OUR STORY
$5 from every bottle of RUVI purchased is donated to Recursos Amazónicos to provide climbing gear and training for local harvesters. Together, we can save wild Palms and contribute to local economies to improve livelihoods.
From the Peruvian Amazon
The name RUVI is derived from the word PERUVIAN. RUVI is harnessing the near-miraculous power and benefits of Oenocarpus bataua (ba-tah-wa) superfruit, carefully harvested by locals in the Amazonian jungles of Peru. Bataua Oil has been an Amazonian beauty secret for centuries but is still virtually unknown to the rest of the world. The revitalizing, age-defying benefits of this oil for skin and hair are truly remarkable.
Preventing Deforestation
But there is much more to the modern part of this story than a game changing beauty serum. It all started with a team of two: Tarek Milleron, an ecologist from California, and Italo Mesones, a forester from Iquitos Peru who have dedicated decades to working with small communities in the Amazon to conserve their forests and traditional ways of life. Deforestation is one of the biggest threats and challenges facing the Amazon and its indigenous people and species. Italo and Tarek knew how vital Bataua Fruit is to the local ecosystem and human diet, but they also observed how trees are most often cut down to harvest their fruit, destroying the forest and resulting in degradation of the native ecosystem.
The Solution Is Climbing
Bataua Fruit grows on 50-foot tall, smooth palm tree trunks making it difficult to climb. Tarek, an avid rock-climber, set out to design and manufacture modern climbing gear that would make it much easier and safer for harvesters to scale the trunks and harvest the fruit without harming the trees. In 2018 Tarek met EVOLVh Haircare founder Boris Oak and shared with Boris his vision for reversing the devastating effects of deforestation by teaching harvesters to use this climbing gear in Peru and across northern South America. Additionally, Tarek and Italo had formed a small company to promote sustainable palm fruit harvests across the Peruvian Amazon.
Beauty for Good
To make the Bataua Oil market with sustainability as a key concern requires resources, and thus Boris’ vision for RUVI Beauty for Good was born. RUVI would purchase Bataua Oil which creates revenue to help further the mission of teaching harvesters to replace cutting with climbing as well as to grow the local economy.
Together, we can make an impact that will reverberate for generations to come.
