The roots of Palcho's Products
I began gathering wild plants and turning them into potions as a child. My first product was called Huckleberry Finn Water (Wildberry Lifesavers soaked in warm water). Later, I learned to raise and preserve food- canning, pickling, brining, salting, fermenting everything from vegetables, beer and bread to cheese and sauerkraut. Living in Kodiak, Alaska, I made plant medicines and healing lotions and learned how to smoke and pickle fish, kelp, and tofu.
In 2004, after 20 years of teaching high school art, I resigned and started a business, Karen's Botanicals which continues today. I manufactured organic skincare products made from plant-based raw materials. Today, I work as a potter and ceramicist, and teach classes in making botanical lotions, potions, and plant medicines and in food and beverage fermentation. My activities are diverse but deeply connected.
Meet Karen
Karen Palcho is an artist, traveler, teacher and former owner of Karen's Botanicals-Natural Skin and Body Care Products. She is also co-owner of Nu-Art Graphics-Industrial Screen Printing and Die Cutting, located in West Chester, PA.
In 2011, she sold Karen's Botanicals to a wonderful couple, Pam and Edward Mitchell from Taylorsville, Georgia. With new found time, she now transforms the alchemy of making lotions and potions into the alchemy of making organic goat cheese, wild yeasted beer, fermented foods, and ceramic fermenters, along with music and art. Karen's interests remain rooted in a fascination of transforming earth-based, raw materials into useful, tasty, and beautiful things.
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