Moon Mother Hemp Company is a woman-owned business with a focus on environmentally responsible hemp farming and safe hemp supplements. Moon Mother Hemp’s founder, Jessica Bates, is a certified clinical herbalist who has spent the last 10 years working with medicinal herbs. As such, Bates is passionate about the development of sustainable health and beauty products.
Bates’ interests lie in formulating and creating products for women’s health and wellbeing, such as the Wise Woman Bath Salts and the Wise Woman Healing Balm for menstrual relief. Just over a year ago, Bates and her partner, Edward, who has over a decade of experience in cannabis cultivation, combined their experiences and love for plants to collaborate on Moon Mother Hemp Company. The mother of two young children, Bates ensures that Moon Mother Hemp Company provides not only the cleanest possible supplements, but does so in a way that helps preserve the environment for generations to come. We asked her a few questions about hemp production, integrity and sustainability in a world now saturated with hemp and CBD products.
Boulder Weekly: What inspired Moon Mother Hemp to put down roots and grow in Boulder?
Jessica Bates: We are part of the Boulder community and have been since before the conception of Moon Mother Hemp. We love raising our children here and doing business in Boulder. Our hemp plants have an amazing view of the mountains while they soak up the sun under Colorado blue skies.
BW: What does a “day in the life” of a lead herbalist look like?
JB: On a very normal day, this lead herbalist answers a lot of emails and does clerical work. I am back and forth between my home office and our retail store in Boulder, organizing the day-to-day workings of the company. On a fun day, I am in the lab and kitchen experimenting and formulating new products. It takes months for a new product and formula to unfold, and creating and testing is my favorite part of the work.
BW: Moon Mother Hemp is committed to providing the highest quality and purest CBD wellness products possible. Can you walk us through what exactly that means to you, and why it’s important in a community recently hyped on CBD?
JB: First it starts with the farm and the soil. We have partnered with a local certified organic farm to insure that the soil that we are working with is clean and free of pesticides and heavy metals. This is extremely important because hemp is a bioaccumulator and will absorb any residual toxins in the soil from previous crops. Our hemp plants are all started from seed by our own team and tended by us. We literally know each plant personally and ensure quality and purity through organic practices. Our hemp is certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture so we are doing the legwork in advance for our customers in having our organic practices and standards verified by a third party. Our certified organic hemp is accompanied by only certified organic ingredients including our carrier oils, steam-distilled essential oils, herbs and more. We carefully choose each ingredient for specific therapeutic benefits and source them from reputable and ethical companies to ensure that our impact on this planet is a positive one.
BW: Tell me more about growing hemp in Boulder. What is Moon Mother’s operation like, and what’s one surprising thing people might not know about the hemp growing process?
JB: We were tremendously blessed to partner with one of Boulder County’s most successful and experienced organic farmers. He contributed a wealth of knowledge about farming in general, and that combined with our farm manager Ed Bates’ 10-plus years of cannabis cultivation made our crop a success. We started each plant from seed in the spring and harvested each plant by hand in the fall. It was a huge learning process, and we are excited to do it again this year. Growing hemp in Boulder County and the Front Range in general is a bit more challenging than growing in other parts of the state. One big challenge that we faced last year was being hit with a severe hail storm on our field about two weeks after we had planted the hemp. Luckily there wasn’t too much damage and the plants survived the storm.
BW: How is CBD extracted from hemp?
JB: Our full spectrum hemp extract is made with the safe and clean supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction method, which is a process where CO2 is turned into a liquid and pressurized in order to extract beneficial components of the hemp plant.
BW: Looking to the future of the CBD industry, what are you most looking forward to?
JB: I’m looking forward to nationwide standardized regulations around CBD. This is extremely important for consumers because CBD is widely unregulated and it is a matter of public health and safety at this point, with different companies across the country putting little-to-no actual hemp extract, or using harmful synthetics and other potentially toxic ingredients in their products. It will also be nice for the manufacturers to have standardized regulations as different states and cities are all creating their own, different regulations and hoops to jump through.
BW: Are there any general or public misconceptions you’d like to set straight about CBD?
JB: There are so many misconceptions about hemp that it is hard to choose, but one of the biggest misconceptions is that hemp is a different plant than cannabis from the dispensary. The hemp that we grow in our field is literally the same plant that is grown for THC. It is just different cultivars or strains bred for high quantities of one cannabinoid or another. Another is that hemp is the male plant. The flowers produced by the female plant are the parts of the plant that carry the most cannabinoids including CBD and THC, the terpenes and other therapeutic constituents.
BW: What’s one product you’d encourage a first-time CBD buyer to try?
JB: My go-to product for first-time buyers is our 1000 MG Full Spectrum Hemp Extract Tincture in the peppermint flavor. It is our best seller and a customer favorite for so many health issues from anxiety, sleep disorders, pain, inflammation and more.
BW: What’s your favorite Moon Mother product? Why?
JB: My favorite Moon Mother product is our GLOW skin serum because it keeps your skin healthy and glowing even in our dry Colorado climate.
Editor’s note: Quotes from this conversation have been edited for clarity.
