JustBe Botanicals at Armathwaite Hall Spa

JustBe Botanicals Spa Treatment launched in the Lake District

Every brand has a founding partnership that shapes everything that follows. For JustBe Botanicals, that partnership was with Armathwaite Hall Spa, an award-winning luxury spa set in the breathtaking Lake District landscape and the place where the professional JustBe treatment range was born.This is the full story of how that partnership began and what it created.

The Question That Started Everything

Before JustBe had a single product, it had a philosophy. During my work as a holistic therapist, a common theme kept emerging from client sessions: they were clear on what they didn't want - they wanted to feel less stressed, less tired, less tense etc. But when asked, how would you like to feel? they didn't know.

The seemingly simply question How would you like to feel? became the foundation for the spa treatments.

November 2010, The Armathwaite Hall Partnership Begins

In November 2010, Armathwaite Hall Spa launched six JustBe massage oils. It was the first spa setting in which JustBe products were used. Following that successful launch, Armathwaite Hall invited me to develop further treatments for their menu. The first was an anti-ageing facial, what became the JustBe Radiant Facial. From a standing start of having no facial products, this was quite the undertaking. I somehow created 5 products: the Eye Makeup Remover, Cleansing Balm, Hydrating Serum, Treatment Oil and Lip Balm. 

The Discovery That Changed the JustBe Skincare Range

Like many women, I believed I had sensitive skin. During the product development process for the new skincare range, I realised that what I had experienced as "sensitivity" was actually my skin reacting to harsh synthetic ingredients. Take those away (or don't add them) and formulate with purely natural, skin-recognisable ingredients and the sensitivity disappeared.

That insight became the founding principle of the JustBe skincare range: 100% natural and suitable for all skin types, especially those that had always considered themselves "sensitive." Often, the sensitivity isn't the skin. It's the ingredients.

Teenage Facial - JustBe Fresh Faced

2012, two further treatments joined the Armathwaite Hall menu. The JustBe Fresh Faced Facial was launched on Mother's Day, a treatment designed specifically for teenage skin, centred around skin confidence and positive skincare habits. A genuinely thoughtful and distinctive offering that reflected JustBe's belief that healthy skin starts with the right foundation, not the most complex routine. The Cleansing Gel (ideal for teenage skin), a choice of two toners: Uplifting and Refreshing, a multi purpose Restoring Face Cream and two professional use only Non Setting Face Masks were added along with a Blemish Control Roller (retail only).

Later that year came JustBe Elemental, the luxurious full-body ritual using Atlantic sea salt and Scottish peat that has since become Armathwaite Hall's most-requested treatment and went on to become part of the Fathers Day offering. Detoxifying, nourishing and deeply restorative, it draws on some of nature's most powerful and under-appreciated ingredients.