Essance Skincare has a mission to source only the best organic, sustainable and fair-trade ingredients to make its natural skincare products. Each of these products is free of artificial color, artificial fragrance, and harmful sulfates and phthalates. That’s by design, says owner Jasmine Tran of her Portland-based business. “Each product is a powerhouse of organic and medicinal plant ingredients intended to revitalize, heal and protect the skin,” she says. Essance Skincare’s unique herbal formulations contain chaga mushrooms, rooibos teas, ginseng, dragon’s blood, frankincense and much more, says Jasmine, whose mother taught her at a young age about Chinese medicine benefits and remedies.

Lifelong athletes Britni Jessup and Tanja Baker founded their Eugene-based company, Hatshe Blends, to promote and to help active people maintain their activities through the topical use of CBD, or cannabidiol, one of the essential extracts from the hemp plant. From the company’s early days, when Britni and Tanja were experimenting with beeswax, shea butter, olive oil, a basket of hemp trimmings, and a double boiler in the kitchen, their focus and purpose was clear: relief for an athlete’s aches and pains. Now Hatshe Blends produces three vegan, full-spectrum hemp extracts blended with pure and organic ingredients: Eucalyptus Orange Salve (its flagship product), Tangerine Relief Gel and Sandalwood Healing Cream. Eucalyptus Orange Salve is great for people on the go. Eucalyptus and orange essential oils complement the hemp extract’s earthy scent, and in its paper-push tube packaging, it’s perfect to carry along on your athletic outing, whether to the gym, on the trail or on the ski slopes. Tangerine Relief Gel is best for sore muscles and joints, Britni says, thanks to its “cooling menthol, warming capsicum and camphor oil to take the edge off, dull the pain and help us move on.” Sandalwood Healing Cream is not only great for soothing sunburns, bug bites and scrapes, Britni says, but also it works well on wrinkles, dry skin and redness.