“Flamingo Estate is my lifestyle and wellness brand, but it’s also a seven acre garden and orchard that’s my home. It started while I was running my creative agency, Chandelier, which was brought to a grinding halt by COVID. At the same time I also owned Owl Bureau, which was a bookshop in Los Angeles where I used to work weekends. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, a farmer I knew walked in and said she’d lose her farm because her vegetables were meant for restaurants. I asked her to let us help her sell them. She thought we could sell a dozen boxes, but the very first Friday of lockdown, we sold 150. Then 300 the next week, and it just kept doubling. Within six months, one farm had become 10, and now we’re close to 150.
Our pivot into what Flamingo Estate is today within the beauty industry happened when a really nice olive oil farmer, Martin, asked if we wanted to buy his olive oil. I told him maybe we could make soap with it. The way it came to life was a collision of a couple of things. My upbringing: growing up on a farm in Australia and generations of farmers in my family. My career: knowing how to market and photograph things. My luxury background: all those years at Chandelier working with brands like Hermès helped me approach farming from a different angle. Farming is so earnest and simple. To look at it through a luxury filter and say mother nature is the last great luxury was genuinely a new concept for people.
Los Angeles also played a big part. Flamingo Estate could never have happened anywhere but here. The adjacency to Hollywood was critical to our success. I keep saying to the team that I feel like my job is to put culture into horticulture. When I think about the early success of the brand, I really think it was because of all those funny collaborations we did. We did honey with LeBron James, Ed Ruscha, Ai Weiwei, and Julianne Moore. There have been a hundred people in between—recently, Pamela Anderson did pickles for us. And because Flamingo Estate really is my home, it’s an honest way of living. It’s the return to simple things done well that I think everyone’s craving.
Recently, I finished writing my fifth book, Pleasure Principles. I originally wanted it to be about victory gardens. In World War I and World War II, the American government got everyone to build a garden as a way to alleviate pressure on the food supply. But truthfully, there was no chance of America running out of food. It was a masterful propaganda campaign that made everyone scared of the war and rally behind a universal activity.
That made me think: If we needed to grow a victory garden today, what are we seeking victory from? Is it our phones? Is it AI? Naturally, it brought me back to gardening. I’m such a plant nerd, and I wanted to talk about plants and ingredients, not from a horticultural point of view, but from a cultural point of view—the history of all these ingredients, and how they can help us live a happy, better life.
Honestly, it’s a very weird book. It jumps from culture to celebrity, to ingredients, to plants, to witchcraft, to drugs. But I’m very proud of it. It’s almost 500 pages of interesting research around how we can live and have more pleasure. And really, safeguarding your own pleasure is the key to a happy life. And I can say that firsthand.
One of the things I wrote about in Pleasure Principles was about what roses can teach us. To have a successful rose garden, you have to prune and prune and prune; the more you cut, the stronger they come back the following year. Life is a bit like that. When I moved to LA, I had to cut bad people and bad habits and bad friends and bad colleagues; I really had to get rid of all the parts that were not working so I could grow back stronger.
BATHS
I’m obsessed with taking baths—I take one at least once a day, sometimes twice. When my mom and dad would come home covered in dirt from the farm, they’d always run a big hot bath—and we had tank water, not city water, so water was precious. As little kids, while my mom sat in the tub, my brother and I would sit on the floor of the bathroom and we'd catch each other up about our day. My mom would just buy cheap soap from the supermarket, and I always dreamed of making good soap for her. Even now, when I think about my childhood, I think of the floor of that bathroom.
When I moved into Flamingo Estate, I built a bathhouse because I always wanted a big bathtub that was actually big enough for me to lie flat in—I’m 6’3". When I lived in New York, I would save up money and spend a night in a fancy hotel just so I could take a bath. [Laughs] Now I know the hotels that have big bathtubs. The Bowery was the best, but the tubs at Hotel Chelsea are pretty epic, too—they’re long and deep.
