies, with perhaps a slightly less clean ingredient deck, but they're still a massive step up from conventional products!

Today I want to talk about REN Clean Skincare, and specifically the Evercalm line. I'd never tried REN before, but I've been testing out the Stop Being So Sensitive Kit, which includes small sizes of three Evercalm products. I picked this up a couple months ago at Winners, but the current incarnation (which comes with one additional product!) is available at Sephora.



The Evercalm line is intended for sensitive and reactive skin, so it's made up of gentle products without many actives. Keep reading for my thoughts on three of the bestselling products in the line.