Pacific Northwest Plants for Skin: A Wildcrafted Field Guide
Before There Were Serums, There Was the Forest
Herbalist Scott Kloos once observed that most people in modern industrial societies can identify over 100 corporate logos, yet fewer than 10 plants growing right outside their door.
The Pacific Northwest forest, riverbank, and coastal understory have never stopped offering. This bioregion, stretching from the wet slopes of the Coast Range to the Columbia River Gorge, is a living apothecary. The concept of bioregional beauty begins here: skincare rooted not in a lab or a trend cycle, but in a specific place and ecosystem.
It is also important to recognize that this knowledge does not begin with us. Indigenous peoples of this region—including Coast Salish and Grand Ronde communities, among many others—have cultivated deep relationships with these plants over millennia. What follows exists within that broader lineage of place-based knowledge, alongside contemporary herbal practice and emerging scientific understanding.
This is a field guide to a handful of the plants we work with directly—plants that move from landscape to skin through careful harvest and slow preparation.
What Makes a Wildcrafted Ingredient Different
There is a meaningful distinction between a wildcrafted botanical and one grown in a cultivated organic bed.
Wild plants deal with shifting weather, poor soils, competition for light, and the presence of animals. These pressures shape how a plant grows, often concentrating the compounds that give it its aromatic, astringent, or soothing qualities.
At Deschampsia, this is the foundation of our plant-to-bottle approach. We harvest many of our ingredients by hand in the Pacific Northwest, then slowly infuse, distill, or otherwise prepare each material in-house. The goal is not speed—it’s preserving the full character of the plant.
Wildcrafting, when done with restraint, produces ingredients that are not only potent but traceable, and deeply connected to place.
Nettle for Skin and Hair: Structure and Foundation
Nettle grows abundantly across the Pacific Northwest, along forest edges, riverbanks, and recently disturbed soils where nutrients are actively cycling. Its presence often signals rich ground.
Often avoided because of its sting, nettle is one of the most mineral-dense plants in this region. It contains silica, iron, calcium, and chlorophyll, alongside a range of plant compounds long valued in traditional herbal preparations for both skin and hair.
The leaves are typically gathered in early spring—late March through early May—when the plant is still young and tender. At this stage, the mineral content is high and the fibers have not yet toughened, making it ideal for infusion.
When worked into topical preparations, nettle is most often infused slowly, allowing its mineral content to move into the medium over time. The resulting infusion carries a subtle green character—both in scent and feel—and brings a sense of structure to the skin.
Nettle is not a dramatic plant in formulation. It does not overwhelm or dominate. Instead, it acts as a foundation—supporting the overall integrity of a blend and contributing to skin and hair that feel stronger over time.
Nettle appears across a number of our formulations, particularly those designed for daily use and long-term support. You can find it in our Harmonizing Botanical Serum, Nettle + Green Tea Clay Face Mask, Hair & Scalp Elixir, and Active Botanical Hair Wash Bar, where its mineral-rich structure plays a foundational role.
Yarrow for Skin: Astringent and Cleansing
Yarrow grows in open meadows, roadside edges, and sunlit clearings throughout the Pacific Northwest, often in compacted or disturbed soils. It is a plant that tends to bring order to its environment, and that same quality carries into how it works on the skin.
Its feathery leaves and clusters of white flowers contain volatile oils, flavonoids, and tannins—compounds that contribute to its naturally astringent and cleansing qualities. In traditional herbal practice, yarrow has long been associated with bringing clarity and balance to the skin.
Both the leaves and flowers are used, each offering a slightly different expression. The leaves carry more of the plant’s bitter, green, and structural qualities, while the flowers contribute a softer aromatic profile.
Yarrow can be gathered across a broad window—from spring through summer and into early fall—though it is most aromatic and complete when harvested in full bloom.
When infused into oils or distilled into hydrosols, yarrow produces preparations that feel lightly tightening and clarifying. This is especially useful for skin that feels congested or unsettled.
At the same time, yarrow can be drying if used on its own. In formulation, it is usually buffered with more emollient or soothing ingredients. This is where yarrow actually works best—present, but balanced.
Yarrow appears across a range of our formulations, particularly those designed to clarify, balance, and bring structure to the skin. You can find it in our Glowing Floral Serum, Rescue Balm, Botanical Lip Butter, Desert Rain Hydrosol, and Desert Magic Balm, where its astringent qualities are balanced with more emollient and aromatic ingredients.
Douglas Fir for Skin: Spring Tips and Resin
Douglas Fir defines much of the Pacific Northwest landscape, shaping both the structure of the forest and the atmosphere within it.
In mid spring through early summer, depending on elevation, the tree produces bright green tips, soft, tender new growth that emerges briefly before hardening into mature needles. These tips carry a distinctly vibrant aromatic profile, with notes of citrus, evergreen, and a subtle tartness that gives them a fresh, almost effervescent quality.
We harvest these tips when they are still soft to the touch and at their most expressive. Preparations made from this material tend to feel lifted and diffusive on the skin, carrying the brightness of early growth.
In contrast, Douglas fir resin offers a slower, more grounded expression of the tree. It forms as a protective response, sealing wounds in the bark and hardening over time. When gently collected and infused, the resin produces a deeper, more tenacious aromatic profile, warm, slightly sweet, and closely tied to the structure of the forest.
Resin forms as the tree’s response to injury, sealing and protecting exposed areas of bark. When worked into topical preparations, it carries a similar character, creating a layer on the skin that feels protective and grounding, especially where the surface feels dry or compromised.
Where the spring tips move outward and upward, the resin holds and anchors. Working with both reveals the full range of the tree’s expression.
