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Hello, I'm Helena!
Plants have always accompanied me in life — from childhood play as a little cook, gathering leaves in the "forests" of Angelica (Angelica sylvestris L.), to adulthood, incorporating unconventional edible plants into my diet.
I am trained as an Environmental Engineer and have dedicated myself to environmental education and science communication. I have worked in an NGO, a museum, and schools, where I honed my skills in leading activities. Alongside this, I gained knowledge and practical experience in traditional crafts using natural pigments through various courses. At the end of 2020, I launched my environmental education project, with the first children's activities taking place in the summer of 2021
By mid-2024, I left my previous roles, and in 2025 I founded the registered brand Foraging Colours, embracing it as my life's mission and dedicating myself entirely to it.
Through Foraging Colours, my fascination with plants and my love for creative, hands-on work have flourished — a natural extension of who I am and the expression of my essence through work that feels like leisure.
Values and Mission
VALUES
The brand Foraging Colours is guided by the following values:
- Respect for nature — especially for the materials we work with directly, along with the responsibility to reflect on their use;
- Sharing knowledge about natural pigments in an honest and open way, dispelling myths and misconceptions;
- Driving change in consumption, bringing natural pigments to families and schools through our products and services;
- Being true to myself, embracing authenticity in everything I do.
MISSION
The brand Foraging Colours:
Aims to raise awareness among consumers about the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of textile products;
Promotes natural pigments as alternatives to synthetic ones, highlighting their benefits for children's skin;
Creates creative and informal learning experiences;
Encourages closer contact with nature through plants;
Values and promotes knowledge of traditional crafts;
Supports conscious, slow, and local consumption;
Inspires the creation of art with minimal impact on nature.
Intrinsic concepts
Upcycling / Second-hand
Why upcycling? Why continue the constant degradation of natural resources? What I aim to achieve:
Value the lifecycle of clothing;
Contribute to the appreciation of second-hand garments (not counterfeit);
Promote conscious consumption and slow fashion;
Celebrate traditional crafts;
Encourage slow living.
And indirectly:
- Reduce soil degradation and infertility in cotton cultivation;
- Support crops and aquifers free from fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides;
- Minimise water use in clothing production and dyeing processes;
Local, exotic and seasonal plants
I aim to create my work with local plants, guided by their seasonality, though I do not rule out the use of exotic or invasive species.
The seasonal rhythm of plants offers me different moments: winter becomes a time for reflection and balance.
In the other seasons, creativity takes centre stage — exploring new techniques, experiencing pure work-pleasure, and working with plants of vibrant colours, whether endemic or exotic.
Conscious foraging
Foraging means gathering from nature — either for immediate use or for later.
For this reason, every collection I undertake is done consciously, taking only what I need and never more than a third of a plant's availability.
After my foraging walks, I use the plants immediately or press them for future use.
What I gather is a little bit of everything, and for everything a little: prints, dyeing, paints, and experiments.