An Ode to the Foothills
There’s a certain time of day in summer, just as the sun tilts west and the light turns golden, when the foothills come alive in a way that’s hard to put into words. The air grows warm and heavy, carrying the sweetness of sunbaked grasses, the faint resinous hint of pine needles, and the soft, blackberry-perfumed breeze. Even now, decades later, one breath of sage and mugwort steeping in oil or the faint earthiness of cistus on my hands can take me right back to those afternoons as a child, barefoot in the dust, completely lost in the wilds behind my childhood home.
It wasn’t just a landscape. It was a full sensory world, one that imprinted itself so deeply in me that it feels like my earliest language. I didn’t know then that I was learning how to listen to plants, to notice how their scent shifted with the seasons, or how certain oils would linger on my skin hours after brushing past a stalk of sage.
When I began Urb Apothecary, I didn’t set out to recreate my childhood. But in hindsight, I see now that’s exactly what I was doing. Every product, the aromatic balms, the botanical mists, the grounding herbal serums, is a kind of love letter to those foothills. The slow infusions we use, the choice of oils, even our packaging, are all a quiet homage to a time when life felt simpler, slower, and more deeply connected to the earth.
Scent is a powerful keeper of memory. It bypasses words and logic, going straight to the heart. One inhale can transport you to a moment long past: your grandmother’s kitchen, a meadow at dusk, the first rain of Fall. That’s what I want our products to be for people, not just skincare, but a portal. A reminder of a time or place when you felt fully alive in your own skin.
Our branding reflects this too: minimal, natural, and grounded. The kind of design that feels like it could live in a sun-faded journal or an apothecary shelf in a farmhouse kitchen. Urb (pronounced “herb”) was never meant to be trendy. It’s meant to feel timeless, like the foothills themselves.
In a way, Urb Apothecary is my way of holding onto those memories and sharing them. With every balm, oil, and serum, I hope you catch a note of that wild, aromatic California air. I hope it sparks a memory of your own, reminding you that your skin, your body, and your life are worthy of care and reverence.
Because scent doesn’t just remind us where we’ve been, it brings us back to ourselves.