What Allison Taylor learned from discarded seeds

Le Prunier began not in a lab but in an orchard, when two sisters asked why truckloads of plum seeds were thrown away. From cold pressed oil to daily sun care, Allison and Jacqueline Taylor built a quiet routine rooted in one fruit, one farm and one family harvest.

Botanical skincare likes to talk about discovery, as if a new plant were found in a faraway field. Le Prunier sits inside the opposite tension. Nothing here was discovered. The plum was already there, farmed by the same family since 1916, dried and exported by the ton, while its seeds were discarded. The work was not finding a rare extract. It was seeing value in what was left behind.

Allison Taylor and Jacqueline Taylor grew up around that farm in Northern California. As teenagers they traveled with their father to buyer meetings in Asia, where dried plums were spoken of as a beauty food. Years later, Jacqueline paid for testing on the seed oil out of her own pocket, and Allison agreed to join only if they started a brand rather than selling an ingredient. Le Prunier launched in 2018 at Indie Beauty Expo NYC with prototype packaging.

What we noticed, reading and listening closely, is how little they have added since. The hero remains a single cold pressed oil with nothing added, kept with its natural scent intact. Around it sits a short shelf of companions for cleansing, masking and sun care, all built from the same plum varietals and pressed on site. This conversation stays with the plants, the sourcing and the ritual of use.

Thank you so much. I am excited to be here. Yeah, we really have to go back to the very beginning, which was when we first started traveling with our father. What did those early trips teach you about plums as more than a crop.

Thank you so much. I am excited to be here. We grew up on a fourth generation farm, and to understand us you have to go back to the very beginning, which was when we first started traveling with our father. He grows in the Central Valley and about 80 percent of what he grows is exported overseas, so as teenagers we sat in rooms in Japan and Korea and listened to buyers talk about dried plums as a beauty food.

That stayed with us. At home a plum was agriculture. It was harvest, drying, packing, shipping. Abroad it was something taken daily for skin and steadiness. I remember thinking about that gap. We were surrounded by fruit known for antioxidants, and we were only thinking about the flesh. If this fruit is so antioxidant rich, the seed is absolutely going to be as well. The seed was planted right there, years before we had a brand.

You watched seeds from dried plum production leave by the truckload to be thrown away. What made you look twice at that waste stream and test the oil inside.

Jacqueline was the one who could not let it go. We knew the seeds were discarded by the truckload after drying, and she kept coming back to a simple thought. What do you think. Maybe we could sell this as an ingredient to L’Oreal or Estee Lauder just introducing plum oil. If this fruit is so antioxidant rich, the seed is absolutely going to be as well. So she started testing.

She spent two and a half years paying for that testing out of her pocket. She worked with two beauty labs to look at Plum Beauty Oil and what it might do for skin that needs calm and moisture. I watched her do it steadily, without a launch date. That patience matters. The oil comes from the seed of the fruit, cold pressed, and it carries vitamins and antioxidants that help brighten the appearance of skin, balance the look of oiliness and lock in moisture. It felt true to our roots. Use the whole harvest.

Jacqueline brought research on selling plum oil as an ingredient in 2014 to 2015, and you answered that you would join only for a brand. Why insist on telling the story yourselves.

She came to me with the research and I said, I will absolutely do this with you. I will be all in, but I want us to start a brand. I did not want to hand over plum oil as an anonymous ingredient and watch someone else explain it. This was our family farm, founded in 1916 by our great grandfather, grown from 19 acres to more than 1,500 acres. If we believed in the Power of Plum, we should stand behind it.

So we divided the work. She was busy working on patents and proprietary ingredient information, and we just put our heads together and decided to launch it. I built packaging and a website while she protected the method and the extracts. We felt Le Prunier captured what we wanted. It means it is French for the plum tree. We felt like the name captured the elegance of what we were trying to achieve with the skincare. Tradition meets innovation, but in a bottle you want to keep.

Your first oil is cold pressed with nothing added, and you kept the natural almond like scent after testing showed refining would lower its value. What did that decision cost you in craft terms.

There is nothing else added. That is the whole point. The oil is cold pressed from plum seeds from our organic farm, and we use a handcrafted blend of our proprietary varietals. It has a natural scent, a little like almond, because it comes from the seed. Buyers sometimes ask for no scent. We say, nope, zero chance we are touching this. We are leaving it absolutely the way nature intended it to be.

We tested the alternative. When you deodorize or refine, you strip more than scent. The nutritional value dropped, and for us that was the answer. We would rather leave the oil exactly as pressed than make it anonymous. As a ritual, that matters too. You warm a few drops between palms and press into damp skin for face, hands, hair and body. The scent tells you it is whole. It is the Fruit of Life, kept intact from field to formula.

Plum Beauty Oil went viral in 2020 with a 30,000 person waitlist and sold out. How did a farm family handle scale without breaking a slow process.

It was the viral Chrissy Teigen moment, how are we going to scale things and do it really carefully and communicate with the customer, it was all hands on deck. We had launched in 2018 at Indie Beauty Expo with prototype packaging, then with Neiman Marcus, Credo Beauty and The Detox Market, then global distribution in the UK, Europe and South Korea. Then suddenly one oil needed to reach 30,000 waiting people.

