Who is Dr. Rudolf Hauschka?
Rudolf Hauschka spent his life asking one question: what does nature know that chemistry doesn’t? The answer became the foundation of everything we make.
A life of science.
Dr. Rudolf Hauschka's most important scientific legacy is, without doubt, his development in 1929 of a process for obtaining water-based medicinal plant extracts without using alcohol as a preservative. Introduced in 1935 for the production of WALA preparations, this process completely changed the pharmaceutical norms and is now codified in the German Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia (HAB) as a recognised process for drug production Plant extracts obtained in this way have also been working effectively in Dr. Hauschka Skin Care products since 1967.
Rudolf Hauschka was born in Vienna in 1891 and trained as a chemist — but he never thought like one. From an early age, he was drawn to the boundaries of what science could explain: the forces behind growth, the cycles that govern living things, the invisible world that animates the visible one.
As a young student, he was captivated by the mathematical hyperbola — an open curve whose branches seem to disappear, only to return from the other side. He wrote in his autobiography: “In between lies a realm of the invisible, perhaps beyond the reach of our thinking.” That idea never left him.
The decisive turn came when Hauschka met Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Steiner’s conviction that “rhythm brings life” set Hauschka on a new path: developing extraction methods that worked with nature’s own cycles rather than overriding them.
He studied the polarities that govern living systems — rest and movement, warmth and cold, day and night — and built a process that honored them. The result was the first stable water-based medicinal plant extracts produced without alcohol or preservatives. A discovery recognized by the scientific community and eventually codified in the German Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia.
Throughout his life, Rudolf Hauschka remained a seeker, an explorer of nature. In 1935, two years before his death, he launched a new product line designed for the health and care of the largest human organ: the skin. This was the birth of Dr. Hauschka Skin Care.
From Medicine to Skin Care
For decades, Hauschka had believed that the same principles guiding his medicines — working with the body’s own rhythms, not against them — could transform how we care for skin. He just needed the right collaborator to make it real.
When he met Elisabeth Sigmund in 1962, everything clicked. Together they developed stable, preservative-free cream bases built entirely from botanical ingredients. In 1967, Dr. Hauschka Skin Care launched.
The plant extracts Hauschka developed in the 1950s and ’60s — many of which are still stable today, still without preservatives — remain the foundation of every Dr. Hauschka formula made now.
Treasures from our archive:
Doctoral Thesis, 1914
On June 6, 1914, Hauschka received his doctorate from the Imperial and Royal University of Technology in Vienna. Chemistry was his entry point — but curiosity about what lay beyond it was always the driving force.
Handbook on cosmetic chemistry.
Rudolf Hauschka was one of the authors who contributed to the Handbuch der Kosmetischen Chemie (handbook on cosmetic chemistry), published in Leipzig in 1920. His contribution was on the subject of mineral drugs and metals. He wrote this during his time at the Pharmazeutische Industrie A.G. in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. There are also some patents registered by the company from this time that bear Hauschka’s name.
Laboratory notebooks and mother tinctures.
Rudolf Hauschka meticulously documented his research results in laboratory notebooks. These also contain early formulations for skin creams. Many of his medicinal plant extracts made in the 1950s and 1960s are still stable today, even though they contain no preservatives like alcohol.
Dietetics and diagrams.
Maintaining human health was the central objective of Rudolf Hauschka’s research. In addition to pharmaceuticals, he was therefore also interested in the topic of healthy nutrition. One of his experiments was “honey-salt bread”, where the only raising agent was the wild yeast contained in the honey. His conviction that our health was significantly influenced by our diet was far ahead of his time.
Written correspondence.
Rudolf Hauschka was not only a passionate researcher, but also a keen writer. His estate includes three metres of shelf space filled with his writings, many of which are correspondences with doctors – including cosmetologist Elisabeth Sigmund, with whom he developed Dr. Hauschka Skin Care in 1967.