What Does 'Inherited' Actually Mean? The Story Behind the Name

People sometimes ask whether "Inherited Skincare" refers to inherited skin — the idea that your complexion comes from your parents, that you're working with what you were born with. It's a reasonable interpretation. But it's not the one I had in mind.

When I chose the name, I was thinking about something else entirely. I was thinking about my grandmother Leela, and everything she passed down to me that never appeared on any official document. The way she moved through the world. The way she cared for herself. And the very specific, very practical knowledge she had about skin — how to read it, how to feed it, how to be patient with it.

What Gets Inherited

We tend to think of inheritance in terms of property or money — things with legal weight and financial value. But the most important things I inherited from my family were none of these.

I inherited a vocabulary for plants. I learned the names of herbs and oils before I learned to read a bus timetable. I inherited an approach to the body that was fundamentally respectful — the idea that the skin is not a problem to be managed but a living organ that responds to care. I inherited a sense of ritual: that doing small things with attention and consistency matters more than expensive interventions done frantically.

These were not lessons taught formally. They were absorbed, over many years, by being in the room while Leela worked. By watching. By eventually participating. By inheriting.

The Wider Inheritance

The name also points outward, beyond my own family. Ayurvedic knowledge is itself an inheritance — a body of understanding accumulated over thousands of years, refined through practice, and passed from teacher to student, mother to daughter, across a vast stretch of human time.

When I formulate a product, I am not inventing something. I am drawing on that inheritance, combining it with contemporary safety science, and making it available to people who might benefit from it but didn't grow up with access to it. That feels like a privilege and a responsibility in equal measure.

What We Pass Forward

I think about this often: what will the next generation inherit from us? What will they know about caring for themselves because we took the trouble to keep this knowledge alive and accessible?

I hope they'll know that the best ingredients have long histories. That ritual matters. That what works in a grandmother's kitchen might work in a flat in Manchester, or Edinburgh, or anywhere skin needs nourishment and kindness.

That's what "Inherited" means. It's about the past, yes. But it's also very much about what we pass forward.