Ibu Trade specialises in Eco Gifts, Handmade Gifts & Fair Trade Shopping

REMEDICa Australia

REMEDICa Australia is the brainchild and passion of the remarkable Lisa Phipps. After years of research, Lisa launched REMEDICa Australia in the early noughties, and in doing so has proven that natural skin care can be luxurious, sophisticated and effective.

As an experienced and knowledgeable formulator, Lisa now collaborates with some of Australia’s leading cosmetic and bio-specialist scientists, widening and making available the national and global resource pool that make REMEDICa the stand out natural skin care range available on the market today.

REMEDICa is made in Australia, providing a genuinely effective alternative in organic and natural skin care. Free of mineral oils, genetically modified matter, artificial colours, ethoxylates, petrochemicals, aluminium, DEA (MEA, TEA), and animal testing, we at ibu are loving this conscience free gorgosity.

In addition to being eco-logical, Lisa also endorses socially responsible business practices, inclusing sourcing their organic Shea Butter and Anago (Black Soap) from the Fair Trade Guli Tihitaribu Women Agricultural Coop in Ghana, West Africa.

This cooperative was established as a poverty eradication initiative for rural women in Northern Ghana. The initiative is backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote economic development in Africa.

Their Story

Africa is still one of the poorest continents on earth. African women in general are only recently gaining access to formal education and business development programs that allow gradual elevation from abject poverty and dependence for themselves, their families and communities.

REMEDICa's Shea Butter and Black Soap (called Anago and sometimes Alata in Ghana and in Nigeria Ose Dudu) is collected from several sub cooperatives in established villages throughout northern Ghana which involves hundreds of women at any given time in all aspects of production, distribution and marketing.

The women in this cooperative are paid a fair price or wage in a “local context” which ultimately provides employment opportunities, self esteem and education for themselves and their families. Funding provides added revenue that goes directly back to the community in the form of community enhancement projects and education scholarships. This project also provides platforms for the development of environmental sustainable practices. Women especially are encouraged to take advantage of equal employment opportunities whereby in the past, these same women were often marginalised and uneducated. Safe working conditions and public accountability are also attributes of a “Fairly Traded” System of community and co-operative business practice.

Despite these initiatives, most shea butter on the Global market is still not fairly traded. The women who gather shea nuts and hand craft this oil, with an estimated 20 to 30 hours of labour to produce perhaps 1kg of butter, only a tiny portion of the actual real value price. Often this will mean $1.00 for a weeks worth of work which does not equate to real living wage standards.

So, we are pleased and proud to welcome REMEDICa to our ibu family. Like all ibu producers, REMEDICa shares the ethos that equity and sustainable practice do not erode quality, indeed it often enhances it. Thanking you Lisa.