Courtesy Botanics & Health
Middleton, Wis.-based Botanics & Health is donating 25% of the revenues of its Tru-Releaf natural cannabidiol (CBD) lotion to Advocate Aurora Health (formerly Aurora Health Care) in Milwaukee, to help support its health care workers during the pandemic. Customers can text the word to “relief” to 31996 and enter promo code “aurora” to order. Botanics & Health will give 25% of each sale to Aurora. People can also order on the website, tru-releaf.com, and enter the code.
Michael J. Schultz, CEO of Botanics & Health, says the promotion came at the suggestion of his vice president of marketing. “This is a hard time for everyone, and we need to support our healthcare workers. So, we did an outreach to Aurora, and they said that would be great!” he says. “We want to support those who provide much needed care to others.”
Amy Eiduke, public affairs manager for Advocate Aurora Health, confirms that donations from Botanics & Health are going toward Aurora's “Relief Fund for Critical Care,” a fund to exclusively ensure additional resources needed to treat their patients, and to keep healthy the experts who serve them.
Pain Relief
Schultz was inspired to create Tru-Releaf while living in California. One of his friends had gotten a neck injury while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He was on opiates, but when California legalized medical marijuana, Schultz’s friend found relief from cannabis. Schultz partnered with his friend to create a CBD lotion, minus the THC. Schultz’s wife, a Wisconsin native and UW-Madison alum, had suffered a stroke and also found pain relief with CBD. Schultz sold Tru-Releaf in California for several years before his wife and he moved to Wisconsin. After the 2018 federal farm bill legalized industrial hemp, Schultz does all the growing, processing and formulation in the Badger State.
Schultz, who has a master’s degree in statistical analysis and had worked in the tech industry, spent four years developing his own strain of CBD-rich hemp to use in Tru-Releaf. “I took multiple strains, and I cloned parts of the strain into another to get the best of both worlds. Our strain is a combination of about seven different strains,” he says.
He adds that Tru-Releaf contains just CBD and five essential oils, chosen not just for fragrance but also for their ability to penetrate the skin. “The other ingredient is emollient; the same quality grade that Estee Lauder or Lancôme uses in their facial lotions, so it’s high in absorption,” he says. He says that while some brands of CBD lotion contain arnica, capsaicin or menthol, that’s really what’s providing the actual pain relief, versus the CBD. “If you look at product with any of those ingredients on it, you might have well just bought Icy Hot or Ben Gay.”
Tru-Releaf is available online only. He says they had been approached by national health retailers, but the markup would have made Tru-Releaf unaffordable for many. “I want people to access it for pain relief, so we sell it direct only, without paying a middleman.”
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