Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Hāna Botanicals

The Far North is one of the few places where mānuka and kānuka grow together in quantity on land that has never been intensively farmed. Kai Ora places its hives on that land by agreement with Māori landowners, and the honey, the mānuka oil and the kānuka oil that go into the skincare all come from the same supply chain rather than from a broker. Very little sits between the hive and the jar.

The plant side is handled the same way. Native botanicals are gathered by hand from regenerating native forest, picked at maturity and timed to the lunar cycle, a practice the family took from their tīpuna, who grew and gathered plants for weaving and for rongoā. Batches are small, made by hand, and the whole range is certified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free.

What makes Hāna Botanicals special

  • Owned and run by wahine Māori in Awanui, Te Tai Tokerau, and made in Aotearoa in small hand-blended batches.
  • Mānuka honey, mānuka oil and kānuka oil supplied by Kai Ora Honey, the family’s own apiary business.
  • Native botanicals hand-harvested from regenerating native forest, gathered at maturity and timed to the lunar cycle.
  • Formulated in partnership with Suzanne Hall MNZM, founder of Living Nature and one of the earliest formulators to work with mānuka honey and mānuka oil.
  • Certified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free, with no parabens, sulfates or synthetic additives.

Te Tai Tokerau is a long, narrow, sea-bounded region of warm winters, high light and regenerating bush. It is where the New Zealand natural skincare industry largely began, and where mānuka grows on the scrubby margins that were never worth clearing. Hāna Botanicals works within about an hour of where most of its raw material is gathered.

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The People Behind Hāna Botanicals

The People Behind Hāna Botanicals

Blanche Morrogh leads Kai Ora Honey, the family apiary business in the Far North that produces and manufactures the Hāna Botanicals range. She was named Young Māori Business Leader in 2017 and has represented the business on trade missions abroad. Hāna Botanicals is co-owned with Zhanae, who came into the business with a qualification in business and has spent several years building the skincare side of it.

The formulation work is shared with Suzanne Hall MNZM, who has spent close to four decades making skincare from New Zealand native plants. She founded Living Nature in Kerikeri in 1987, was among the first anywhere to build a range around mānuka honey and mānuka oil, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2005 for developing skincare in an ethical manner.

How Hāna Botanicals began

Kai Ora Honey started as a honey business: hives on Māori land, MGO-certified mānuka and kānuka, and export customers in Japan, Australia, France, Switzerland and Romania. Between 30 and 40 tonnes of mānuka honey leave the Far North each year under that name.

When the honey market tightened during the pandemic, the family decided the answer was to do more with the same raw material rather than less. Skincare was the obvious extension, since mānuka honey and mānuka oil were already in the building. The line was built out over the following years and later reformulated in partnership with Suzanne Hall, with the stated aim of keeping the work, and the employment, in Tai Tokerau.

Harvesting with the lunar cycle

Harvesting with the lunar cycle

Native plants are not gathered on a production schedule. Hāna Botanicals harvests according to the lunar cycle and at the point when a plant is mature, a method drawn from Māori practice and applied here to mamaku, the black tree fern, along with kawakawa, harakeke and the other natives that go into the range.

The practical effect is that harvesting stays light. Material is taken from regenerating native forest in quantities the forest can carry, which is the condition for being able to return to the same stands year after year. The family treats the regeneration of that bush as part of the business rather than as an offset to it.

Why this matters

  • The honey, the mānuka oil and the kānuka oil come from the family’s own hives rather than a commodity market.
  • Hives sit on Māori land under agreements with the landowners.
  • Native botanicals are hand-gathered from regenerating forest at maturity, not farmed at volume.
  • Manufacturing, employment and ownership all stay in Te Tai Tokerau.
  • The whole range carries toxic free, Made Safe and cruelty free certification.

“Hāna Botanicals puts the hive, the forest and the laboratory in the same set of hands, in one of the last corners of New Zealand where all three sit within an hour of each other.”

A Daily Ritual from Te Tai Tokerau

Each Hāna Botanicals product is built around ingredients that are gathered rather than manufactured, which is why the textures are what they are: honey-weighted, faintly resinous, quiet on the skin. The range is meant to be used simply, morning and evening, in a short sequence rather than a long one.

  • Mānuka honey from the family’s own Far North hives, at up to 60% of a formulation
  • Mamaku, the native black tree fern, hand-harvested from regenerating bush
  • Kānuka extract, jojoba seed oil, raspberry seed oil and hyaluronic acid
  • Certified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free throughout
  • Small batches, hand-blended in Aotearoa

The scent profile follows the ingredients. Mānuka honey brings a dark, faintly resinous sweetness, kānuka is drier and more herbal, and the rose damask oil in the mask sits over both.

Hāna Botanicals: What Sets Native New Zealand Botanicals Apart

New Zealand’s native flora evolved in isolation, which is why so little of it has a close equivalent anywhere else. Mānuka, kānuka and mamaku are not stand-ins for Mediterranean or tropical botanicals: they are their own thing, and they are the reason the country’s natural skincare sector exists at all.

