Humble Housewives began with a simple question: what if the herbs medieval monks and nuns cultivated — the cures they documented, the rhythms they kept — weren't relics of a distant past, but remedies you could hold in your hands?
Our Story
For centuries, monastic communities across Christendom preserved knowledge of the natural world with the same care they gave to sacred texts. St. Hildegard of Bingen wrote of healing herbs with scientific precision in the 12th century. Walafrid Strabo tended his monastery garden and recorded its gifts in the 9th. These were not mystics detached from the material world — they were contemplatives who saw creation as gift, meant to be received with gratitude and used with wisdom.
We founded Humble Housewives to bridge that gap — to translate monastic remedies into daily rituals for women who keep house and call it holy.
Meet the founder
While expecting her fourth child, Mary was diagnosed with a serious blood clot. Doctors expected the worst. Her family turned to St. Jude — patron of impossible cases — and to a homeopathic physician who guided them toward natural remedies. The clot dissolved. Her daughter was born healthy.
That experience opened a door. Mary began studying what the homeopathic tradition pointed toward — plant medicine, documented remedies, centuries of practice that had not vanished but had simply been forgotten. That research led her to the monastics: to Hildegard, to the physic gardens, to a tradition of botanical knowledge that was older and more rigorous than anything she'd found in the modern wellness market.
Humble Housewives grew from that research. Every product is developed from documented monastic tradition, cross-referenced with modern scientific findings. Mary runs the business with her husband and six children, and still writes for the blog.
Our values
The Monastic Seven
For most of a thousand years, the monasteries were Europe's doctors. The seven plants they trusted most are the spine of what we make, and science is only beginning to catch up.
Every ingredient earns its place
Where most skincare runs to thirty ingredients, ours runs to a handful — plant oils, a botanical or two, nothing synthetic. Every name on the label has a reason to be there.
Caring for the body is good work
The Rule of St. Benedict set the care of the body among the highest duties. Tending the body you were given is not vanity, but good and worthy work.
Letters from our house
10% welcome discount. Early access. Stories of herbs and saints.