The Apothékary story is about one woman’s 15-year mental and physical healing journey using nature as medicine. Like most people, our founder realized that the world moves at 100 miles an hour, and so often we only have time to treat the symptom and never the root cause. By spreading herbal knowledge and products to others, her goal, and now our goal, was to enhance your health and wellbeing, naturally, yet effectively.
So, it all started with Shizu Okusa, our founder, and her familial roots in Japan. After being raised in a strict and traditional Japanese household where Kampo herbal medicine was revered, it felt right to her family to embrace the intelligence of nature and chose plants and herbs as their go-to when someone felt unwell. Over-the-counter pain pills were only given if someone’s sickness was truly severe.
As much as Shizu benefited from what was abundant in Mother Nature and given to her by her family, she knew herbal medicine was still nascent in the Western world. Still, she was certain others could benefit from the approach of seeing that Nature is Medicine™ and she wanted to share traditional herbal solutions with others.
After an 8-year journey with her first cold-pressed juice business, Shizu sold that company and founded Apothékary. Our first herbal formulas were hand-packed into small, black packages and narrow-mouthed glass bottles. Shizu screwed on thousands of lids herself and even used her own hair curler to seal and secure the black pouches. The early Apothékary products were made and sent with love in every box.
Fast forward to today, Apothékary has blossomed into the brand we are today because of our founder’s lifelong passion for bringing products and safe spaces to the broader community. We’re committed to serving our customers with potent herbal remedies that work to address the root causes of health issues and by providing education that supports a more personalized way to support your wellness journey. Since starting the company in early 2020, we’ve served over 250,000 customers in 54 countries.
Our mission remains the same–to inspire others to live a more natural way of life. Our values towards using plants as medicine haven’t changed but now, we've had a major glow-up (and tune-up). We wanted to look better and do better. After listening to our customers about our packing faux pas, the efficacy of our herbal formulas, and a need to keep improving (known as kaizen in Japanese) our customer service, we knew we had to do better. So we are.
Today, our herbal formulas are still thoughtfully-crafted, but now there’s more science in mind and even more potent herbal formulations that are easier to access than they were on day one. Our packaging is more sustainable and has a variety of colors that represent the natural world. And our customer service is even more on point (“kaizen” or continuous improvement as they say in Japan). We’re proud to introduce you to the new and improved Apothékary.
What’s New:
Bridging East and West with our new logo
We were always focused on bridging Eastern herbalism with Western science. We did it with our formulas and now we’re doing it with our logo. The new Apothékary logo has a curved arch connecting both sides of the “A” and symbolizes our commitment to connecting the East and West in all aspects of our brand.
Easy-to-digest education
We know the world of wellness, and herbalism, in particular, is intimidating and can be considered “woo woo”. Our goal is to put you in the herbal enthusiast seat so you can learn from our Clinical Herbalists and Herbal Educators. We’ll be creating even more educational content so you can pick our brains and get to know your herbs inside and out. This looks like new 15-minute product info calls with Herbal Educators so you can go deep on your formulas, how to use them, and when to expect benefits. It also looks like more informative blog posts that break down each herb in our products and their unique health benefits–written by our Clinical Herbalists for your knowledge.
Colorful, durable, and more sustainable packaging
Back in the day, our original formulas were hand-packed and sealed with Shizu’s hair curler. Now, our packaging has transformed with a new look and feel in a variety of colors using more sustainable materials.
The new packages you’ll soon receive in your home will have a variety of hues ranging from blues and greens to reds and pinks. All of which represent a variety of colorful herbs and their health benefits. For our single herbs, we’re now packaging them in biodegradable and compostable cartons made from wood pulp and printed with vegan ink. In 2024, our goal is to have all of our herbal formulas use this same compostable and biodegradable packaging.
Finally, our cartons are now more durable than ever and will help reduce breakage and shattering when your herbal formulas are delivered to your home. They’ll also reduce our environmental footprint as we won’t need to include bubble wrap, kraft wrapping, and other unnecessary materials when sending you your herbal formulas.
Recyclable wide-mouthed glass jars
You know those narrow-mouthed jars that we used to have for our herbal formulas? Well now, those are a thing of the past. After listening to you, our customers, we’ve repackaged our herbal remedies into new custom-molded glass jars with wider and more open mouths so it’s easier to scoop out your herbs all day, every day. Even better, our new wide-mouthed glass jars are made from previously recycled glass and are infinitely recyclable into the future. Even the embossed lids on our new jars are 100% recyclable. These small changes help us all reduce our environmental impact while still enjoying nature’s best remedies.
Bigger Gold Daily Remedy Spoon™
When our jars had a more narrow mouth, we had a more narrow spoon to help you scoop out your herbal formulas. Now that our new jars have wider mouths, we’ve upgraded our Gold Daily Remedy Spoon™ to a ½ teaspoon size so you can get more of the formulas you love, faster, easier, and with the right amount in hand.
New herb refill sachets
After listening to you, our customers, we learned that you love many of our herbal formulas but it can be expensive and even wasteful to purchase multiple jars at once. We found an easier and more affordable way for you to stay stocked on your favorite formulas without buying a ton of jars at once. Introducing: refill sachets. These refill sachets have a one-month supply of your favorite herbal formulas and will help you stay topped up when you’re running low. Even better, their small, lightweight packaging helps us reduce our carbon footprint and save you money on shipping costs. In 2024, we hope to make our refill sachets 100% compostable.
Herbal tinctures on deck
Although we love our powdered herbs, we were hearing that powders may not always be your favorite way to enjoy your herbs. As of 2023, we started offering herbs in a tincture format like the previously sold-out Take the Edge Off™. But why tinctures you ask? Tinctures are an easy and effective way to get your herbal medicine, one dropper at a time. They add to the health benefits of your herbs, oftentimes improve the flavor, and can be an even more accessible way to enjoy herbal medicine on the go.
If you didn’t know, tinctures are highly concentrated extracts of herbs and often have almost immediate effects if dropped into a liquid like water or directly onto the tongue. For those with busy schedules and a go, go, go lifestyle, tinctures can be a wonderful way to get the herbs you need, wherever life takes you.
Better than ever loyalty program
We’re excited to announce our new-and-improved loyalty program. Starting now, we’ll have three tiers with benefits ranging from free shipping, up to 20% off your order, a birthday gift, early access to new products, 2 points for every $1 spent, and more. You’ll also be able to manage your subscription with ease and bundle your favorite herbal formulas. Think of this as your new excuse to be the ultimate herb nerd and get even more benefits every time you enjoy one of our herbal formulas. You can check out our new loyalty program here.
Welcome to the Apothékary 2.0
Our new and improved look, packaging, and science-backed formulas will deliver the herbal remedies you love in a more convenient, colorful, and sustainable way. We want to be your go-to herbal medicine company when you want to look and feel well—naturally. And that meant glowing up, inside and out. We know you’ll love Apothekary 2.0 with all of our new Signature Formulas and tinctures. So, pop on over to our Shop and see what we’ve got in store for you in nature’s medicine cabinet.
Yours truly,
Team Apothékary