What happens when you combine 60,000 years of traditional botanical knowledge with a breakthrough marine molecule from Jervis Bay? The answer is Lanje—a skincare brand that moved from concept to shelf in just twelve months. Named after the Bardi and Jawi word for seaweed, this collaboration proves that commercial success and social impact can go hand-in-hand, with a portion of every sale funding vital health research in the Kimberley.
For Dr Pia Winberg, one of Australia’s leading seaweed scientists, based here in Jervis Bay, it’s not enough to labour away at long term research in the lab. While those projects can yield incredible breakthroughs for our health – and the planet – it’s just as important to innovate quickly for the consumer market to help drive interest and investment in the science.
“I really love the long-term science, but we can’t let that be a barrier,” Pia said at the one-day Project NICE (National Integrated Care for Epithelia) conference in February. “Let’s think of some of the things we can come out with sooner rather than later.” Pia has walked the talk over the past two decades, simultaneously engaging in long-term science while bringing her PhycoHealth brand to the consumer market with seaweedy classics like corn chips and pasta, seaweed kombucha, fibre supplements and the Phyaluronic skin care range containing a seaweed version of hyaluronic acid.
Lanje – meaning seaweed in the language of the Bardi and Jawi peoples of the remote Kimberley region in Western Australia – is the latest example of Pia’s speed-to-market ethos, produced with a very special set of collaborators.
This new skin care brand, on sale merely a year after the development team was brought together, combines traditional Aboriginal knowledge, native botanicals and marine products. The range includes a sea polish cleanser (containing pearl oyster shell nacre (Guwan) from a Kimberley aquaculture farm), a day cream, a night cream and a serum with its sights set on being stocked in one of the major beauty retail chains.
The story of how this core team – consisting of Rosanna Angus, a Bardi and Jawi Traditional Owner and award-winning cultural guide, James Brown, the owner of Pearls for Australia in Cygnet Bay in the Kimberleys and Broken Bay Pearl Farm in NSW, Suzanne Haddon of Rooland Design, brand and packaging expert and Pia – came together from opposite ends of Australia is extraordinary.
Connecting the dots is Daniel Abrahams, CEO of Marine Bioproducts Cooperative Research Centre (MB CRC)—a government and corporate 10-year funding program. He saw the potential of these very different yet synergistic players in the marine research space and couldn’t wait to bring them together, and provide funding, trusting that within a year they would launch a new skin care brand at the CRC’s conference in Brisbane, August 2025.
“We try to move at pace,” Daniel says of the CRC’s mission. “So, I’m never going to hold you up, is my mantra. And we’re ultimately taking risks in pursuit of shareholder value or customer value or taxpayer value. That’s why we’re doing it.
“We focus on the outcome that’s going to deliver value. Value that’s going to solve a problem that ultimately started from an idea that’s going to transform into a product or service. That’s the way we approach it.
“Lanje is such a good example where we say, right, what are we going to do? And there’s so many elements. I love the social impact element, the economic empowerment. What we’re doing now is really looking at what else we can do to keep improving the product so the application benefits so many people.”
He says with a genuine sense of joy, “This came together so eloquently and to have had the opportunity to play a small part will probably go down as one of my career highlights.”
Needless to say, the products in the range are beautifully formulated. They feel nourishing on the skin and the aromas of native botanicals is a refreshing twist for the skincare industry. The packaging is minimal and considered; the design celebrates the native ingredients that make this brand special.
At the heart of this brand is the First Nations community of the remote Dampier Peninsula in WA, providing some of the native ingredients for the formulations along with their traditional knowledge—the IP of their community built over thousands of years. Rosanna says, “It’s about the inspiration, what inspires me, our identity, and then what opportunities that we can create. For me, inspiration is why this [project] matters.
“I was a health worker in my community for eight years, I studied health, went through university, did my BA in health, and I wanted to understand health as in the Western way, but then we have our traditional health as well and what keeps us healthy spiritually and physically and mentally.”
Investing back into First Nations communities and recognising commercial opportunities is a big part of this story, which is about creating hope and positive stories about remote Australia while quietly working to improve health outcomes behind the scenes. 10% of all sales from LANJE go towards supporting research for skincare solutions in remote communities.
Rosanna adds: “As a health worker, my focus was on chronic diseases, looking after our old people and making sure they’re all right. But seeing their skin and their health break down in different parts is very heart-breaking.
“So here we are in this space and I’m passionate about looking at something different from a different angle. We’re not new to research, our mob’s been researched over so many years as well. I’ve been involved in long-term research over 15, 20 years with Flinders University. My niece is a researcher in Darwin. We’ve become researchers.
“Building all these skills in the toolboxes, it’s how you’re bringing it back into the community and making it more relevant for your mob… We want to be involved in it, being part of this journey as well.”
James Brown, Managing Director of Cygnet Bay Pearls and Aquaculture Innovation is a close neighbour of Rosanna and was responsible for introducing her to Daniel and the CRC. James believes this project has opened up new avenues for collabroations that are very exciting.
“With Rosanna’s enthusiasm to explore these other products, I see that as being a real transformation. To have an example for the MB CRC to say, this is now working in Bardi and Jawi country, that really changes the game.
“You can go to the rest of Northern Australia and say, who’s got these kinds of key ingredients, and who wants to have a go. That’s really important for a CRC that has a time frame like this one, it’s enough time [10 years] to actually make change.”
Ingredients in the Lanje range include Phyaluronic acid (from seaweed – larnje), pearl oyster shell nacre (Guwan), white cypress oil (Goody Goody) and Kakadu plum (Gabinj). Individual products start at $60 and right now you can buy the set for $280 (rrp $309). Available at the PhycoHealth factory shop located at 1 Scallop Street Huskisson NSW 2540.
