The pieces just fell together.
Gretchen Miller was already studying herbalism and whipping up natural salves for family and friends when she signed up for a cannabis therapy consulting course.
“I studied the biology of cannabis, the spirit of cannabis, and then medicine-making, so we learned how to make all these applications using cannabis.” Miller tells Eaze. “I incorporated all I’d learned in my cannabis course into what I’d already been making and … it kind of blossomed into this company.”
Her experimentations eventually became Kiskanu, maker of all-natural, hemp-CBD infused skincare products since 2015. Its best-selling potion, the (non-psychoactive) CBD Skin Rub, is based on one of her original formulations.
Click the image below to shop for Kiskanu CBD Skin Rub:
And the brand has another source of plant expertise: Miller’s business partner (and husband), Jason, is cannabis farmer in Humboldt County, California.
Kiskanu products have always relied on home-grown plants.
“My husband was growing the cannabis on the farm, and I was using Kiskanu Farms cannabis to put in our products,” Miller says. “So it’s this great symbiotic relationship that we have.”
Miller was a professed cannabis fan by the time she moved to Humboldt in 2006. She started exploring herbalism studies and fell in love with the power of plants. She learned which herbs and essential oils benefited which conditions. Like many of her classmates, she started making tinctures, teas and salves and trading them with other aspiring herbalists at community get-togethers.
Still, she noticed a significant difference when she started infusing her homemade formulas with hemp extracts. The people she gave them to did, too.
“It’s a huge, active ingredient – probably the most active ingredient in the product,” she says of
Kiskanu’s blends made from cold-pressed oils and herbs. Besides full-spectrum CBD grown in the U.S., the brand’s Skin Rub contains St. John’s Wort to promote nerve regeneration and comfrey to aid tissue repair.
Click the image below to shop for Kiskanu Intimacy Oil:
“I had a lot of people with eczema who found the cannabis was really helpful with irritated skin,” she says. “It just had so many topical benefits on top of pain relief: It’s an antioxidant, it’s anti-inflammatory … so while you’re feeling the pain relief, there’s so much going on at a cellular level that’s also healing.”
Kiskanu’s CBD-infused creams are so effective, Miller says even her cannabis-cynic relatives
are using them now.
“Our families were always huge skeptics of us and our lifestyle and our choices. We’ve gotten most of them to try our topicals, and they’ve worked for them. Now they’re believers,” Miller says. “If you can convert those kinds of people, there’s hope for the world.”
Kiskanu supports Equity First Alliance.
That hope for the world extends to Kiskanu’s support of Equity Alliance. From Dec. 12 to Dec. 21, a portion of the proceeds from sales of Kiskanu will go toward the nonprofit coalition’s goal of repairing the harms of the failed War on Drugs.