Why would a botanical beauty and body care company choose a dandelion as their logo? They’re not luxurious or particularly beautiful, and they’re weeds right??
Here’s the thing- we’re not just into botanical body care, we’re into activism. We’re into healthy societies and actively creating the change we want to see in the world.
And that’s exactly why a dandelion is the perfect icon for us.
Dandelions don’t grow in healthy soil, they grow in nutrient-deficient soil. Their deep root systems pull up nutrients from lower levels of soil for plants with shallow root systems to use. They also aerate the ground, making it easier for less hardy plants to root down and grow.
Impact Botanicals sells skin care, but we’re really in the business of lifting up lives. Healthy societies don’t have terms like “the working poor”, “underserved population”, or “at risk youth.” We’re growing a root system designed to catch and empower vulnerable populations in our society, giving them what they need to root down and grow.
Dandelions are extremely versatile and medicinal. They help the liver, the organ responsible for producing most of the immune system and doing the heavy lifting when it comes to detoxifying the body. Dandelions also remove impurities from the blood and can help to break a fever. It helps to remove age spots and dark circles under the eyes. You can even make beer with it. But dandelions are so often unwanted, seen only as weeds.
When our founder was about 5 or 6 years old, she was helping her mother weed the garden. She was having trouble figuring out the difference between the weeds and the flowers.
“Only pull the weeds hunny.”
“I can’t tell the difference, what IS a weed?”
“A weed is an unwanted flower.”
As someone who was bullied by her classmates even in preschool and kindergarten, she knew what it felt like to be unwanted. She told the weeds it was ok, because she wanted them.
Hurt people hurt people, but healed people heal people. And those who have healed from great hurt carry the strongest medicines inside themselves. Impact Botanicals is designed and is being built to help some of the most hurt people in our society heal from their wounds.
Lastly, the word “dandelion” is French in origin, coming from “dent de lion” or “Lion Teeth.” The French called it this because of its sharp, fang-like petals. The use of the lion in iconography was historically reserved only for royalty, but dandelions are a prolific, common flower. They begin and end their lives carried on the wind, symbolizing the wishes of children, and they grow into something strong, resilient, and medicinal, something royal and regal, accessible to all, something that has “teeth” to it.
This company began its life as a wish from a child, is growing into something medicinal and multifaceted, something that has “teeth” behind the rhetoric, with the goal of giving rise to the dreams of other children.
