Plants to People: Building a Botanical Skincare Brand with Respect, Wisdom & Integrity , Julie Williams, Leaf People
More Than Clean Beauty: The Plant-Forward Philosophy Behind Leaf People
There was no clean beauty playbook when Julie Williams started Leaf People 22 years ago. There were no endless online tutorials explaining how to formulate a botanical serum, no social media communities filled with startup advice, and certainly no AI assistant ready to generate a step-by-step business plan. Williams built her company the old-fashioned way: through education, experimentation, trusted mentors, direct customer feedback and a lifelong relationship with the natural world.
On this episode of The Wild Party Podcast, I sat down with Williams to talk about what it means to build a skincare company from the plant forward and what she has learned from staying committed to that philosophy for more than two decades.
A Childhood Rooted in the Natural World
Williams’ relationship with plants began long before Leaf People. She grew up in a rural seaside community in Alaska, surrounded by forests, native plants and animals. Her mother taught her about local plants, including how they were traditionally used, cultivated and harvested.
After college, Williams spent three and a half years traveling and living around the world. In Sydney, Australia, a friend studying naturopathy introduced her to herbal treatments, opening her eyes to the possibility that botanical medicine could become more than an interest.
As she continued traveling through plant-rich regions, including areas near the Amazon, she worked with natural healers and spiritual teachers who encouraged her to develop an even deeper relationship with plants. Eventually, she began thinking of skincare as a way to connect those two worlds.
“The skincare is the vector to bring the message, the energy, the nutrients from the plants to the people,” Williams explained. That philosophy also inspired the name Leaf People: bringing plants and people together.
Building Skincare from an Herbalist’s Perspective
Williams did not enter skincare through conventional cosmetic chemistry. She trained in botanical medicine and Western herbalism, along with massage, yoga, Qigong and energy work. For her graduate project, she built a botanical pharmacy, giving her hands-on experience creating tinctures and herbal formulas.
When she began developing skincare, however, she saw a gap. Herbal preparations could be effective without necessarily providing the texture, scent and experience consumers expected from skincare. Williams began combining her botanical education with additional research and experimentation to create formulas that could deliver both.
Her early lineup included botanical scrubs, toner, hydrating mist, face and body serums. Remarkably, the Transform Face Serum she developed during those early years remains one of Leaf People’s flagship products today.
Rather than outsourcing development, Williams started making products in her kitchen. She worked with estheticians at the Aspen Club in Colorado, who tested her formulations with clients and gave her professional feedback. At the same time, she began selling at the Aspen Farmers Market, where customers supplied another invaluable source of information.
“I really put myself into a direct connection to who's using the product so that I could see real results in real time,” she said.
That combination of professional expertise and unfiltered customer feedback helped shape the expanding Leaf People line.
Sustainability Before It Became a Marketing Claim
Sustainability was also embedded in the company from the beginning. Before choosing ingredients, Williams researched where plants grew, whether their habitats were threatened and whether particular botanicals were endangered or at risk of becoming endangered.
The goal wasn't simply to create an effective formula. She wanted ingredients Leaf People could responsibly continue using over time.
Today, that philosophy remains especially important as supply chains have become less predictable. Williams says sourcing has become considerably more challenging over the past five or six years. One advantage, however, is the longevity of her vendor relationships; she has worked with many of the same suppliers since starting the company.
Those relationships allow her to anticipate availability problems and plan ahead rather than constantly switching sources.
What “Plant-Forward” Really Means
While the beauty marketplace is now crowded with natural, clean and botanical claims, Williams believes Leaf People remains different because she still personally works from the plants forward.
She makes Leaf People’s extractions in a private lab and approaches formulation through the lens of herbal medicine. Ingredients are selected not simply as individual stars but for how they function together. Williams describes formulas as having a hierarchy: some botanicals lead, others support, and still others help the ingredients work cohesively.
Her process also incorporates the energetic traditions that have been part of her botanical practice from the beginning. Williams meditates before beginning her work and incorporates Reiki and other energy practices into ingredients and formulations. She also has the Leaf People lab and business blessed annually by Buddhist monks.
For Williams, these aren't branding additions. They are extensions of the philosophy that has guided the company for more than 20 years.
“My mission is to be in service to the plants,” she told me. “My mission is to bring education, information, experience, healing from the plant world into our physical reality as human beings.”
Skincare Doesn't Need to Become Another Job
One of my favorite parts of our conversation was Williams’ refreshingly practical approach to skincare routines.
Rather than insisting everyone needs an elaborate collection of products, she asks customers how much time they actually want to spend on skincare. Some people genuinely enjoy an extensive ritual. Others—like me—want something effective that gets us out of the bathroom quickly.
Williams believes the routine has to fit the person because a theoretically perfect regimen is useless if someone doesn't actually follow it.
If she had to choose only one daily product, Williams recommends a high-quality oil-activated face serum. She describes a botanical serum as a kind of “liquid multivitamin for the skin,” delivering nutrients, antioxidants, essential fatty acids and plant properties in one concentrated step.
Twenty-Two Years of Staying True to the Mission
Perhaps the most interesting lesson from Williams’ story is what hasn't changed.
The marketplace changed. Consumers became familiar with ingredients that once required extensive explanation. Social media transformed how companies communicate. AI introduced yet another new way people discover information. Clean beauty evolved from a niche idea into a massive industry.
Leaf People adapted to those changes without rebuilding itself around them.
Williams is now embracing new ways to educate customers through social media, video and her upcoming podcast, Voices of the Plants: A Leaf People Podcast. The show will take her relationship with botanical wisdom even further as she explores plants through meditation, Akashic Records and conversations about their energetic properties and purpose.
After 22 years, Williams’ story is a reminder that longevity doesn't necessarily come from chasing every trend. Sometimes it comes from knowing exactly what you stand for—and continuing to deepen that work while the rest of the world catches up.
Discover Leaf People
Explore Leaf People’s botanical skincare collection, learn more about Julie Williams’ plant-forward approach and sign up for the Leaf People newsletter for product news, educational content and a subscriber discount. You can also follow Leaf People’s educational content on Instagram and YouTube and watch for Julie’s new Voices of the Plants podcast. Learn more: https://leafpeople.com/
