Natural skincare, since 1967
Natural skincare is everywhere now, but for us it began in 1967, long before it became a trend. From a small Swabian spa town in southern Germany, Elisabeth Sigmund and Rudolf Hauschka launched Dr. Hauschka with a clear aim: to bring chemistry back into harmony with nature. Today, more people are asking ecological and social questions about what they put on their skin. Our answers rest on principles that have stayed the same for more than 50 years.
Our story
- 1929 - The beginnings of WALA Heilmittel GmbH: Chemist Rudolf Hauschka finds a way to make water-based plant extracts that stay stable without alcohol. The breakthrough earns him the respect of the scientific world and lays the groundwork for WALA.
- 1935 - WALA opens its laboratories: WALA launches its first alcohol-free medicines, the beginning of what is now the WALA Medicines range. Rudolf Hauschka has long imagined offering skincare alongside them.
- 1962 - A key partnership begins: Elisabeth Sigmund, a researcher, developer and esthetician with several semesters of medicine behind her, crosses paths with Rudolf Hauschka. She brings formulations of her own and a holistic view of skincare, exactly what WALA has been missing.
- 1967 - Dr. Hauschka Skincare launches: A new skincare range is launched under the name "Dr. Hauschka Heilende Kosmetik nach Elisabeth Sigmund" (Dr. Hauschka Healing Skincare by Elisabeth Sigmund). From the start, the focus is on meeting people's needs rather than following market trends. The aim is to develop cosmetics built around skin compatibility that offer gentle caring properties. Natural cosmetics become the obvious route.
Two founders, one vision - Rudolf Hauschka and Elisabeth Sigmund
Dr. Rudolf Hauschka (1891–1969) was many things at once - adventurer, pathfinder, visionary, archivist. Born in Vienna, he trained in technical chemistry and gave his working life over to science. But the direction that career eventually took traces back to a single meeting: Rudolf Hauschka and the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, met only once in person, yet it was enough to change everything.
Steiner's offhand remark that "rhythm brings life" stayed with Hauschka, and sent him looking for new ways to extract plant compounds. What he developed took its cues directly from nature's own rhythms - rest paired with movement, warmth with cold, day with night. The result was one of the very first water-based medicinal plant extracts capable of staying stable over time without any alcohol required - the technical breakthrough that would eventually shape WALA's entire manufacturing process.
Elisabeth Sigmund (1914–2013) was also born in Vienna. A researcher, developer, Red Cross sister and natural cosmetics pioneer, she followed her own path and had little interest in convention. She was central to shaping Dr. Hauschka Skincare, and her ideas still influence the products and the Dr. Hauschka treatments today. Her motivation was simple: she wasn't happy with the creams on the market, so she set out to make her own from ingredients she liked.
Still made in Eckwälden
Dr. Hauschka is still made on the same land Rudolf Hauschka bought in the late 1950s, in the farming region of Eckwälden at the foot of the Swabian Jura in southern Germany. Nature sets the pace here, and so do we: many production steps are still done by hand, the way they always have been.
Made by people who care
This isn't just where our team works - it's where they show up for each other. When the calendula comes into bloom each summer, you'll find colleagues from every department out in the fields, hands in the harvest, because that's simply how things are done here. It's the same spirit behind how WALA itself is run: built on the idea of responsible ownership, where the value we create flows back to the WALA Foundation and to the roughly 1,000 people who make up this company.