Laura Neville’s path to creating The Herbtender, a herbal supplements brand with ethics and sustainability at its very core

The Herbtender is a natural herbal supplements brand, founded by Laura alongside her husband, Mark, during the lockdown of 2020. The Herbtender supplements are made of unique blends of adaptogens, all formulated in-house and designed for different needs. 

Adaptogens are herbs and mushrooms that help with a range of physical, biological, emotional and environmental stressors. They’re non-harmful, work with the pituitary, hypothalamic and adrenal glands and support equilibrium in the body. 

The name adaptogens is derived from their evolution in harsh conditions – their ability to adapt. 

Always keen to learn more about natural remedies, I chatted with Laura to learn about her path to creating The Herbtender, how she uses her own supplements to ease symptoms of ADHD and menopause, and the importance she places on sustainability and transparency. 

The vision that started The Herbtender 

Laura’s brainwave for The Herbtender occurred after an introduction to ashwagandha and the discovery that it could actually help her with her life-long problems with sleep. ‘I’ve never been a good sleeper. Ever since I was little. And I think I’ve probably always self-medicated in one way or another and always looked for things to help me sleep.’

After dabbling with different supplements and medications, Laura realised that while the various things she was taking did occasionally help her sleep, they almost always made her feel somewhat unlike herself for the rest of the day. As she got older, she found herself being drawn to more natural solutions. 

After discovering ashwagandha, Laura tried a mushroom supplement – at this point unaware that she had ADHD. ‘I had some of the mushrooms and I said to my husband, “I can hear air! Everything is really clear and amazing.”’ And so, together, amazed at what these natural remedies could do, they began creating The Herbtender.

How sustainability shapes The Herbtender 

When beginning The Herbtender, Laura and Mark took advantage of having full control of its values. Mark’s previous business was in protein water, but its creation and distribution of thousands of plastic bottles of water didn’t sit well with them and eventually he closed the business. For The Herbtender, they wanted something different. ‘We started with a blank sheet of paper. We got to just infuse this business with all of our values, and sustainability is a core value for us.’ 

Supplements from The Herbtender come in recyclable glass jars with aluminium caps, cartons, and compostable pouches. A subscription comes in a glass jar, followed by top-ups in pouches. ‘You have no idea how long it took to find compostable pouches!’

The Herbtender also gives money to a rhino charity and has just joined One Percent for the Planet. ‘We just believe in giving back to nature really, because it’s where we get all our ingredients from – so it’s very important to us.’ 

The Herbtender selects ingredients for different needs 

All formulations are created by The Herbtender’s medical herbalist, Schia Mitchell Sinclair. Schia has a scientific background, having studied molecular biology before becoming a medical herbalist. 

Formulations aren’t done quickly and partly due to their strict values, Schia and the team agonise over ingredients, where they’ve come from and if they’re a match. ‘It’s an absolute hard no to any fillers, bulking agents, colorants, sweeteners, or anything nasty.’ 

Through their core value of transparency on ingredients and the expertise from their medical herbalist, The Herbtender team ensure their products are as clean and beneficial as they can possibly be. 

How The Herbtender sets itself apart from other supplements brands

The supplements market is a saturated one. ‘There are some brands that really inspire me, and others where I just can’t believe what they put in there. It’s a sliding scale of some people doing amazing things and some people doing some quite terrifying things.’

Laura attributes one of their unique strengths to their steadfast commitment to transparency and trust. They prioritise openness and honesty, always ensuring they follow through on their promises. 5 years down the line, they’ve never wavered. 

Their formulations are unique to them, too. ‘If you ask any herbalist to formulate something for a need state, none of them will necessarily be wrong if they know what they’re doing, but it will be unique to them.’

‘These are Schia’s solutions for the need states we have, and the longer I work with them, the more genius I realise they are. They just really stand the test of time.’ 

The Herbtender also demonstrates exceptionally dedicated levels of customer service. If a customer has a question about a certain product, they’re actively encouraged to reach out to the team and ask – a level of support rarely seen with other supplements brands. ‘If someone’s on a medication and they need to know if it interacts with any of these products, they can reach out and ask us. And if they need to, they can book a 15-minute call to have a quick chat. We’re really trying to look after people.’  

