FRANKIE APOTHECARY
We recently interviewed Georgina Elvin (Ngati Porou), co-owner of Frankie Apothecary, who talks us through the story behind the brand, as well as her personal reconnection with her Māori heritage and Rongoā medicine
1. Can you tell me some background about your business?
Frankie Apothecary had its beginning in the crucible of a real-life health struggle. Little Eva's eczema was so severe she would often wake with blood on her sheets, from scratching herself through the night. Any Mum who's been in that situation knows how hard it is to watch your child go through that. Out of desperation, Eva's Mum Michele poured hundreds of hours into researching the best options to soothe Eva's skin. Her search led her back to her Māori heritage when her dad suggested using native kawakawa, as her grandmother had, which is known to soothe troubled skin. She created Kawakawa Repair Balm and incredibly, it soothed Eva's skin. Soon, Mums at kindy noticed the change and started asking for a jar. Word spread through the community, then a local paper picked up the story of this 'miracle balm', and somehow it ended up in the Daily Mail in Australia. Hundreds of requests followed, and that's really how Frankie Apothecary came to be.
Eva's Mum had another business alongside Frankie, and as things grew, she realised she needed to hand Frankie on to someone who could give it the attention it deserved. That's where I came in. Her journey of rediscovering heritage became part of my journey too, and I went on to study rongoā Māori myself.
“Around that same time, I'd visited a fertility specialist who recommended I stop using the chemical sunscreen I'd used for years, as it could be affecting my hormones. I was genuinely shocked. More people know now about the hormone disrupting potential of chemical UV filters, but back then it was emerging news. It made me much more aware of what I was putting on my skin.”
Frankie's mission aligned so closely with my own that it felt less like a business decision and more like the right next step on many levels.
Georgina & Matt Elvin, Frankie Apothecary owners
2. Can you tell me how the values of your business drive the decisions you make?
Kaitiakitanga.
Matt, my husband and the other half of Frankie, leads our sustainability work. We're genuinely passionate about choosing packaging with good recycling pathways behind it, and we're always investigating new options. Customers can send back old packaging to us, we sterilise and reuse it where we can or recycle it responsibly on their behalf if we can't. As a small business with gold star aspirations, we can't do everything at the level we'd love to just yet, but we're doing what we can with what we have.
Manaakitanga.
We think of this as generosity, and lifting the mana of another. We work with some amazing charities to share self-care essentials with people living on the streets. For every Kawakawa bar you buy, we donate one on your behalf. We've donated thousands so far, and we love hearing the feedback from our charity partners.
Traditional wisdom.
We've seen first-hand how native New Zealand kawakawa, long valued in rongoā Māori, has helped countless families on their eczema care journey. As Frankie has grown, that intention has never changed, honour the traditional harvesting techniques, and share the value of Aotearoa's plant life with the world.
3. Why is what you're doing important/different from the mainstream?
“Our kawakawa is harvested on the peak days of the Māori lunar calendar, the full moon phase and the day after, Rākaunui and Rākaumatohi, with karakia. It then comes back to our home and infuses over many weeks until it takes on that rich, dark green hue and peppery scent that's so distinctly kawakawa. Only then does it become part of our range.”
Getting an email from a once-desperate Mum who's finally found something that soothes her child's skin is genuinely the best part of my job. I don't think I'll ever get tired of that feeling.
4. What else would you like our customers to know?
We're a hands-on brand. We do everything we can to support the people who choose Frankie Apothecary. Over the past 10 years we've spoken to so many people and started to notice patterns, and we're always happy to share what we've learned. That said, we always recommend people talk to their Rongoā Practitioner, Naturopath, GP or medical professional first, we're one part of the picture, not the whole thing.
Wellbeing is so crucial to skin health. The role of the gut can't be underestimated. I love the Māori wellbeing model proposed by Mason Durie, Te Whare Tapa Whā, which sees wellbeing as the result of four pillars: taha tinana (physical), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional), taha wairua (spiritual), and taha whānau (family and community). I think people really underestimate the hinengaro and wairua side of skin health. A good topical is great, but we always encourage people to look at how lifestyle factors, diet, and how they feel on the inside might be affecting how they show up on the outside, taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture too.
Frankie Apothecary's range of kawakawa skincare and haircare is available in all Commonsense stores.
