Scandinavian Gold: Foraging for Cloudberry
Leaving the sophisticated museums and eclectic architecture of city life behind, you’ll soon be surrounded by Scandinavia’s natural beauty. The landscape is peaceful, serene and seemingly endless. And it is in that great beyond where you’ll find the elusive cloudberry – which, by the way, is technically not a berry. It’s more precisely a cluster of small fruits. Nonetheless, the tiny cloudberry is as coveted as gold.
Just as Scandinavians delight in the midnight sun, they also get a thrill from foraging for cloudberries. Between July and August, families, like that of Eleni & Chris, begin their harvest in forests and marshlands for hours, looking for the perfect shade of orange – not too red, not too orange. It turns out that the cloudberry fruit becomes paler the riper it gets, ranging from a dark cherry red to light orange. And to make it more interesting, there is only one prized berry on each stalk.
To embark on your own foraging adventure, you will need water-proof boots, a strong mosquito repellant and an excellent guide, as the best places to find cloudberries are family secrets passed down from generation to generation. As you can gather, it’s more of a treasure hunt than your traditional berry picking experience. Hence the reason why many locals become protective about their patch, going to great lengths to keep them hidden.
Once you have your bucket of cloudberries, there are quite a number of things you can do with them. You can certainly have them fresh from the marsh or turn them into a jam. You can indulge in Cloudberry cream, the national desert of northern Norway, or drink a Lakka, the traditional liqueur of Finland. Or you can apply its seed oil to your hair and skin for amazing results…that is if you have help from Eleni & Chris.
When Eleni & Chris were developing their products, their goal was to create a collection made from the purest ingredients sourced directly from the Scandinavian environment. And what is more Scandi than a cloudberry? So, you can forgo the foraging adventure and still enjoy the benefits of cloudberry when you add and Eleni & Chris product to your cart.
Below are two recommended products as unique as their featured ingredient to get you started:
Pure Treatment Oil
The best hair oils can take on many roles, like leave-in conditioner, styling cream, frizz serum, and shine spray. Not only can this cloudberry-infused Pure Treatment Oil do it all, it was recognized as a winner by The Knot Beauty Awards in 2018. This product provides plenty of moisture and helps rebuild damaged hair. Can be used in both wet and dry hair. It protects against heat up to 200˚F, harmful UV rays and is color preserving.
