Feebee Foran is a herbalist and owner of Forager, a 100% natural skincare brand that harnesses the natural medicine of wild Irish weeds. She is a nature educator, enthusiast and resident forager for Ireland AM on Virgin Media TV.
Forager Skincare was born at my kitchen table during the first Covid lockdown. What started as a passion project after being temporarily let go from my job in Digital Marketing has grown to become a multi-award winning brand with over 70 stockists in Ireland and 10 in the USA.
I’ll be really honest, I still pinch myself when I remember that I’m owner of a small business and that I get to do something I love everyday - work in nature and create something that’s helping people heal and feel more connected to their Irish heritage and wildlife. If you were to tell me five years ago, that I’d have taken the plunge, left a job I loved and now be an employer, I probably would have laughed, but secretly wished it would come true.
This little idea I had during lockdown, while we were all at home, making banana bread and sourdough starters to pass the time, somehow grew legs.
I’m an absolute nature nut, and although I had been working in the Digital/Ecommerce sector for 20 years, my passion for nature had led me to study as a Herbalist in my spare time. Lockdown gave me the space to develop this passion and I started to make “potions” in my kitchen, sharing my creations on social media (not with a view of selling - but more so out of connection during the lockdown). To my surprise, I started receiving DM’s from people saying “can I buy a pot of your healing balm” and “can you make me something for my headaches/psoriasis/eczema” and my answer was always “I’ll certainly give it a try”.
These little potions caught on and soon enough I caught the attention of the press, who named me “The Green Witch of the Dodder”.
Once lockdown lifted, I decided to do a little craft market in Arklow, Wicklow just to see what it would be like - and the reaction I received at this market was the start of Forager as a brand.
I loved the buzz of meeting people, finding out what they’d love me to develop, to see that there was a real hunger for natural remedies and skincare. Each new market brought new knowledge, lots of mistakes that I had to learn from and gave me great ideas for what I wanted Forager to be, how I wanted it to look and how I wanted to help people. From being face to face with people, I got to learn how to tell my story and see first hand what my products meant to people.
Over the first few months, I developed new products based on the feedback I received at markets and had to learn the workings of a whole new industry - skincare was a new world for me and getting my head around regulations, quality control, required testing and packaging was a huge but exciting challenge.
I’m a big believer in seeking out the experts, so this is what I did. I contacted my local LEO in South Dublin and shared my vision for the brand, they gave me a mentor and I set about turning these ideas into reality. As someone who struggles with maths and numbers in general, I needed a lot of help in the early stages of putting a business together and understanding what was expected by stores in terms of margins, costings and making sure I was making a few bob, so finding people who could help me with the area’s that I wasn’t strong on made a difference. I put together a squad of my go-to experts - My book-keeper, accountant, buyer adviser, mentors, social media experts and reality checkers. These incredible people now form a huge part of the Forager story.
A huge moment for me personally came when I got to put the iconic G on my products. Receiving this coveted acknowledgement really made me so proud of what we were growing, but also of the heart and provenance of Forager. A little logo that I have always looked out for when buying gifts and products, was now proudly placed on my pots.
When it comes to the heart of Forager though, sustainability is always at my core. After all, I work with what is arguably the most renewable resource in the world - wild weeds. For anyone who is a gardener, you’ll know that whenever you pull weeds from your garden, they grow right back and always bring friends with them.
When we forage these plants, we do it with care and consideration. As a nature educator who teaches foraging for food and medicine to all ages, I find that one of the most important messages I can share is that “just because it grows free, doesn’t mean it's just for me”. Our wildlife, birds, pollinators and other bugs all rely on these plants for food, sustenance, shelter and protection, so this is always at the forefront when foraging. We take a little and only what we need, priority is always given to nature and our wildlife.
This means that the goodness in every pot is collected and created with care.
Our pots are fully recyclable, but more importantly, refillable. We receive empty pots back from our customers all the time for sterilising and reuse. Circular economy is a huge part of what we do.
Now, Forager has 17 products, ranging from healing balms, to skincare and beauty creams and cleansers. 2025 holds so many exciting plans for us - from developing our export market, to developing new products as requested by our customers. It's exciting, terrifying and fun!
Being a small business means we can stay agile, move fast and work with what our customers want.
But even more importantly, being Irish means that we get to showcase the magic from our tiny island on a worldwide stage.
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