How adaptogens can help with symptoms of menopause

‘The thing that adaptogens are really great at doing is helping our bodies come back to the middle in the face of stress, and the different symptoms of menopause are all stresses.’

Laura is clear in her words around how The Herbtender can help with symptoms of menopause. It’s not that her products are a solution or a cure for menopause, but rather they’re aids for specific symptoms related to it. ‘I’ve got this real loathing of the feeling of capitalising on that. There are things in there for managing your own symptoms proactively. For brain fog, we’ve got Focus & Clarity. We can help with sleep, with anxiety, with low energy. So it’s more about treating the individual symptoms.’ 

Laura balanced an ADHD diagnosis with building her business

Laura was in her mid-forties when she was diagnosed with ADHD. She was looking into it for one of her children, certain it was what was affecting her. The lightbulb moment came when she was walking her dog and listening to a podcast with Gwyneth Paltrow discussing her daughter’s ADHD, what it was like to have ADHD as a girl and what it looks like in girls. ‘By the end of the dog walk, I was like, “Oh my god,” because it’s completely different in girls. It’s not what you think it’s going to be and it can be really tied to hormones.’ 

Typically, many women discover they have ADHD during puberty or during the menopause. Looking back now, Laura recognises that she was perimenopausal at the time. She went to the doctor several times to ask for help with her symptoms, but because she was still having periods, she was told it couldn’t be menopause yet and sent on her way. 

It was when she came to fill out some forms for her daughter’s diagnosis that the penny dropped. ‘In the end, I walked out with the diagnosis and my daughter didn’t!’

‘It was hard and it was a lot to process. Schia was my rock throughout it and it took a while for my nearest and dearest to believe that that was what was going on for me. Obviously, everyone sees it and gets it now, but it was lonely at the time.’

Schia and Laura immediately went into doing some hair mineral analysis and checking of Laura’s base minerals, quickly seeing how out of whack they were. She adjusted her diet and minerals and turned to the supplements they had already started to make, confident that they had already fixed her sleep issues. 

Laura’s favourite product, Calm & Collected 

The Herbtender offers two products that help with sleep. Doze & Dream, their straightforward sleep supplement, and Calm & Collected which is their anxiety product. 

‘Without a doubt, ADHDers don’t sleep because their minds don’t switch off. We just take a long time to fall asleep and it’s the anxiety product that calms us back down.’ 

Laura knew Calm & Collected was working for her when she temporarily stopped taking it to try a new product. After four or five days, she noticed the feeling of anxiety that she had gone so long without – thanks to Calm & Collected – and she knew instantly she needed to return to taking it regularly. ‘You’ll probably have to prize it out of my cold, dead hands one day.’

‘It’s got ashwagandha which I loved from the beginning, and lion’s mane which we also have in our Focus product. Lion’s mane is stimulating when you take it during the day, but if you blend it with different ingredients at night, it can be really calming.’

What’s almost magical about herbal supplements is the synergies that are created when blending and creating formulations. An ingredient can have one effect on its own, but when blended with other ingredients, can have a completely new effect. 

What does the future hold for The Herbtender?

‘Keep making cool stuff!’ 

Laura and her team have no plans to slow down. They know there’s more out there and they’re determined to find it. ‘We’re always learning about people and what they want, what they need, what the plants do.’ 

‘I would like to really be a safe space for people so they know that when they buy something from us, we’ve had those difficult conversations, we’ve agonised, and we’ve made the best decisions we possibly can about the ingredients and the materials that we package them in.’

The Herbtender is a brand built on strong core values of sustainability, transparency and ethical business. It empowers people to take a mindful approach to their health, to pay attention to their minds and bodies and to spot the areas that might need a little help from nature. With the brand’s commitment to sustainability, customers can rest assured that when buying The Herbtender products, they’re giving back to nature – the system they’re benefitting from. I for one will be looking more closely at the supplements I put into my body from now on! 

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Amaia Wilson Frade is a copywriter and translator from Southampton, England. A language fanatic who speaks Spanish, French and Italian and loves writing for purpose-driven brands. Her happy place is tucked away in her campervan in the countryside or by the sea, meditating and matching playlists to whatever she's reading as she waits for summer to roll back around.