Because the bath water runs into the garden, my roses started dying because of all the body wash from another brand I was using. Making soap bricks with olive oil, in addition to helping farmers, also meant I could take a bath and not kill my flowers. I’m lucky now to have an endless supply of soaps. Right now, I’m on a tomato kick. But peppermint’s the one I use in the morning. Personally, I really need a slap in the face to wake up.
SKINCARE
Historically, I’ve never had great skin because I’m always in the sun. There are a few products I stand by, like those from Tatcha. I have friends who work there, and I think what they’re doing is really smart. That said, I wish I could say I use Tatcha’s Rice Wash every morning and night, but I’m not very consistent. I see Christie Kidd for facials—either her or Dr. Jason Diamond—and I do Laser Genesis to address my burnt skin. Christie also has these great pads that I use to clean my face.
I always have Tower 28’s S.O.S. Rescue Spray around. It’s easy to use and hypochlorous acid actually works. Then I have a few serums from Dr. Barbara Sturm—hyaluronic acid and peptide—and Dr. Diamond’s Metacine, including this funny red one that looks like blood and always makes my skin look good.
I like Augustinus Bader’s The Cream a lot. It’s another product I wish I was more consistent with, but it’s good. When I was a kid, my mom would take lanolin oil from sheep’s wool and combine it with manuka honey from my dad, who’s a honey farmer. That became the foundation for Flamingo’s Rich Creams, but I can’t use it on my face or I’ll break out. I’ve always wanted to create a face version and haven’t cracked it… yet.
If I need extra hydration, Summer Fridays’ Heavenly Sixteen face oil does the trick and makes my face look fresh. And for my lips, I like Lucas’ Papaw Ointment. Very Aussie. Everyone has one. I want to do a version of it for Flamingo—or just a lip thing in general. We sell at Mecca in Australia, and when I was there, someone reached into their bag and gave me Rhode’s Caramelized Banana peptide balm [Editor’s note: discontinued]. I was surprised by how good it tasted, but for now the Papaw is good.
Because I’m in the sun a lot and sweat, I don’t like to use too many things because they get in my eyes. But there’s one sunscreen I love: Mecca Cosmetica’s To Save Face. No one knows sunscreen better than the Aussies because we’re such a sunburn country.
NAILS
[Aaron] Harvey, my partner and the creative force behind Flamingo Estate, keeps telling me I’m the only person in the world who’s never had a manicure or a pedicure. But they feel fussy—and I’m always a little embarrassed about the state of my hands. There’s always dirt under my nails, so I feel like I’d be off to a bad start if I went to a salon. The only ‘handcare’ in my life involves Flamingo Estate’s Sage rich cream—it used to be the manuka one. It’s the most wondrous product. Most body products smell floral and sweet, but this one’s really earthy and camphorous and a little… dirty? But in a good way. I keep a tube in my pocket all the time, so I’m always reapplying.
FRAGRANCE
Harvey and I are working on fragrances for Flamingo Estate. We’ve wanted to do this for so long, and there’s only one person I wanted to work with: Jean-Claude Ellena. He was Hermès’ first exclusive in-house perfumer; he’s an icon of fragrance creation. He lives in the South of France, we found out how to reach him, and I wrote him the longest handwritten letter saying, ‘Please. Please. I know you don’t do work for many people, but please do our fragrances.’
After a mutual friend put in a good word—and lots of begging—I sent him all of my books and one of every Flamingo Estate product, from food to olive oil to candles. Time went by and we didn’t hear anything from him. Then, three months ago, he said, ‘Oh, I understand now. You guys are sexy hippies. I’d love to do a fragrance with you.’ [Laughs]
We’ve been talking a lot about how California smells because I want our fragrances—we’re launching with three—to be the embodiment of Los Angeles and very much grounded in my home and garden. There will be notes that people already recognize from Flamingo Estate: eucalyptus, sage, and a couple of florals that I like to grow and keep around.
We’ve been getting samples almost constantly now and, oh man, it’s the most joyful, exciting process. I’m really geeking out in a way I haven’t in a long time. It feels good.”
—as told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Chloe Horseman in Los Angeles on August 11, 2026