The Hubble Kawakawa Plant

Unlocking The Secret of The Hubble Kawakawa Plant in Skincare

The world of skincare has found a new champion - The Hubble Kawakawa Plant. Known for its magnificent health benefits, this plant has turned quite a few heads in the skincare industry.

The Hubble Kawakawa Plant is highly revered for its medicinal properties. This post explores the various benefits of this plant and how it can transform your skincare routine.

Incorporating The Hubble Kawakawa Plant into your skincare routine can work wonders for your skin. It's time to embrace nature's best-kept skincare secret!

Kawakawa (Piper excelsum) is endemic to Aotearoa, boasts lush spade shaped green leaves, which are about 5–10 cm long by 6–12 cm wide; they are opposite to each other, broadly rounded with a short drawn-out tip and are heart-shaped at their bases. Often the leaves can be found covered with small holes caused by the caterpillar of the Kawakawa looper moth (Cleora scriptaria).

Kawakawa produces greenish, erect spikes between 2.5–7.5 cm long. The small flowers of the plant are closely placed around the spike. After pollination they gradually swell and become fleshy to form small, berry-like fruits that are yellow to bright orange in colour. 

The berries ripen around January and February. These fruits are favoured by kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) and tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae).

Kawakawa is a powerful and versatile herb, with a long history of traditional use. Kawakawa is known for its unique properties and have been used for centuries by Māori. Due to its natural anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, it can provide numerous health benefits to the mind and body. 

Studies have shown that the antibacterial properties of the leaves can help protect against infections and its anti-inflammatory effects can help reduce pain and inflammation. 

Kawakawa is harvested and utilised by infusion made from the leaves, Traditionally, leaves with holes that had been eaten by caterpillars were considered the best to use.

The leaves were chewed to relieve toothache, bound wounds and the sweet yellow berries of the plant were eaten as a diuretic. 

What’s makes Kawakawa good? 

Kawakawa contains myristicn a deliriant when consumed in high concentrations. In addition to myristicn kawakawa also contains diayangambin, elemicin, and lignans and amides, which are metabolites with various health benefits.

Myristicin, for example, is a bioactive molecule known for its ability to reduce nitric oxide levels in cells, resulting in reduced inflammation. It also has antibacterial properties, metabolites are effective in treating psoriasis, by suppressing the overactive immune response, diayangambin helps alleviate symptoms of psoriasis.

What’s the Extraction Process?

Kawakawa oil, is derived from mascerating the  leaves in a quality carrier oil, for example organic sunflower, sweet almond or jojoba oils. Infusing the leaves with the oil in what’s known as a ‘cold infusion process’ for 3 weeks allows the nutrients to bind to the oil. The second part of the process is adding a heat process infusion for 2-3 hours after the 3 weeks of cold infusion, to pull out any further bioactive molecule’s that remain. The leaves are then strained and separated from the oil and what remains is a aromatic active botanical oil that can be used as a base for a range of topical uses including making balms, soaps, creams and cleansers. 

Kawakawa hydrosol is derived from the steam distillation process. The leaves and flowers are placed in the still and macerated with water and steam and the distillate is then simply separated into an oil fraction - the essential oil, and a water fraction.

Essentially this process pulls the water content from the plant producing the hydrosol that contains water-soluble compounds found in the plant along with a minute amount of residual essential oil left over from the separation process.

The hydrosol is not produced as a result of the essential oil distillation process as the yield is too low to make distillation a viable method for extracting essential oil from Kawakawa however what is yielded in this process is packed with naturally occuring water soluble actives. 

Actives that contains a high concentration of polyphenols and antioxidants, making it a powerful addition to water based topical products such as toners and lotions. 

We produce our own Kawakawa oil and hydrosol which we bottle, store and utilise in our range.

The Herbalist Body Oil or try in our facial cleansers Anti-everything Kanuka & Lime Oil Cleanse, Self Absorbed Facial Cleanse Bar, our Lush Facial Toning Mist and to heal cuts, burns, scrapes or grazes try our Activate Balm. 

Enjoy all the greatness Kawakawa has to offer. 

If you would like to hear more from us, indulging in nature, product how-to's and our adventures resourcing our raw ingredients.

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Until next time, keep it clean,

Bumble & Birdie NZ Taupō Crew