When I started Etheria Holistics, I knew that the way I packaged my products had to reflect the same values as everything inside them. If I'm going to put care and intention into every herb I source, every blend I craft, and every pre-roll I fill and pack by hand — then the packaging has to be part of that story too.
I also want to be honest with you: getting the packaging right has been a journey. When I first started out, I used kraft paper bags with a plastic window. At the time that felt like a reasonable option — natural looking, with a clear view of the product inside. But as Etheria Holistics developed, two things happened simultaneously. I wanted to go further with my eco credentials and remove as much plastic as possible — and I also wanted the aesthetic to better reflect what Etheria Holistics actually is.
Because Etheria Holistics isn't a "wellness-brand beige" kind of brand. It's something older and deeper than that. Apothecary. Mystical. Vintage. Witchy — in the truest sense of that word. The kind of witchy that means herbalist, healer, wise woman. The kind that has been misunderstood for centuries, but that's a story for another post.
(And yes — there is a blog post coming about what the word "witch" actually means, the history behind it, and why I think it's a word worth reclaiming. Watch this space.)
So I moved to black. Black matte pouches, black aluminium tins, dark labels with gold details. And at the same time I found packaging materials that matched not just the look I was going for, but the values underneath it. Everything came together at once — the aesthetic evolution and the eco evolution — because really they were always the same thing.
I spend a lot of time — probably more than most people would — researching packaging. Finding the right supplier for each specific material, comparing options, thinking about not just how something looks but what happens to it after it leaves my hands. It's not something I rush. It matters too much.
So let me take you through everything we use, and why.
The Black Matte Biodegradable Pouch
I chose black not just for the aesthetic — it also protects the herbs from light, which helps preserve their potency and freshness. The resealable zip means nothing goes to waste and your herbs stay fresh between uses.
What I love about these pouches is that even the zip itself is made from cornstarch — not plastic. The whole pouch, zip included, is biodegradable. No microplastics. Just a pouch that does its job beautifully and then returns to the earth.
The Kraft Paper Bag with Cornstarch Window
For some of our whole flower sizes, we use a biodegradable resealable kraft paper bag with a window so you can actually see the flowers inside — the purple petals, the golden centres. These are beautiful botanicals and they deserve to be seen.
What looks like a clear plastic window is actually made from cornstarch. It has a very slight translucency to it rather than being completely clear, which I think gives it a lovely organic quality. The whole bag — window included — is biodegradable.
The Black Aluminium Sliding Tin
This is one of my favourite things we've introduced, and it came directly out of that apothecary inspiration. There's something about a sliding tin that feels timeless — the kind of thing you'd find in an old herbalist's shop, or on the shelf of someone who really knows their plants.
Our pre-filled teabags and loose herb tins come in a food-grade black aluminium sliding tin. Aluminium is infinitely recyclable, incredibly durable, and feels really satisfying to use. I wanted the experience of opening your Etheria Holistics order to feel like something — like a little ritual in itself. These tins deliver that every time.
The Cornstarch Bag
Used for our sample sizes, pre-rolls, and as the inner bag inside the aluminium tin, is a bag that looks — at first glance — like it could be plastic. But it's not. It's made entirely from cornstarch and is 100% home compostable.
The bag even has a little printed message on it: "I may look like plastic, but I'm not. I'm made from cornstarch, which is 100% biodegradable." I chose this particular supplier specifically because of that message. I love that the packaging speaks for itself without me having to say a word.
At a recent market event, someone noticed it before I'd even brought it up. She said — "I saw that little message. Not plastic." And she lit up. That's exactly the kind of moment I was hoping for — and exactly the kind of moment that makes all the research and the extra cost worthwhile.
Our labels are part of this too — made from kraft paper and fully biodegradable. One more place where plastic simply doesn't need to exist.
The Glass Jar
For our whole flowers, I also offer a glass jar option. Glass is one of those materials I find endlessly elegant — infinitely reusable, it doesn't leach anything into your product, and it looks beautiful on a shelf. I love the idea of someone keeping their Blue Lotus flowers in a little glass jar on their altar or windowsill, and then reusing that jar for something else entirely once it's empty. Nothing thrown away. Everything given a second life.
The Miron Violet Glass Bottle
Our elixirs and tinctures are bottled in Miron violet glass — and this deserves its own explanation, because it's not just an aesthetic choice.
Miron glass is biophotonic glass, meaning it protects the biophotonic activity of natural products — preventing the loss of biophotons, preserving their natural goodness, and making preservatives unnecessary. In practical terms, it filters out the most harmful visible light while allowing 25–45% penetration of violet and UVA light frequencies, as well as around 60% penetration of infrared light — a ratio that actually energises and helps preserve the organic contents within.
What this means for our elixirs is that the potency, aroma, colour and energetic quality of the botanicals inside are preserved far better than they would be in regular amber or clear glass. Studies have shown that Miron glass can extend shelf life sometimes up to three times longer than conventional packaging — and remarkably, violet glass has been shown to increase biophotonic emissions by up to 100%, meaning the product can actually retain or improve its energetic value during storage.
There's also a historical connection here that I can't ignore. The appreciation of violet glass can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, where valuable essences and natural healing products were kept in violet glass vessels. Given that Blue Lotus itself is the sacred flower of Ancient Egypt — depicted in hieroglyphs, found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, central to sacred ceremony for thousands of years — bottling our elixirs in violet glass feels less like a packaging decision and more like a continuation of something very old.
I do want to be transparent about one thing: the pipette lid on the Miron bottle does contain a small amount of recyclable plastic. It's the one element in our entire packaging range that isn't fully plastic-free, and I want you to know that. I chose Miron glass because no other packaging comes close for protecting the integrity of a botanical tincture — but the pipette is a functional necessity and I believe in being honest about it.
Our Pre-Roll Cones
Our herbal pre-rolls are filled and packed using unbleached hemp paper cones with a natural gum seal — no synthetic materials, no bleaching agents. Hemp paper burns cleanly, it's completely natural, and it feels entirely aligned with the botanical nature of what's inside. Finding the right cone took time — I tried different formats and papers before landing on these — but I'm really happy with where we've ended up. Every element, right down to the paper, is chosen with intention.
The Compostable Teabags
Even our empty teabags — the ones we sell separately for you to fill yourself, and the ones we use for our pre-filled tins — are unbleached and compostable. No bleaching agents, no synthetic materials. Clean, natural filtration from start to finish.
What You Won't Find in an Etheria Holistics Order
No bubble wrap. No single-use plastic fillers. No unnecessary packaging. Occasionally, if something fragile arrives to me from a supplier wrapped in bubble wrap, I might reuse that wrap to protect a fragile item in your order — but I won't ever purchase it myself. It's not what Etheria Holistics is about.
Why This All Matters to Me
I'm not going to pretend that eco-friendly packaging is always the cheapest or easiest option. It isn't. But I genuinely believe that if you're selling products that come from the earth — herbs, flowers, botanicals — then you have a responsibility to think carefully about what happens to the packaging when it leaves your hands.
Every material I use has been chosen deliberately, researched thoroughly, and tested against my own values before it ever reaches a customer. It's one of the parts of running Etheria Holistics that I'm most proud of — and one of the parts that takes the most quiet, unglamorous work behind the scenes.
Thank you for noticing. Thank you for caring about these things too. It means more than you know.
With love,
Erica — Etheria Holistics