Why We Built Ara Essentials

Our brand did not start with a logo. It started with a gap we kept seeing. Lampung’s social forests were producing valuable non timber forest products. Families harvested candlenut, nutmeg, and cardamom in ways that kept trees standing. Yet most of the value left the villages as raw material. The result was predictable. Income was seasonal and thin. Young people felt pressure to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, the beauty and personal care industry that uses these botanicals was growing faster every year. We asked a simple question. What if we built a brand that connected those worlds, fairly and professionally, and kept more value where the ingredients begin.

The problem we saw

Indonesia’s social forestry program is large by any measure. The government has set a national target of allocating 12.7 million hectares to communities under social forestry schemes that improve access and stewardship. This is not an abstract number. It is the result of years of policy work designed to share rights and responsibilities with people who live with forests.

Zoom in to Lampung, where Ara Essentials is rooted. As of March 2024 the Provincial Forestry Service reported 381 approvals covering about 206,086 hectares managed by 93,344 households. A local news update in early 2025 cited the same trend with a household count of 94,439. These are families who already know how to work the land and already harvest non timber products that do not require cutting trees.

At the same time, the market pull is real. The Indonesian Cosmetics Association, known as Perkosmi, projected the domestic beauty and personal care market at around IDR 158 trillion in 2025, up from roughly IDR 146 trillion the year before. That is a signal to build value chains that include smallholders, not exclude them.

Non timber forest products, often abbreviated NTFPs, are widely recognized in research and policy as a livelihood pathway when managed and marketed well. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines non wood forest products as goods of biological origin other than wood from forests and trees outside forests. Research communities such as CIFOR‑ICRAF have studied how better production and marketing of NTFPs can improve smallholder incomes while keeping forests standing. The challenge is not potential. The challenge is execution.

The path we chose

Ara Essentials exists to turn that potential into practice. We built around three commitments. First, people. We work directly with farmer groups and cooperatives in Pesawaran and align with the Forest Management Unit known locally as KPH Pesawaran. Public programs in the province are already coaching producer groups and testing agroforestry combinations such as cardamom understory. We stand on that backbone and co‑invest in training, procurement, and fair pay.

Second, product. We moved from raw to refined so more value stays with the communities who are doing careful work. That means modern standards. We manufacture under a system aligned to ISO 22716 Good Manufacturing Practices, register finished formulas with BPOM, and design all fragrance levels within IFRA safety standards. Labels are built so any customer can verify our notification numbers in the BPOM database.

Third, planet. Indonesia’s Forestry and Other Land Use agenda, called FOLU Net Sink 2030, sets a national direction for forests to absorb more greenhouse gases than they emit by 2030. The operational plan is enshrined in a Ministerial Decree and targets a net level of minus 140 million tons of CO₂ equivalent in 2030. When communities earn more by harvesting non timber products without cutting trees, standing forests are economically valuable as forests. We design our sourcing and harvest schedules to support that logic.

Our purpose is simple. Take what is already good in Lampung, add professional manufacturing and compliance, and tell the story honestly. The world does not need another brand that overclaims. It needs brands that connect daily routines to real places and people. That is why we built Ara Essentials. We want you to enjoy a shampoo, lotion, or balm that feels good now and supports the landscapes that will matter tomorrow.