Beauty in a bottle

November 2, 2005
By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer
Read the Honolulu Advertiser article

 

Ambitious new lines Lanikai Bath and Body and Pure Hapa have joined the booming bath-and-body business in Hawai’i. It’s a good fit for the Islands, where we grow many ingredients that spas worldwide provide to their clients at great expense.

Our ocean offers up seaweed. Island orchards are laden with macadamia and kukui nuts. Luscious tropical fruits such as mango, liliko’i, avocado, papaya and pineapple are the basis for lotions and potions, while healing, moisturizing lavender, orchids and aloe abound.

Hawai’i is also a source of the latest trendy skin-care ingredient: noni.

Baby boomers are helping to spur the growth of the bath-and-body business. At an age where they may have everything they want or need, they seek experiential products that will soothe, pamper and de-stress. And local companies are responding.

Oils of Aloha, a North Shore cosmetic line, recently redesigned its packaging and produced a TV ad campaign. Its wares are based on kukui nut oil, an ingredient Hawaiians have used for centuries to protect their skin from the ravages of saltwater, sun and wind.

Connie Gayle, a pioneer in the use of island-ingredients, is continually improving on and expanding her skin-care and hair products, based on orchids, papaya and other natural products.

‘Aiea residents Steve Cromwell and JoAnn Takushi, the owners of The Soap Box line of made-in-Hawai’i soaps and lotions, have moved their small business from the family home and garden to a warehouse in Waipahu with a view to further expansion.

Joining in: two new bath-and-body lines — one made in Hawai’i, the other manufactured in California but inspired by Island family roots.

PURE HAPA

Yes, Nadyne Kealaokopono Kim-Orona knows the name of her company, Pure Hapa, is an oxymoron. But it came to her like a bolt out of the blue as she sat watching the whales from the beach on Lana’i — and she just felt it was right.

The California native, who is hapa Hawaiian, Korean and Irish, had been creating skin-care products in her kitchen using ingredients she had learned of from her Hawaiian maternal grandfather, Albert Naukana, and hapa-Hawaiian grandmother, Nancy Trask of Kilauea, Kaua’i: noni, azuki bean, papaya, haupia and pineapple.

Having retired from the high-tech industry, she was looking for something else to do — something she could call her own. So she called on her Asian and Hawaiian roots.

“I was always intrigued as to why my Hawaiian elders had the most exquisite skin, giving no clue to their true chronological age,” Kim-Orona said. She went back to her roots and learned as much as she could about ingredients she remembered her grandmother using, such as noni juice from her tree in Kilauea and the azuki beans she had used as an exfoliant.

Kim-Orona is also a fan of ginseng, which she believes helped her father, David Kim, a merchant seaman who was raised on the slopes of Punchbowl and attended Iolani School, live 11 years with lung cancer.

An exotic mixologist at heart, Kim-Orona began by making batches of lotions in her kitchen, then hired a California chemist to assist. “I get the noni and many other ingredients from Hawai’i whenever possible,” she explained.

Pure Hapa currently consists of six products:

• Hawaiian Essential Facial Serum with noni fruit, ginseng and green tea extracts ($28)
• Sweet Papaya Facial Exfoliant with azuki bean powder and papaya enzymes ($21)
• Haupia Orange Souffle Body Cream with chamomile and papaya extracts ($11 and $22)
• Hanalei Sweet & Sour Sugarcane Body Scrub with macadamia nut oil and brown sugar ($12 and $24)
• Sweet Pineapple Sugar Cream with shea butter and macadamia nut oil ($12 and $23)
• Scented candles for home or travel ($7)

Kim-Orona uses pure essential oils to add fragrance to her products. She recently introduced Pure Hapa to Hollywood at the pre-Emmy Award party called Silver Spoon, where celebrities grabbed her products by the handsful. Now she’s taking those to spas and stores nationwide.

She plans to introduce a men’s moisturizer called Keoni Men Face Formula, baby products using mountain apple, and body washes for adults fragranced with puakenikeni and pakalana.

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Sold at the Four Seasons Manele Bay shop and spa, Ihilani Spa, Mokuola Hawaiian Healing Center in the Koko Marina Shopping Center, Neo Plaza at 315 Seaside Ave. in Waikiki, and soon at Hilo Hattie stores.