About Us

Toi Toi Botanicals - Bath Body & Home:

    • New Zealand made, botanical bath, body and home products.
    • Featuring NZ grown loofah from our loofah patch.
    • Natural products with a focus on sensitive skin.
    • No use of palm oil in any of our products (or other brands stocked).
    • An eco-conscious brand with biodegradable packaging.
    • Members of the New Zealand Soap Makers Association Inc (NZSMA)

The Meaning of Toi Toi:

Toi Toi: A suburb in Nelson, NZ - a great place to live.

Toi Toi (Maori): to encourage, inspire or motivate.

Toi Toi Toi (German):  to ward off bad luck, like 'break a leg' or 'touch wood'.

Toi (French): one of the meanings of 'you'.

Our Story:

We are a family owned NZ business based in Nelson and are the growers and creators of the natural loofah products featured on Toi Toi Botanicals.

We are passionate about offering eco-friendly, natural options for bath, body and home. Products that are good for the skin or work well in the home and do no harm to the environment.

Our loofah patch is located in Nelson, NZ. All our crafted products are created in-house for optimum quality. We have been working on loofah research and development since 2013.

Growing loofah (luffa) on a boutique/commercial scale in the NZ climate is challenging but we choose to do this for three reasons:

  1. So we can guarantee our customers the most natural and purest loofah products.
  2. So we can offer our customers a New Zealand made product (or rather 'Nature made in NZ').
  3. So we can do our part to rid NZ of the awful plastic loofah (shower puff/poufs) where each one contributes 3 1/2 metres of plastic to the environment - read more about plastic loofah here.

My personal story: From the first time I came across a loofah many years ago, I was fascinated by how nature creates the perfect intricate weave of the loofah fibres and once I started figuring out all the uses that loofah has on this planet, my obsession grew.

So I swapped out my business suit for work boots and went off and studied horticulture continuing on a six year journey of R&D to figure out how to grow the best loofahs we could to launch the business. It's now our seventh season and I'm still amazed at the beauty of what nature creates.

I love developing new products from the loofah fibres (a few are still in the testing phase) and I am grateful to our wonderful customers who give feedback and input into new product ideas so they can be part of the journey too.

Thank you for your support.

Dianne Dunn