Our Story
Mother Earth Essentials was founded by Carrie Armstrong who comes from a long line of Cree Medicine Women. She started to form the idea for a bath & beauty line business during her first teaching job at Amiskwaciy Academy, where she used traditional plants to connect the students to their history. Prior to teaching, she worked in the beauty and retail industry as an esthetician and a cosmetic sales rep. These combined experiences helped her down the path to launch her collection of natural products through Mother Earth Essentials.Â
Mother Earth Essentials was founded in order to share the nature-inspired teachings rooted in the plants of the Medicine Wheel. We’ve interpreted our offering based on the teachings of our founder, Carrie Armstrong and elder Francis Whiskeyjack (Cree, Saddlelake FN).
Since the beginning, Carrie has been passionate about sharing her Indigenous culture and the spiritual properties handed down to her. In late 2020, Carrie published her book Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty: Indigenous Plants, Traditions and Recipes with Eschia Books. It features recipes for teas, soap, bath products, balms, and lotions—all of which use wild edible and medicinal plants that can be collected on the prairies. Since publishing, her book has popped on the Bestseller list on Read Alberta and was a finalist in the Trade Non-Fiction category for the Alberta Book Publishing Awards.Â
Carrie had natural recipes and plant knowledge that were important to her to share but her mother and aunt had been taken to residential school and the generational teachings were threatened. She worked with her grandmother, elders, and medicine people to create and grow the foundations for Mother Earth products.