Rose has always belonged to Venus — in Ayurvedic tradition, in Western herbalism, in the planetary correspondence systems that organized botanical medicine for centuries. This balm is built around that correspondence: Rosa x damascena at the center, with rosehip from the Chilean Andes, sea buckthorn, borage, and Luma chequen — White Chilean Myrtle, an antimicrobial botanical from Patagonia that almost no one else is working with.
The base is shea butter, rich and slow-absorbing. The result is a facial balm that seals, repairs, and restores — particularly suited to skin that is dry, stressed, or showing the accumulation of sun and time.
It also contains bakuchiol — the same collagen-pathway activator as Bakuchi Revival, here in a richer, more occlusive base for evening use.
Use after Skin Potion No. 1 or Bakuchi Revival to seal. A small amount goes a long way.
Venusian Balm · Rosa x damascena · 1oz
Rosehip · Rosa rubiginosa Wild-harvested from the high altitudes of the Chilean Andes, where Rosa rubiginosa grows along mountain slopes and is gathered by local communities. Wild harvesting at altitude produces a more concentrated oil — the plant's response to cold, UV exposure, and poor soil results in higher carotenoid and fatty acid density than cultivated rosehip.
Rose Otto · Rosa x damascena Steam-distilled from Damask rose petals. One of the most labor-intensive essential oils in existence — it takes approximately 3–5 tons of hand-harvested petals to produce a single kilogram of oil. Bulgarian and Turkish rose valleys are the primary sources; if you know your specific supplier region, that detail belongs here.
White Chilean Myrtle · Luma chequen A Patagonian shrub with documented antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, almost entirely absent from mainstream botanical skincare. Worth noting on its own — it is one of the more unusual ingredients in the PlantLust catalog.
Borage · Borago officinalis One of the richest plant sources of gamma-linolenic acid — an omega-6 fatty acid that supports skin barrier repair and reduces inflammatory response.
Sea Buckthorn · Hippophae goniocarpa Sourced from the Mekong Delta through Helvetas Vietnam's regenerative cooperative — over 300 farming families, nearly 100 tons of oil annually. The trees are tended, not mined.
