If you’ve not yet had the wonderful experience of enjoying a luxurious treatment with the Lovegrove at the Ollerod team, then you’re in for a treat when you do. A private, serene treatment room occupies its rightful place just beyond our walled garden where guests can enjoy a wellbeing experience that suits what their bodies and mind need most.
The beauty behind a Lovegrove treatment is not only the highly-qualified therapists who work at a pace that suits you, but the incredible Lovegrove Essentials range of products used in each treatment. The Lovegrove Essentials skincare brand is one that harnesses the many therapeutic uses of essential oils, not just for their topical benefits on the skin, but also for their effect on the mind and the body, and together with the right physical delivery, creates an experience that re-aligns your focus and leaves you feeling refreshed, relaxed and nourished.
Hannah Lovegrove, co-founder of Lovegrove Essentials, shares more about what wellness means to her, and why it’s important to deliver that through their products, and treatments at The Ollerod.
“I think an understanding of wellbeing has always been with me,” Hannah shares. She tells us that she realised when she went to college and started to receive training using traditional beauty practices that something just didn’t quit sit right with her and the ethos behind what she was being taught at the time. “I rejected the use of machinery and the interventions that we were supposed to develop and employ. I didn’t feel it was authentic. Anti-aging was never a term that I could aspire to use, because I don’t believe in it. We all age. We can’t stop the process. So the transition for me was to think about what it was that I really believed. It dawned on me that how I feel inside is so much more important to what I feel about myself and what I’m projecting. Not every person in this world is classically beautiful, and yet, they’re happy and fulfilled”. And so a lifelong journey started that lead Hannah to where she is today. Hannah tells us that living fulfilled lives is more about our charisma and energy, which is why it’s critical that we take the time to develop what’s going on inside our bodies and minds through natural products, good food, positive experiences and dealing with negative experiences.
We ask Hannah about the importance of finding a balance between looking after both body and mind. She simplifies the perfect balance beautifully. “As individuals, we’re taught various rules of life – be that through our faith, our spirituality or even the social norms we’re taught as children. Rules that include non-stealing, non-harming, cleanliness and so forth. Running yourself down, for example, is a form of harm. The art of finding balance, and being at peace with the balance we have in our own lives is down to how we audit every part of a process we go through. Think about how you bake a cake. Do you choose the finest, freshest ingredients, or do you opt in for a ready-made box mix? If you’ve chosen the box-mix, do you then tell everyone that you made the cake yourself using the freshest ingredients? The art of finding balance in our lives is about asking ourselves whether we could have done something better, or made healthier choices, but also being at peace to not give ourselves a hard time if we don’t live up the standards we expect for ourselves.”
The team behind the Lovegrove at the Ollerod experience is completely focussed on helping individuals find the balance they need that will de-stress, nourish, hydrate and energise their bodies and minds. We ask Hannah how they do that specifically. “Within the treatment room, we make a point of creating an environment that is safe and serene. Our therapists use techniques that encourages the body to settle and relax. The body has a wisdom that the mind knows nothing about, so while we focus on helping the body relax, you may notice your mind following suit through small changes that take place like thought patterns that change from negative to something a bit more neutral. We look after a person’s nervous system by creating an environment that is warm and soft – to prevent triggering a body’s reaction to anything too warm, too cold on the surface, which also goes on internally. We don’t change the inside, we create the environment that allows the nervous system to relax and take over on the inside.”
The Lovegrove Essential product range was largely developed out of need to reduce chronic stress and the effects it has on us physically and emotionally, often demonstrated through our skin. Hannah and Hayley are a mother-and-daughter team who founded the product range 6 years ago, both holding extensive experience in the beauty and treatment industry. “I trained in Aromatherapy and enjoyed using the oils on bodies, but at the time, there was no parallel natural or organic product available for use on certain core treatments like cleansing the face, or using on the body after waxing. And after extensive experimentation with new recipes, and testing existing products already available, and together with the help of other businesses and individuals, we started to manufacture our own product range. The beauty of launching the treatment room at The Ollerod has been because for us, finding and working with businesses who understand the connection between the treatment and the wellbeing of the individual is critical. Our ethos is that you don’t need several products sitting on your shelf. You need a few core products that you can use in different ways at different times of the years, depending on the seasons and climates.”
We ask Hannah what she’s most proud of after her years of success of developing the product range, and without hesitation she tells us. “I have to say that I’m so incredibly proud of Hayley.” She’s referring to Hayley de Beers, her daughter and co-founder of the business who has been the other half of the driving force behind Lovegrove Essentials. With extensive experience in the beauty industry, Hayley brings a career of working at Harrods to the business, and an understanding of incredibly high levels of quality and customer expectation. Hannah adds, “People say all sorts of things about working with family. But I’ve always enjoyed working with family and for me, it’s a real treat having Hayley actualise what’s in my head. I couldn’t have done this on my own – no way. I had all the ideas, and I’ve got the skills – but I didn’t have the way of making it look as lovely as it does, into a sellable product and setting the standards around the product range.”
Hannah also accredits their being awarded the COSMOS-standard – the international standard for organic and natural cosmetics as a critical success in the business to date. “When you go through something like that, your entire business is inspected in detail; from your waste policies to the tools you use to the way you do things. And the fact that we’d prepared ourselves by setting our standards high, we knew we’d meet their expectations before even applying for the accreditation. We received our status immediately on inspection – and it makes me proud in knowing how good we were, and still are,” she tells us.
Lovegrove Essentials products are produced on Saddle Street Farm in Dorset and are available for sale both online, in a range of stores throughout the county, as well as at The Ollerod. For more information about Lovegrove at The Ollerod and the treatments available, please click here.