QualityDescription
Mānuka honeyProduced by Kai Ora from hives on Māori land in the Far North, MGO certified, and used at up to 60% of the formulation in the face mask.
Mānuka and kānuka oilsDistilled from the same family supply chain. Kānuka, Kunzea ericoides, appears as an extract in the mask and elsewhere in the range.
MamakuThe native black tree fern, hand-harvested from regenerating native forest and used in the Pro-Aging Serum alongside hyaluronic acid and jojoba seed oil.
CertificationCertified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free, formulated without parabens, sulfates or synthetic additives.
ScaleSmall batches, hand-made in Awanui, with ownership, manufacturing and raw material all inside the same region.

The range reads as a set rather than a collection of separate launches, because the same handful of native ingredients runs through all of it in different concentrations and carriers.

Daily Use in a Simple Routine

Four Hāna Botanicals products are stocked here, and they are designed to layer in an obvious order. Nothing in the range demands a complicated regimen.

UseHow to Enjoy
Morning serumThe Brightening Vitamin C Serum with Mānuka Honey and Bee Venom, 30ml, applied thinly to cleansed skin before moisturiser or sunscreen.
Evening serumThe Pro-Aging Serum with Mānuka Honey and Mamaku, 30ml, worked into cleansed skin at night, with hyaluronic acid and jojoba seed oil carrying the native extracts.
Daily moisturiserThe Protective CQ10 Moisturiser, 50ml, light enough to sit under makeup, with jojoba and raspberry seed oils and native black fern, red seaweed and blackcurrant extracts.
Weekly maskThe Nutrient Rich Mānuka Face Mask, 50ml, at 60% mānuka honey with rose damask flower oil and kānuka extract. Rich, slow and best given time.
Patch testingThe brand recommends a patch test before first use, and particularly for anyone with a known bee venom allergy.

Store the serums and the mask away from direct sun and close the lids properly. Honey-rich formulations are stable but they are happier out of the heat.

Hāna Botanicals: Native New Zealand Skincare Rooted in Māori Heritage

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Hāna Botanicals

At Hāna Botanicals, sustainability is a condition of supply rather than a marketing position. The hives sit on Māori land by agreement with the landowners, the native botanicals come from regenerating forest, and both of those arrangements only continue if the land is left in a state to keep producing.

That logic shapes the harvesting: hand-gathered, timed to the lunar cycle and to plant maturity, at volumes the stands can carry. The company describes its aim as caring for Papatūānuku alongside the person using the product, and it commits to regenerating native forest as part of how it operates.

Their approach

A Māori family business in Awanui that keeps more than 500 hives with Māori landowners, exports 30 to 40 tonnes of mānuka honey a year, and then turns part of that same harvest into skincare made a few kilometres away has an unusually short line between land and label. Hāna Botanicals is co-owned by wahine Māori, manufactured by Kai Ora Honey, formulated with Suzanne Hall MNZM, certified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free, and built on native botanicals gathered by hand from bush the family is actively regenerating. The stated purpose is to hold employment and value in Te Tai Tokerau, a region that has historically exported both. The range has since been taken up beyond the Far North, including a native facial and spa range created for Wai Ariki Hot Springs and Spa on the Rotorua lakefront.

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Certified Toxic Free, Made Safe and Cruelty Free

Hāna Botanicals carries toxic free certification, Made Safe certification and cruelty free status across the range, and formulates without parabens, sulfates or synthetic additives. Those are audited standards rather than descriptive claims, which matters in a category where phrases like natural and clean carry no fixed definition. Behind them sits the traceability the family already had from the honey business: MGO-certified mānuka from known hive sites, native botanicals gathered by hand from identified stands of forest, and manufacturing in the same district.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Hāna Botanicals

  • What is Hāna Botanicals?

    Hāna Botanicals is a Māori wahine-owned natural skincare range made in Awanui in Te Tai Tokerau, the Far North of New Zealand. It is produced by Kai Ora Honey, a Māori family apiary business, and formulated in partnership with Suzanne Hall MNZM.

  • Where do the ingredients come from?

    The mānuka honey, mānuka oil and kānuka oil are supplied by Kai Ora Honey from more than 500 hives kept in partnership with Māori landowners in the Far North. The native botanicals, including mamaku, are hand-harvested from regenerating native forest in the same region.

  • What is mamaku?

    Mamaku is the New Zealand black tree fern, a large native fern found in the country’s forests. Its extract appears in the Pro-Aging Serum alongside mānuka honey, hyaluronic acid and jojoba seed oil.

  • Is the range certified?

    Yes. Hāna Botanicals is certified toxic free, Made Safe certified and cruelty free, and formulates without parabens, sulfates or synthetic additives. The mānuka honey used is MGO certified.

  • Who is Suzanne Hall?

    Suzanne Hall MNZM founded Living Nature at Kerikeri in 1987 and was among the first formulators anywhere to build a skincare range around mānuka honey and mānuka oil. She was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2005 for developing skincare in an ethical manner, and she partners with Hāna Botanicals on formulation.

  • Which products contain bee venom?

    The Brightening Vitamin C Serum with Mānuka Honey and Bee Venom. The brand recommends a patch test before first use, and particularly for anyone with a known bee venom allergy.

  • Who is Hāna Botanicals for?

    It suits people who want a short, uncomplicated routine and who care where the ingredients came from, including anyone looking for skincare made by the family that keeps the hives and gathers the plants.

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