A South Australian natural skincare company, which grows almost all its flowers and herbs biodynamically, is beating the big French beauty product companies at their own game.

Jurlique, founded by German immigrants Jurgen and Ulrike Klein 34 years ago, has a turnover of more than $150 million and outsells all other brands in Australia, according to chief operations manager Jon Westover.

"There are industry monitors who add up all the revenue from different outlets and sum it up and whoever is number one is number one, and that is Jurlique," he said.

"We are competing directly against some of the synthetic brands, like Clarins and Clinique and those sorts of guys, but also the more-natural brands, like L'Occitane and Aesop."

The company grows 30 different botanicals, such as roses, lavender, yarrow, marshmallow, chamomile and pansies, on a 42-hectare property near Mylor in the Adelaide Hills.

The four tonnes of petals, flowers and herbs they pick entirely by hand each year are grown using biodynamic principles.

Each flower is handpicked, cleaned and dried to make potent extracts for skincare products. ( ABC News: Prue Adams )

The secret's in the soil

Biodynamics is a form of alternative agriculture similar to organic farming, developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the 1920s.

The core philosophy is that healthy soil makes healthy plants and there's a range of unusual and sometimes controversial preparations that are added to the soil and the atmosphere to increase the "life force" of plants.

The main preparation is something called 500: horns from dead cows that had been lactating are filled with cow manure and buried over autumn and winter.

The resulting rich humus is added to water in a specific way and can be sprayed on plants or added in small homeopathic quantities to the soil.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 4 seconds 1 m 4 s Jurlique grows almost all its flowers and herbs using biodynamic methods

There are other biodynamic preparations too:

502 is formed by yarrow blossoms stuffed in the urinary bladders of red deer;

502 is formed by yarrow blossoms stuffed in the urinary bladders of red deer; 503 is made by chamomile blossoms placed in the intestines of cows;

503 is made by chamomile blossoms placed in the intestines of cows; And 505 results from oak bark, chopped into small pieces and placed into the cow's skull and buried.

There are no chemical fertilisers or pesticides used.

The farm works on a four-crop rotation and uses companion-planting techniques, such as planting garlic next to roses to deter harmful aphids.

The company dries the flower heads, herbs and petals to make very potent extracts, which are added to emulsifiers and thickeners to produce the natural skin care.

Roses and chamomile flowers are mainstays on the farm. ( ABC News: Prue Adams )

Standing out in the crowd

Senior formulator Valerie Laviolette claims natural skin care can be more difficult to make because there are fewer ingredients to choose from than in synthetic skin products.

"It can take 50 formulas to get one product," she said.

Farm production manager Cherie Hutchinson claims all products can be traced back to the farm.

"We can trace where we get our seed stock from, which is from the previous season, all the way to when the plant is planted to when it goes into our drying shed and who has done it, what time, what date, where," she said.

Ms Hutchinson says a consumer could trace their product all the way back to the growing fields. ( ABC News: Prue Chapman )

Mr Westover adds: "We talk about seed to skin, so we manage everything from the seeds in the ground all the way through to the consumer's skin."

He said when the company started in the 1980s, there were very few natural skincare products on the market, but now it's a crowded and challenging marketplace with many companies, and not all of them are honest about their credentials.

"There's a lot of brands that say they are natural but they are not natural," he said.

"There's a lot of greenwashing.

"The problem with the regulatory environment is that it is very weak and there are no international standards that make sense in every country, so the customer is confused in terms of what is the benefit of this product vs the alternative."

About 70 per cent of the sales are overseas, with China the biggest international market.

In a cut-throat marketplace, the company knows it needs to keep growing its customer base from the ground up. ( ABC News: Prue Adams )

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