Our San Francisco Location @ 415 Valencia Street has closed

Heliotrope’s flagship San Francisco store was located in the Mission District for ten years. We were right in the heart of one of the city’s most vibrant and diverse cultural neighborhoods. Our block on Valencia Street is still filled with health-centric businesses and we were proud to count ourselves among them.

We loved Valencia Street, first and foremost, because it’s a historical, quirky, fun district in San Francisco. It was the first neighborhood JP liked to hang out in when he moved from New York City in the ‘80s, since it reminded him a lot of New York. Significantly, Valencia Street is the longest stretch of independently-owned small businesses in America — not a chain store in sight! We liked it that way (we still do, even though we're no longer on the corridor).

Our business ethos is all about cultivating wellness and empowering people to feel good in their skin. Our San Francisco location was designed to be more of an experience than a store. Visitors could come in and sample one of our luscious body lotions or natural skin care product of their choosing, then get a custom essential oil blend designed just for them.

Where to Find the Best Natural Skin Care Products
in San Francisco

Heliotrope was on Valencia for over ten years — with 10 years at our recent location. Before that, we were in the residential Noe Valley neighborhood for about two years, getting our feet wet and sorting out our product line. The shop was just five minutes from JP's old apartment, so it was a convenient location.

That’s the thing about San Francisco, though — you can find great hair, body, and skin care products all over the city. If you’re searching for where to find the best natural skin care products in San Francisco, we of course have to recommend our own concoctions, but we do love that there is a shared love for natural ingredients city-wide.

From working cooperatives like Rainbow Grocery to corporations like Whole Foods, people have access to the best natural skin care products in almost every neighborhood in San Francisco. You can find Heliotrope’s products at a variety of locations, including Local Take, Fog City Trading Post, and our hand soap is even available in the restrooms of many restaurants, cafés, and yoga studios. For a full list of our San Francisco and other California locations, please visit our Where to Find Us page.

We love that the people of San Francisco care about using natural ingredients and buying from locally-owned businesses. It’s our mission to help people feel good in their skin, and we do that by providing the best natural skin care products — and face, hair, and body products, too!

Though we're now based across the bay in Oakland, San Francisco was our origin point, and was (is) a great match for Heliotrope That has a lot to do with the fact that the people here are so eco-friendly. Take the city’s zero-waste goal, for example. Heliotrope supports this initiative by offering discount refills on almost all their products - just bring your empty bottle or jar to our Oakland location (more refill locations coming soon)!

San Francisco really does value the natural environment. The city maintains hundreds of parks and greenspaces. In fact, San Francisco is the only city in the US in which every single home has a park within ten minutes’ walking distance. Most of the hills have a nature space at their summit, with a view of the city and the mountains and forests off in the distance. Much earlier than the rest of the country managed to, San Francisco recognized the value of the historic redwoods and has enacted numerous preservation initiatives. Even while they were still regularly used for timber, the trees were celebrated. Indeed, many San Francisco homes are protected by historical preservationist by-laws for their redwood planks.

San Francisco also encourages urban agriculture, and micro farming wherever possible. In 2014, laws were passed granting tax benefits for owners who converted their lot spaces into urban farms. The city is also pioneering innovative water recycling techniques to help reuse and reclaim grey water, to help combat the recent drought conditions. Since 2007, plastic bags have been banned, with a push to get rid of other kinds of plastic waste over the next few years.

The green initiatives and the community support behind reducing the city’s environmental impact are unmatched by anywhere else in the country.  The people care about the planet, and their bodies, and those values extend to their consumer choices as well. That attitude makes San Francisco a perfect home for a business like ours. We love the urban farming approach (we do something similar for our own products whenever we can!), we love the low-impact, plastic-free, sustainable approach the city is taking with the environment, and we find ourselves feeling right at home.

By producing all our products naturally, and working with local suppliers, we’re glad to provide the best natural skin care products that the people (and dogs) of San Francisco can truly feel proud to use. Even though we're not technically in SF anymore, we're right across the bay in Oakland - just 20 minutes on Bart!