The Curious Case of a Missing Chunk of Flesh: How a Vanuatu Earthquake and a Beer Bottle Started Tree Fairy Natural Skincare
There are better ways to start a skincare brand than having your fingers inside your own face.
But here we are.
I was working on a project in Vanuatu. If you have never been, Vanuatu is a place where earthquakes happen several times a week and everyone just steps over the giant cracks in the ground and carries on. It is very much a vibe. The food where I was staying was awful, and frankly everything smelled like fart, so I had developed a routine of heading to Bon Marche supermarket for fresh French bread, cheese, salad, and yoghurt. Small joys.
One evening I was reorganising the fridge, beer bottle balanced on top. There was a heavy movement. The bottle dropped. I looked down at the mess on the floor and thought, very calmly, "I'll go get a towel."
Off I walked to get a towel.
Then it hit me. Not another earthquake. The delayed realisation of what had actually just happened. I put my fingers to my face and touched something nobody ever wants to touch. My fingers were inside my face. Right next to my eye.
The calm was honestly impressive
I walked into the bathroom. Blood was coming out like a tap on full. I grabbed a towel, applied pressure, waited. No improvement. I headed down to reception, they called ahead to the local hospital, and bundled me into the manager's car. It was amazing how utterly calm and methodical I was.
It took two nurses holding my face together while I was stitched. No numbing. I was in shock. They kept asking if I wanted to lie down. I said no. A few minutes after the stitching was done, the doctor came to check on me and I threw up all over him. Honestly, he deserved a hazard bonus.
The part that actually mattered
The physical injury was bad enough. A 50 cent sized chunk of flesh, scooped out, up to the eye socket. The injury missed taking my eye by less than a millimetre.
But the real trauma came from my company's response. When I reported it, the only question, really more of an order, was whether I was still operational to continue the project. Nobody checked on me. Not once.
So I sat in my hotel room. My whole left side black and blue. Face wonky. Speaking uncomfortable because the tightness was relentless, like toothache but deeper and constant. With no flesh under the stitches, just a deep indent and some nerve damage, I was using the most expensive moisturisers, serums, and hydrators money could buy.
Nothing touched it.
Months later when I got home, my GP referred me to a surgeon. The verdict was delivered with the warmth of a tax return. A graft would look as bad. Nothing could be done. Learn to live with it. It was as good as it would get.
Right. Thanks for that.
So I started researching
I researched ingredients. I tested on myself. Within days, the pain had significantly reduced and the tightness was easing. Days after that, both were near enough gone completely.
Then the scar started softening.
That was the magic. That right there. The battle scar had developed a hard shell after its war with a beer bottle, and the softening was everything. As it softened, it changed shape. The hard shell became soft, and then it became shallower and shallower, lighter and lighter. The more it softened, the more it transformed. Around eight months later I would mention it and people would squint and say they could barely see it.
I do not wear foundation anymore. My skin looks great without it.
I went from pondering full pirate chic and rehearsing "you should have seen the other guy" to having a scar that is barely visible. I still make pirate noises in the bathroom mirror, because you have to keep your humour about these things.
And that is how Tree Fairy started
Once I shared the story, the rest became a very happy history. People with scars sending me their results. Eczema sufferers, including children, getting great outcomes. People with dry, sensitive, and menopause skin finding something that actually worked. People who just wanted genuinely healthy skin finding it, without a beauty standard or a self-proclaimed influencer in sight.
Tree Fairy did not come from a lab or a brand agency or a trend report. It came from a hotel bathroom in Vanuatu, a beer bottle, and the very human need to stop being in pain.
No beauty standards. No self-proclaimed influencers. No gender roles. Just healthy skin. And healthy skin is your best skin.
