Herbs & Heart, like many business ideas, was born out of personal need for its creator, Jumana Shakeer.

Although her background is in graphic design and marketing, Jumana claims it was “a strong cup of coffee, strong winds of change, and a light bulb moment” that led to the conception of her natural skincare brand. After negative experiences with over-the-counter solutions during her teenage, cystic acne ridden years, Jumana was left disenfranchised with chemically harsh products. “I discovered nature had the most amazing things to offer me, and I absolutely revelled in knowing what I was feeding my skin. Much of my initial routine often involved ingredients fresh from the kitchen! To physically ‘cook’ up masks, washes & toners gave me a lot of clarity around how to best look after my skin.”

Appalled by the fact that the average Australian woman uses a lot of chemicals on her body every day, Jumana developed the three cornerstones of the Herbs & Heart brand: simplification, knowledge, and commitment to the earth. “The key for me is helping people make the transition, and creating conversations around this. After all, if we care so much about what we put in our body, shouldn’t we also equally care about what we put on it?”

For Jumana, starting Herbs & Heart has been a life-changing journey, and not just for her skin. “It’s truly a remarkable feeling pursuing a dream, and mine materialized in front of me faster than I could have imagined. If every woman I meet through my journey in five years time has made the switch to using natural products, I would feel happy in knowing I was an advocate of the movement, and Herbs & Heart has contributed wonderful alternatives.”

Jumana says despite the media’s obsession with women and women’s skin care, she believes that beauty is defined by self-love, rather than the perceptions of others. “Beauty products should be considered as ‘nice to haves’ not by any means a necessity. If you embrace your truest self on the good hair days as well as the puffy bloated days –you’ll never ‘need’ a cosmetic product in your life.”

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