Investing in Indigenous knowledge, a local skincare line celebrates the traditional healing power of plants.

For Honua Skincare founder Kapua Browning, inspiration came from the outdoors. As a child, she spent her days planting seeds at Hoa ‘Āina O Mākaha Farm in Waiʻanae and longboarding in Waikīkī. In the rainforest near her home, she loved to explore and forage. “I’d make all kinds of concoctions,” she remembers. “I was playing with botanicals before I even understood them—I just felt like I was creating magic.”

That interest in the ‘magic’ of Hawaiʻi’s plant botanicals crystalized in her early 20s. Wanting to repair the damage that the sun and surf had done to her own skin, Browning began studying skincare and found herself fascinated by the chemistry involved. “In modern skincare, there’s a serum for everything,” Browning explains. “I knew that we could have one simple line that did it all if we were just smarter about the ‘why.’” Already armed with familial knowledge of lā‘au lapa‘au, or traditional Hawaiian herbal medicine, Browning took a deeper dive into the world of skin needs, first becoming an esthetician and then, in 2010, opening a small streamside apothecary in Pālolo called From the Root. There, she began bottling her own herbal skincare creations to send home with clients.

Then, financial hardships hit. Struggling with Hawaiʻi’s high cost of living, Browning and her husband made the difficult decision to relocate to California. That move, incidentally, served as the unexpected catalyst to launching Honua Skincare. “It started organically, just accidentally,” Browning says. “My Hawaiʻi clients reached out and said they missed the products, so I’d make small batches and send them home.”

Browning’s timing was perfect. Interest in clean beauty, or cosmetic products without chemicals and potentially harmful ingredients, was rising across the U.S., and with her knowledge of native Hawaiian herbs and organic production methods, she was uniquely qualified to jump into the clean beauty market. She began to think about scaling up production and how the clean beauty industry could benefit Hawaiʻi’s small local farms. In 2021, Browning and her family returned home to the islands with a new dream and vision.

Today, sustainable responsibility guides everything Browning does at Honua Skincare. She sources ingredients from small farms and businesses across the islands: sandalwood from Hawaiʻi Island; ‘ōlena from Kaua‘i and Maui; sunflower, macadamia, and kukui nut products from Pacific Biodiesel Hawaiʻi. She utilizes compostable packaging, adorning it with messages of aloha printed in vegetable inks. She relies on recyclable glass bottles and containers to hold her divine-smelling cleansers, elixirs, and moisturizers and also makes a practice of supporting local, environmental, and cultural nonprofits with her sales.

“It’s about aloha, sustainability, and walking the walk,” Browning says. “We have an inborn responsibility to take care of the land that takes care of us.”

Kapua Browning’s childhood fascination with lā‘au lapa‘au (traditional Hawaiian herbal medicine) laid the foundation for what would become a successful skincare line. Says Browning, “I was playing with botanicals before I even understood them---I just felt like I was creating magic.”

Learn more, visit: honuaskincare.com