About Pharmos Natur
The brand, the philosophy, the story shaped over 40 years and rooted in a shared set of values.
CERTIFIED & COMMITTED
BIO (DE-ÖKO-003)
EMAS-VALIDATED
VEGAN
GREEN BRANDS
BIODIVERSITY
Margot Esser-Greineder
Entrepreneur. Therapist. Pioneer.
A personal experience with fresh Aloe Vera changed the course of Margot Esser-Greineder’s professional life. She left the pharmaceutical industry and founded PHARMOS NATUR in 1986. Her work is guided by the conviction that nature provides the most intelligent active ingredients for the care and health of the skin.
For 40 years, she and her team have explored the conditions that allow the full potential of selected healing and rejuvenating plants to unfold in skincare products: through careful cultivation, gentle processing and intelligent formulations that bring together nature’s active ingredients.
Margot Esser-Greineder combines pharmaceutical expertise with a profound knowledge of plants and body therapy. This approach gave rise to PHARMOS NATUR’s holistic skincare, its Holistic Superfoods and VegetoDynamik®, a treatment method she developed herself.
Her work is also shaped by a deep sense of responsibility. Long-standing partnerships with around 200 farming families, the respectful use of natural resources and the preservation of traditional plant knowledge are, for her, inseparable from the quality of a product. This philosophy continues to define PHARMOS NATUR today.
The beginning
A journey to the United States and an encounter with a plant that changed everything.
It was in the early 1980s when Margot Esser suffered a serious accident while travelling through the southern United States. She lay unconscious in the scorching tropical sun for many hours before she was found and taken to a nearby naturopathic clinic with second- and third-degree burns.
The treatment she received there was highly unusual. Instead of the skin grafts and operations that conventional treatment would have involved, the naturopathic practitioners treated her wounds with freshly extracted gel from a particular Aloe Vera plant.
The results were remarkable. The pain subsided quickly, her skin visibly regenerated, and no scars remained. This experience became a turning point in her life. Inspired by the extraordinary power of the plant, Margot Esser resolved to devote her future work to plants and their natural active ingredients rather than to the methods of the pharmaceutical industry.
The Search
From the pharmaceutical industry to the diverse world of medicinal plants.
Margot Esser left her career in the pharmaceutical industry behind. But she did not simply want to use plants she wanted to understand them. In the years before and after founding PHARMOS NATUR on 1 March 1986, she completed extensive training in the fields that would later shape her work.
At the same time, her travels took her in search of the best cultivation conditions: to Texas, Cuba, Colombia, Portugal, Andalusia and Mexico. Wherever she went, she worked closely with farming families and natural healers who preserve and pass on the traditional plant knowledge of their cultures.
Many of these families remain partners to this day fairly compensated and supported through long-term relationships that help make it possible for their children to attend school.
The Realisation
Understanding the plant as a whole
It wasn’t a single isolated active ingredient that convinced Margot Esser, but rather the natural interplay of the entire plant. Every medicinal plant contains a complex spectrum of naturally occurring compounds. Within this naturally occurring structure of active ingredients, they can complement, support, and balance one another. It is precisely this that demonstrates the plant’s special quality.
This gave rise to one of PHARMOS NATUR’s core principles: not to reduce plants to individual, isolated active ingredients, but to preserve their natural matrix of active ingredients as much as possible. The focus is on the balanced interaction of the ingredients within a formulation.
That is why every product is developed individually. There is no standard base formula. In skincare, hand-peeled organic aloe vera juice with its more than 160 naturally occurring ingredients forms the active-ingredient-rich foundation, replacing water as a neutral carrier. Added to this are selected medicinal and rejuvenating plants, botanical and essential oils, as well as modern botanical active ingredients, when they meaningfully complement the respective formula.
Origin and cultivation are also part of this understanding. A plant can only reach its full potential where the soil, climate, and cultivation methods are suited to it. This insight became the starting point for PHARMOS NATUR: to view the plant in its interconnectedness from its living origin to its application on the skin.
A bridge between indigenous knowledge, craftsmanship and practice.
For Margot Esser-Greineder, herbal medicine and modern medical practice were never at odds. Even in the early years after founding her company, she sought collaboration with clinics and leading dermatologists, who tested her formulations under strict conditions. Drawing on these experiences and her own pharmaceutical background, she developed a manufacturing process that preserves the active ingredients of the plants. It avoids harsh filtration, the isolation of individual substances, and denaturation caused by freeze-drying or spray-drying. The plant is preserved in its entirety, from the hand-peeled aloe vera leaf to the bottling process in Germany.
Equally influential was the years-long search for the right growing location. Margot Esser-Greineder tested various climate zones including Texas, Cuba, Colombia, Portugal, and Andalusia to determine where aloe vera develops its best properties. The decision ultimately fell on Yucatán and Campeche in the land of the Maya. There, the plant finds nutrient-rich soil, intense sunlight, and tropical vegetation that meets its needs.
By her side since 1995. Paul Greineder.
Since 1995, Margot Esser-Greineder has not been on this journey alone. Her husband, Paul Greineder, has been supporting her and the company ever since with expertise that has had a decisive impact on PHARMOS NATUR. He brought with him his experience from the brewing industry—a craft that has, for centuries, understood how to gently preserve delicate natural products.
This knowledge led to the development of the manufacturing process for Aloe Vera BioUrsaft. Gently pasteurized rather than chemically stabilized, the juice is still produced today without preservatives or citric acid.
What sounds simple is one of PHARMOS NATUR’s secrets. This is the only way to preserve the plant’s active ingredient composition in its natural form.
VegetoDynamik® when touch becomes more than a step in a treatment.
VegetoDynamik® is Margot Esser-Greineder’s most personal creation. It is a holistic treatment method that incorporates everything she has learned over the decades: herbal medicine, body therapy, biodynamic psychology, the knowledge of indigenous naturopaths and the experience with aloe vera that started it all.
In practice, this means: gentle touch, mindful breathing, and a calm demeanor. At the heart of every treatment remains the freshly peeled aloe vera leaf applied directly to the skin a direct connection to the experience that started it all.
Today, hundreds of trained VegetoDynamists teach this method at institutes, hotels, and spas around the world. The PHARMOS NATUR Academy in Bernried offers a five-week part-time training program leading to a diploma—and the VegetoDynamist® is a distinct, protected professional designation.
“Green Luxury means preserving an intact and healing natural world that leaves people and all living beings a world worth living in and loving.”
NEXT GENERATION
What remains when the brand passes into new hands.
In its anniversary year, 2026, PHARMOS NATUR will undergo a transition that has been in the works for a long time. Operational and strategic responsibility will be transferred to Alexander Esser, the founder’s son and a lawyer, and to Marc Hees, a management consultant. Alexander Esser grew up surrounded by the partner families, the growing regions, and the company’s philosophy. He has known many of the farmers in Yucatán, Ecuador, India, and the Andes since childhood.
More about PHARMOS NATUR
