But something that shouldn’t be part of a day’s work is skin cancer. From a frightening first-hand experience with melanoma, comes a delightful balance between practicality and fashion. FarmHer Hands launched in December 2023. The line of stylish UPF50+ gloves are now finding their way to farms across the nation. The founders of the business, Shona Larkin and Angie Nisbit are juggling farm life with the challenges of running a retail business from their properties.
Angie recalls when the state of her skin first became a cause for embarrassment.
“One weekend, I was at a local campdraft, a gentleman shook my hand and said I had the roughest hands he’d ever shaken,” she laughs. That moment really made her think.
It was a catalyst for me to look after myself. I don’t think anyone really thinks about it too much. But our hands are always in the sun and we’re using them so often.”
Angie’s quest to find sun protective gloves that were also stylish and had scope for her to work with her hands, proved difficult. From white cotton gloves, to fishing gloves, she enlisted the help of her sister, to step things up.
Shona was on board straight away, having had her own skin cancer scare previously. In 2016, she was diagnosed with a melanoma on her leg.
“I noticed a mole had changed. The doctor took a sample and then I returned home to Townsville, which is a five-hour trip for us. It was literally as I walked in the door, that I got the call to say it was melanoma and I needed to come back.”
The sisters have also lost a close friend to breast cancer that stemmed from melanoma.
We just kept seeing things pop up. For us, it was like, what can we do? What can we change.”
The change they were looking for was FarmHer Hands. The gloves are clearly sun protective, but they are also very stylish.
“Shona and I do like getting dressed up and we like leaning into cool prints and following fashion trends,” Angie shares.
The gloves have been positively received with the sisters placing their third order from their manufacturer within seven months of launching.
Even within the first month, they’d had an order from every state in Australia except Tasmania. Then just before the month closed, that order from Tassie arrived.
“We were so excited,” says Shona.
We just wanted it to be bold, fabulous and feminine.”
Shona and Angie want to raise awareness around sun protection, so that one day putting on a pair of gloves is as normal as putting on your boots, jeans, shirt and hat for the day. One of the major challenges running the business in such a remote area, is postage. The ladies live around 80 km from town, so the mail is collected twice a week.
“It’s a long distance for those gloves to travel from our home, or our headquarters as we call it, to Townsville for tracking. That has been a bit of a challenge for us,” shares Shona.
So, expect a slightly longer wait than your average package. Angie and Shona promise the wait is worth it, and hope the public agrees. They are expanding into a men’s line and a children’s line next with a goal to sell 8000 pairs of gloves by 2026.
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