VIVAIODAYS started, in essence, when our family did. When our first child was born, we made a family commitment to funding education in communities less privileged than ours. Over the years, as this commitment became a bigger focus for us, we travelled widely, seeking out local education initiatives to support on a long-term basis. The journey led us eventually to Borneo, where in a Bajau village on the sea, we saw local mothers using homemade turmeric pastes to protect their kids’ skin from the sun. And it worked.

 

This was a turning point for us. For hundreds of years, people all over the world have been handing down proven natural remedies from generation to generation, and this ancient knowledge deserves our respect. Our mission was born: we were going to rediscover trusted traditional remedies from all corners of the globe, and distil them into their most sustainable forms. 

 

We see it as a win-win exchange: we use the worlds’ accumulated wisdom for our needs, and give back 2% of our revenues to support the next generation’s education across the global community we’re part of.

 

Among us are two founders with a combined 30 years in the cosmetics industry, the anthropological-autodidact Indiana Jones of medicinal herbs, the greenest chemist we’ve ever known and a creative director who distils all our ideas into visual form on the bottle you hold in your hand.

 

The journey is as exciting as it is challenging. The internet can’t teach us this stuff: it demands a hunger for collective wisdom and the enthusiastic study of historical ways of life from all corners of our globe. Employing modern science to refine wildly diverse, sometimes primitive techniques into safe, beneficial family care products in line with European clean standards isn’t simple. But it’s possible. It’s what we do.

 

 

 

VIVAIODAYS marries modern organic science with traditional plant wisdom gathered from all corners of the globe.

 

 

BORNEO

Turmeric has long been used for sun protection by the seafaring Bajau people

 

SOUTHERN AFRICA

For generations, Zulu healers have used geranium leaves to cleanse warriors’ wounds

 

BRITAIN

The soapwort plant gave medieval Britain its first foaming agent for soap

 

GREECE

Ancient Greeks knew olive oil to be a protective against skin infection

 

JAPAN

Tsubaki oil from the Japanese camellia has long been used to detangle hair

 

EGYPT

Since Cleopatra’s reign castor oil has been conditioning long hair

 

INDIA

For generations, Tulsi (sweet basil) leaves have been used by parents to ward off kids’ headlice. Oils of oat and apricot kernel have long been part of Ayurvedic therapies. 

 

HAWAII

Native Hawaiian moms and babies were treated to therapeutic lomi lomi massage with kukui and frangipani oils

 

 

Elina Lampaki & Marios Stamatelopoulos

VIVAIODAYS Founders