About Us
My name is Maria, creator of NAMAWE. I created my skincare company as a way to reconnect with Irish Abundance and the Old Wise Women wisdom.
I came to Ireland back in 2016, for many reasons, many of them I didn't even know. But within a year in, not only I was able to understand and communicate better in a foreign language, but also to listen to my inner longing.
Nature walks put me into perspective within my deep self. I bloomed many paths out of curiosity and deep attention to the seasons and the gifts of each one.
Thanks to the guidance of many local herbalists, I learnt to identify plants by name and use. So that I could feel eager to introduce them into my life. Artist and crafter by degree and Nature, I find joy in learning how to make things from scratch as a way to learn deeper about the purpose of the item or the ingredient I am using. So this is how I would care about my own selfcare routine back in 2018, as a hobby, making my own soap, shampoo bars and many solid creams or make up. By learning the purpose and reason for their existence, I could feel better when using these products.
When I started to look deeper into my own selfcare and my diet, as well as reducing my plastic usage, I ended up seeing that not only crafting my own products was a way to know about them and reduce packaging, but also avoiding so many ingredients that were causing issues in people around me:
It started with my partner Colin at the time, who I met during 2020. As we got closer I realised that he was suffering with skin sensibilities and rashes around his legs. One look at the ingredients of his “sensitive cream” made me want to throw up. At least he was using a very gentle goat’s milk soap from a local Health shop.
We all know what followed in March of 2020, one of the events being the natural shops that did not offer food closing until further notice. Colin was not able to get access to his gentle soap. The supermarket was not an option. So this is how I moved from making my own Castile Soap out of recycled oils for house cleaning into a very gentle body soap for sensitive skin!
Oh my, and I did not burn the house down. Quite the opposite, I created what would be the beginning of Namawe. Not only was Colin able to safely use my handmade Goat’s milk soap, but many friends enjoyed it too! And the bits left of the batch was my entrance to the local Westport Country Market!
By selling to the local community I stared at the reality of many skin ailments that I never suffered. Colin was not the only case of eczema, of course, but many of these people had a skin sensibility that got soothe by using some of my products. I created my soaps, with different stories and scents behind them. The soaps were originally Vegan or Vegetarian (goat’s milk based), until some time later, in which I adapted a Spanish way to recycle oils into a new product.
For various reasons I could not make as much Castile Soap as I thought. Irish people don’t fry as much as we do. Olive Oil does not grow here so it is quite dear to use this liquid gold in the Spanish way, right? Instead, I realised the use of Vegetable Oils… or a cheap way, which was anti-smoke frying oil that included a chemical component that really made me fear for my life if I was to mix it with lye to make soap. Instead, by chance, one day I got told by my local butcher that cow fat used to be used in the past to make soap as well as broth.
Tallow became the new game. The real deal. And so from May 2023, I decided to make all my Skincare range Tallow-based. It was quite difficult but it created a new option for many people, a new start.
Namawe became my full time business in the late summer of 2021, then gave me the chance to open my own shop and factory in 2022. Now, from 2024, Namawe store is again in a new location, at the very heart of Westport. And so it had to be also with our online site.
This is my way to deliver from Nature into my community. This is my way to revert whatever path has gone wrong. This is another chance to reconnect to ourselves, the same way I did when I landed here.
Are you ready to dip into the old ways of our ancestors? Are you ready to trust in Plant Wisdom?
Follow me and let me introduce you to my simpler and richer way to care for my skin, so that I can focus on the rest of my life with more focus.
Welcome to the Healthy Selfcare Journey… where the end is your own unique self.