MŌKAU’S Rae Tissott has unlocked the potential of her land by using everything on it to its fullest in her Kawakawa Kottage Krafts, including shampoo bars which she is pictured holding.
THERE’S always something happening in Rae Tissott’s workshop. Whether it be pouring soap into moulds, setting up the dehydrator for her freshly picked kawakawa leaves, or rosehips infusing on the shelf, a work is always in progress. The self-proclaimed hippie at heart beavers away most days creating cosmetics, teas and balms inspired from ingredients she finds in her own and others’ back gardens. Rae said on any given afternoon in summer she could be found wandering through private gardens in Mōkau, basket in hand, collecting lavender and rose petals to be used in her soaps. “I just go to people’s gardens in Mōkau and they’re quite happy for me to. “They know what I do and they get rewarded.” And in the morning with dew still on the leaves, Rae’s husband Chris picks kawakawa. Rae and Chris moved to Mōkau about six years ago after 40 years in Australia, many of those spent working on grain farms in the outback. She said they wanted to come back to the country where she was born because her three children were living here and found themselves purchasing a property close to the mountain in south Taranaki. During a weekend visit, Rae fell in love with Mōkau. “I said to my husband this is a nice place, wouldn’t it be nice to live here?” Then one day she found her “quarter-acre dream” advertised on the back of a real estate magazine. “I said we should go have a look. “He should know better. With me ‘have a look’ means ‘we should buy it.’” The true selling point for Rae was the prolific kawakawa tree growing down the side of the house. She said during her travels she was diagnosed in Australia with deep vein thrombosis after some severe swelling in her knees.
Rae first went to an emergency department in Australia with the issue, got to a point where she could fly to New Zealand, then it came back once here. At the suggestion of her son, she put kawakawa on her legs and attributes her recovery to the plant. “I got up in the next morning and I was running and jumping and yee-ha. “When we came here and I saw all this kawakawa I thought, I’ve got to have this place. And we bought it, bang.” She got her start craft making in Mōkau with soaps after seeing her daughter-in-law making them. “I said look at all this kawakawa, it’s so renewable, so sustainable, I’m going to have a go at making soap and using kawakawa. “My mind just went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding at night of course with everything I could do with kawakawa. “You know what, five-and-a-half years later it still does. Anything I can do with kawakawa.
“It regenerates so quickly, it’s so sustainable and it’s free and it’s a magic plant.” Although Rae’s land isn’t huge in terms of size, it is hugely abundant. She said she enjoyed the opportunity to make the most of what was growing literally at her fingertips and thought everyone should be doing the same where they could. “It’s sustainable and hey, that’s what we need to do in today’s time. You just have to look at the food shortages throughout the world. “If you’ve got kawakawa in your yard, you’ve got healing. I advocate for kawakawa, taking it from your farm or your property and using it in any which way you can.” All of Rae’s knowledge came from only research and a healthy amount of experimentation, though in her trials she said she hadn’t encountered much error. “I’m a cook, so experimenting for me is quite normal. So, I don’t have too many failures.”
She keeps a pot on very low heat for upwards of 72 hours, infusing kawakawa into olive oil, which then becomes all sorts of products. “The kawakawa is infusing into the olive oil ever so gently. “When I strain that we have got pure infused olive oil, so I can then make all the cool things that I make.” Those things included kawakawa balm made of the infused oil and beeswax (sourced locally when possible), a vapour rub with no petroleum jelly, magnesium whip, tea, soap, shampoo, facial cleansers, masks and body butter. She started selling her creations under the name Kawakawa Kottage Krafts to give everyone the opportunity to experience the benefits she had discovered. Rae said anyone with a will to learn could figure out how to do exactly what she did, using primarily what they found outside. “It’s all there in your backyard. Whether you use it for yourself or make it into something like this. “I can’t stress more than, have a look in your backyard. If you don’t know what it is do some plant identification with your phone.” Rae thought it was important people made the most of what was both in their own backyard and their neighbours too. Once a month she and others from the village catch up to share their excess crops around. “We all share. We need more of that. “We need to rely on each other. Whether you live on a small section or you live on a farm, we can support each other. “Farmers already do that. I know because I was a farmer in the outback. “Farmers will come from miles and miles to support each other.”