We stayed close to the farm press. Our oil and our extracts, including Midnight Muir and Plum Superfruit Complex, are made with on site presses and filtration, and the triple pressed Reserve comes from a single estate harvest. That limits how fast we can move, which is good. We would rather protect the harvest rhythm and tell people honestly to wait than stretch or substitute. All hands on deck meant family hands. My sister Elaine is part of the business too. Weekends and family time still matter, so we learned to plan harvest to bottle with more care.

We are leaving it absolutely the way nature intended it to be.

Allison Taylor

Plumscreen pairs broad spectrum SPF 31 PA+++ with your Plum Superfruit Complex and has won seven awards. Why bring sun care into a small plum ritual.

Sun is the field reality. We grew up watching harvest crews work under strong Central Valley light, and we knew a calm routine had to include daily protection or the rest mattered less. We wanted a sunscreen that felt like skincare, not a separate chore. So we built Plumscreen around our Plum Superfruit Complex, our patented blend from plum, and paired it with UVA and UVB plus HEV coverage.

The texture was the test. It had to layer over Plum Beauty Oil without pilling and sit well under makeup. Apply it each morning as the last step, a generous layer smoothed over face and neck. For our customer, often sensitive or acne prone and looking for steady care, it helps skin look even and held in moisture while screening light. It won awards from Oprah, Elle and Shape, and that helped people trust an SPF from a small farm brand. Seven awards tell us the balance is right.

Plumtox uses Midnight Muir, a rare extract from a plum varietal on your own land, and it carries recognition from the National Eczema Association. How do you use a clarifying mask without stripping sensitive skin.

Plumtox started with a walk, not a brief. The Muir Beauty varietal grows on our land and showed such depth that we developed Midnight Muir as a proprietary extract used only by us. It is a gentle exfoliant, made to clarify the look of congested skin while keeping moisture steady. Use it as a short evening treatment, a thin layer massaged on and rinsed, one to two times per week, then press oil over damp skin to seal.

We are careful with language. It is not about resurfacing hard. It supports the appearance of smoother, clearer skin and respects the barrier. For people who flush or feel tight after masks, that restraint is the point. Being recognized by the National Eczema Association meant a lot because our customer often arrives reactive. A field plant, steeped slowly and filtered with care, can still be precise.

Plum Cleanse turns the same oil texture into an oil to lather wash for makeup and SPF. What does that first minute of the evening ritual look like in practice.

Start dry. Massage Plum Cleanse over makeup and Plumscreen with warm hands, giving it a full minute so oil can lift the day. Then add water and let it turn to lather. Rinse and leave skin damp. That dampness is part of the method. Press Plum Beauty Oil into damp skin to lock in moisture, then rest.

We made the cleanser biome balancing in feel rather than squeaky. It removes without that tight finish, which matters if you cleanse twice or wear SPF daily. The texture echoes the cult favorite oil on purpose, so the ritual feels continuous from cleanse to seal. One fruit, one scent memory, from field rows to basin. People with sensitive skin often tell us consistency helps more than novelty. We agree. Keep the steps few and repeat them.

Sisters, a family farm and a single fruit can sound simple from the outside. What has stayed hard about staying small and single origin after growth to global shelves.

What stays hard is saying no. No to deodorizing the oil when a retailer asks. No to animal derived ingredients or animal testing when a shortcut appears. No to adding scent or weightless silicones to chase a trend. Our formulas stay vegan and cruelty free, backed by clinical testing, and that narrows every choice.

Sourcing is the other discipline. Single origin means weather lives in the bottle. One harvest runs a little deeper, another a little lighter, and we blend varietals to keep the oil steady without losing character. It means it is French for the plum tree, and a tree does not hurry. We protect weekends and family time because the farm taught us seasons. Power of Plum is not a slogan to us. It is inventory, soil, presses, family. We would rather grow slowly and stay legible than grow fast and become vague.

Closing note from the desk

What stays with us is restraint. The Taylors could have sold plum oil in bulk, or scented away its seed character, or stretched one viral moment into dozens of launches. They kept the oil whole, the shelf short and the farm at the center, then added only what a steady ritual needed.

Le Prunier set out to prove that a leftover seed could anchor calm, consistent care. Read slowly, that is what the bottles show. One family, one orchard outside Sacramento, one cold press, used morning and night to brighten the appearance of skin, balance its look and hold moisture in.

Product spotlight

Plum Beauty Oil, 78 dollars for 30 ml, also in 60 ml for 126 dollars and 3.7 ml for 24 dollars. A cold pressed multi use oil for face, hands, hair and body that helps brighten and balance the appearance of skin while locking in moisture. Warm two to three drops between palms and press into damp skin morning and night.

Plumscreen, 80 dollars for 60 ml. A seven time award winner that pairs broad spectrum SPF 31 PA+++ with the Plum Superfruit Complex and the comfort of the cult oil. Smooth generously over face and neck each morning as the last step, over or instead of moisturizer, and reapply with sun exposure.