Douglas fir appears across a number of our formulations, particularly those that capture both its bright, lifted aromatic qualities and its deeper resinous character. You can find it in our Douglas Fir Hydrosol, Douglas Fir Aromatic Resin Perfume Oil, Gentle Giants Tree Resin Balm, Botanical Infused Beard Balm, Glowing Floral Serum, and Harmonizing Botanical Serum, where different parts of the tree are used to express its full range.
Black Cottonwood Bud Oil: Balm of Gilead in Early Spring
Black Cottonwood—also known as balsam poplar—grows along rivers, floodplains, and wet lowlands throughout the Pacific Northwest, in landscapes shaped by seasonal water and movement.
In early spring, typically March into April, its buds swell with a sticky, resinous coating that releases a deep balsamic scent into the cool air. This is often one of the first clear signals that the seasonal cycle is shifting.
Cottonwood is usually the first plant we harvest each year.
The buds are gathered just before they open, when resin content is at its peak. At this stage, they are firm, aromatic, and coated in a dense layer of protective resin. When handling them during harvest, that resin can leave a slight numbing sensation on the fingers, a direct, physical expression of the plant’s chemistry. Once infused slowly into oil over several weeks, they release that resin into the medium, creating a preparation that is both aromatic and substantial in feel.
On the skin, cottonwood bud oil has a soft, coating quality, less about quick absorption and more about forming a protective layer that lingers. Its scent stays close to the body, unfolding gradually with warmth, balsamic, slightly sweet, and often carrying a distinct honeyed depth.
Like other tree resins, cottonwood bud oil carries a quality that is both protective and active on the skin. When handled fresh, the resin can leave the fingers slightly numbed and warmed at the same time, a sensation that reflects how it interacts with the surface of the body.
In the Pacific Northwest, cottonwood resin is also one of the primary components of local bee propolis, where bees gather it from the buds and use it to line and protect the hive.
The harvest window is brief, and gathering enough material takes time and patience. Because of this, cottonwood-based preparations are limited and seasonal in nature. We work with what is available each year, and when it is gone, it is gone, until the next harvest.
Cottonwood appears in a small number of our formulations, where its resinous qualities are allowed to remain present and intact. You can find it in our Black Cottonwood Aromatic Resin Perfume Oil and Relief Balm – Botanical Comfort Balm, where its depth and protective character come through most clearly.
How to Wildcraft Responsibly
Wildcrafting requires more than knowledge. It requires restraint.
A common guideline is to harvest only a small portion of any given plant population, allowing it to regenerate and remain part of the ecosystem it belongs to. But in practice, responsible harvesting goes beyond percentages. It involves reading the landscape, paying attention to plant density, age, and overall health before taking anything at all.
I often think of foraging more like an herbivore, moving through a landscape and taking a small amount from many plants, rather than heavily from any single one. Herbivores do not strip a plant entirely. They graze across abundance, allowing individual plants to recover and continue growing.
Working this way spreads impact across a population instead of concentrating it, and it mirrors how these ecosystems are already designed to function. It also naturally limits how much is taken, keeping harvests in proportion to what the landscape can sustain.
Another guiding principle is to work only with abundant species. Plants that are rare, slow-growing, or under ecological pressure are left untouched. The focus stays on species that can sustain harvesting without disruption, allowing the surrounding ecosystem to remain intact.
Proper identification is essential, as is awareness of the surrounding environment. Harvesting should always take place away from roadsides, polluted waterways, and chemically treated land, where plants may carry unseen contamination.
Timing also matters. Not just the season, but the moment within the plant’s growth cycle. Harvesting too early or too late changes the character of the material entirely. Learning when a plant is at its peak, whether that is early leaf, full bloom, or resin set, is part of the practice.
This way of working is informed by training in ecology and years spent doing plant identification and fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest. It is not just about recognizing species, but about understanding patterns, how plants grow in relation to one another, how they respond to disturbance, and how to move through a landscape without degrading it.
For most people, the most responsible way to access wildcrafted botanicals is through small-scale producers who harvest with care and accountability. This protects both the land and the integrity of the final preparation.
At its best, wildcrafting is not extraction. It is participation, taking only what can be spared, and leaving the landscape intact for what comes next.
Reading the Forest as a Skincare Practice
Wildcrafting is not a single event, but a cycle shaped by season.
Cottonwood buds in early spring. Nettle in the first flush of green. Douglas fir tips as the season opens and moves upward in elevation. Yarrow through the warmth of summer and into early fall.
Taken together, these plants form a rhythm that follows the landscape rather than a fixed production schedule.
Working this way means letting availability shape formulation. Some materials are only present for a short window each year. Others can be gathered more broadly. Each one requires a different kind of attention.
A formulation is not simply a list of ingredients. It reflects when materials are gathered and how they are combined. Astringent plants are balanced with more emollient ones. Structural plants support more active materials. Aromatics influence how the whole is experienced.
Over time, this becomes a way of reading the landscape. Not just recognizing plants, but understanding when they appear and how they can be used.
This way of working is the foundation of Deschampsia. Long before there were finished products, there was time spent foraging, observing, and learning how these plants behave in place. The formulations came later, shaped by those experiences rather than the other way around.
These plants are only a small part of a much larger landscape. The work continues beyond them, shaped by what is available, when it appears, and how it can be used.
The forest has always offered these materials. The shift is in learning how to see them again, and how to work with them in a way that keeps that relationship intact.
Explore our full collection of wildcrafted botanical skincare →
Written by Jonathan Deschamps, herbalist and founder of Deschampsia, with a background in ecology and field-based plant study in the Pacific Northwest.