It goes without saying that we are skincare junkies. We are undiscriminating and will try anything and everything that crosses our desks—which also means we know the good from the bad. So when we heard that Leila Janah’s new LXMI line boasts an ingredient that you can only find in her products—and that it does miraculous things in the moisture department (which is pretty much what we’re talking about when we talk about skincare)—well, we tried it. And we did our research (journalism!). And in doing so found out that Janah discovered Nilotica (the aforementioned miracle ingredient) by chance during a trip to Uganda, that it cured her travel-worn skin (can we please?), and that when she looked into its production, she realized that by harvesting the plant and producing in volume, she could employ Northern Ugandan women and provide much needed income (up to three times the local average). Miracle, indeed.
“I travel to Northern Uganda to source our rare Nilotica, the powerful superfood in our inaugural LXMI collection,” Janah says. “Getting there is pretty intense—this time I flew from Mumbai to Nairobi, and then on to Kampala, Uganda’s capital, finally taking a 6-hour 4x4 ride to the north on bumpy dirt roads. I love it there. Things move at a different pace and I have more time to take in stunning sunsets, sunrises, and the natural beauty of pristine land and big sky.” We obviously wanted to come along, but schedules (and budgets) being what they are, we got the next best thing, Janah’s diary of her most recent trip.
Click through the photos to read more about the real miracle: how Ugandan women have been able to lift themselves up by harvesting Nilotica.
