A range of short blog stories will follow in the next several weeks about beautiful long old-fashioned train journeys across Europe. The goal? To find the world’s very best natural and organic cosmetic ingredients.

For Paul Penders products, the ingredients must be simply the ultimate in quality. I go out myself regularly to search for them wherever in the world I may happen to be, and… by train! China, Southeast Asia, India, North America, Eastern Europe, or as 5 months ago and again this month, Southern Europe.

My last travel experience was in Italy. I was searching for the best olive oil and actually found it! Sitting in the fast train from Paris to Rome! In our cabin, the right person appeared; he was sitting right across from me in a comfortable chair. We started talking (what else one can do on a train in Italy!) and I discovered he owned a small organic vineyard. Then he mentioned he had a small organic production olive oil farm – family-owned in Sicily! We visited him a few days later. It turned out to be the best olive oil we could ever find and…. we made great new friends as well.

As I write this blog in May 2013, I am still traveling, now in Marseille, France – importantly to me, it’s the largest natural soap capital in the world.

Our search for the newest and best ingredients has brought us to France and Spain on this journey. The objective this time is to find the very best essential oils.

We found some very intriguing places in Southern France; near Avignon, there is in a small town, a “Musee de la Lavande.” Visiting the museum was a real pleasure and a learning experience as well. They gave us insider information about the highest quality organic lavender and lavender essential oil, as well as the growing and production processes.

We journeyed on to Spain in search of sea plankton at the Atlantic coast, as described by a friend from the US but I couldn’t find the source. However, there I also looked at rock mountains that yield mica the color of gold. This mica is an ingredient we can use in our natural color cosmetics. How much more organic can that be?

While in France, I talked to upscale hair salons in Paris and Aix-en-Provence about washing hair naturally.

We are developing a totally new and exciting natural shampoo; the best I have ever made in 40 years in the natural beauty industry. It has two separate layers and the bottle must be shaken before use to mix the ingredients. It is simply the best for moisturizing hair. An unusual feature, at the bottom of the container, you will see a little mineral mud that comes from a jungle waterfall in Malaysia. We got wonderful reviews of the new shampoo from a selected test panel from several different countries. Dr. Gatot is our experienced senior cosmetic chemist who is working hard on the many little details involved in making the final formulation.

Many stories emerged on this trip. In between the 6 weeks of traveling, I also visited some of my family and friends as well. And there is a real story in itself about the train! To me a Eurrail pass beats flying, hands down. In one of the next blog issues, I will tell you more about this amazing rail pass and how to take advantage of it – it’s luxury 1^st class traveling and very cheap actually!

All these interesting experiences have had the same ultimate goal – finding better quality cosmetic products, more natural ingredients, and ultimately the best skin care, hair care, body care and mineral beauty products possible.

We never have wanted to be the largest company but we are trying to be the best!

Lastly, I am asking you to rate us -- how are we doing?

• Do you read most of our blogs or only seldom?
• Do you like the topics or not?
• Would you like to have other topics covered?

Thanks for your trust in our 100% vegetarian natural herbal cosmetics made with organic ingredients and proudly carrying the official Halal certificate for each and every one of our products.

Subscribe to the Paul Penders Newsletter

Share this post, download zipfile with the html code