DORÉ

There is a man named Jon who works on Tata Harper‘s farm in her “batch room.” Jon and I (independently) fell and shattered our right wrists on the exact same week last June. We both had the same surgery, with titanium screwed into our bone, in the same place. The only difference is that one of us barely has a trace of a scar while the other’s is a dark brown stripe that turns purple in the sun.

Well, one of us has been slathering Tata Harper products on it, the other has not. I’m sure you can guess which is which.

Last week I had the pleasure of spending a day reaping the benefits of Vermont’s fresh air while exploring the farm and production facilities of Tata Harper’s eponymous beauty line.

On paper, you might not expect Tata, a Colombian from Barranquilla, to not only be living, but thriving on a rural farm in Vermont. But, thriving–with all three kids and seven (!!) dogs–she is! Tata moved from Miami to Vermont about 15 years ago, after searching all over the Northeast to find a spot that spoke to her.

A few years later, she set out to create a high-end, toxin-free line of skincare that could go toe to toe with any other legacy or synthetic-based beauty products. She differentiates her line from other clean beauty brands by its complexity. While most clean beauty lines attempt to deliver a clean, simple product, Tata delivers a clean, highly active, highly complex product. With each product, Tata highlights the number of high performing active ingredients. For example, the cult favorite Crème Riche Night Cream has 43 active, high performance, botanical ingredients. These botanicals come from all over the world, as well as Tata’s back yard. Here, she’s cultivated an organic garden where plants such as lavender, calendula, and lemon balm thrive.

The plants from the garden are routinely harvested, then dried, distilled and used throughout Tata’s products. Said products are batched, packaged and shipped all from the facilities on Tata’s Farm. Her office, a mere hundred feet from the batching room.

During my trip, I was thinking a lot about beauty… naturally. Our obsession with it, our pursuit of it, and the cost of it. But, what I love about Tata is that, in Vermont, she has created something that transcends beauty. She’s created a community of like-minded people who are dedicated to the craft of clean, highly active beauty.

And for those with scars like mine, calendula. Everyone on the farm kept pushing calendula on me to lessen the scar. If Jon’s is any indication of what is possible with clean beauty, I’m game.

And keep an eye out for big announcements coming from Tata this August!