Shaken by melanoma, Angie and Shona upgraded the humble work glove

Little did Shona Larkin know that her 2016 stage 2 melanoma diagnosis would be the catalyst for the business she runs today with her sister, Angie Nisbet.

FarmHer Hands began as an idea that came during a coffee break around the kitchen table at Kentle Downs, the 12,000 hectare property where the 39-year-old lives with her husband Steve, 40, and their four kids, Hunter, 13, Torah, 12, Will, 10, and Ned, six.

Angie, 37, lives next door on Landsborough Downs, another 12,000 hectare block, with her own young family: husband Sam, 37, and Hugo, seven, Tilli, five, and Elka, three. “Shona is only six kilometres away from me. I’m up on ‘little ridge’ and I can actually see her place from here — I’m always keeping an eye on her,” says Angie, with a laugh.

Tired of dreary work gloves and driven to spread their sun-safe message, the fashion-conscious sisters decided to design styles they would love to wear, and so FarmHer Hands was born.

Shona: My third child, Will, was about two and I was planning to run a half marathon. I had been slogging it out on the downs when I decided to go into Townsville for my annual skin check. After you have kids, your moles do change and I had noticed that one on my leg had grown. I told my doctor and he decided to take a little nick. We headed home — it’s a 500 kilometre trip — and the doctor called that evening. He said, “You’ve got to come back in. It’s a stage 2 melanoma.”

I was devastated not to be able to do the marathon but I am so grateful that they picked it up. That was in 2016 and I’m now doing annual check-ups. I had one the other day and it was all clear.

We came up with the idea for FarmHer Hands over a cup of coffee in the Kentle kitchen in April 2023. The business name came to us during one of our 280 kilometre round trips to Muttaburra, while we were taking the kids to their weekly swimming lessons. Angie and I would talk to each other over the two-way, coming up with business names. She finally came up with FarmHer Hands and it just seemed to stick. We placed our first order with our manufacturer in August and launched on December 1, 2023.

Our journey began with nothing more than an idea, an internet search and some conversations with friends who had experience in the industry.

Those early chats led to invaluable tips and connections — proof that you never know who might have the information you need. One memorable example was when we were searching for weeks, trying to figure out how to get our products delivered to Australia quickly and reliably.

After all that effort, it was Angie’s father-in-law — someone who had been quietly following our journey — who ended up giving us the contact details for a shipping company. That connection made all the difference. It really is a small world!

The biggest lesson we’ve learned is this: ask the questions, talk to people and don’t be afraid to reach out. Ninety per cent of the time, people are more than willing to share their knowledge; you just have to be brave enough to start the conversation.

Angie: I’m one of three girls in our family. I’m the youngest of three daughters, and we’re fifth-generation farmers. Our life as kids was pretty footloose and fancy-free. We grew up in desert country and did School of the Air. We were very hands-on helping Mum and Dad because at the time they didn’t really have enough money to employ too many workers. Mum and Dad worked very hard. They bought during the drought and I remember it being so desolate and dry.

I remember spending lots of time helping Dad muster on our little PeeWee 50s. On weekends, when we weren’t helping on the property, we were making obstacle courses from the poly pipe pile or playing in the cattle yards. It was all exciting.

We moved over to our current place when I was going into Grade Four. Shona and I were able to go to a little bush school, which was about 20 kilometres up the road, and we were super excited because it meant that we would get to see other children every day (our older sister was at boarding school at that point).

Dad rigged up his four-wheeler so we could drive to school. Shona used to do the driving and I can remember holding onto her and falling asleep. We had a really great childhood.

Shona and I were very close as little girls and nothing has changed. We are only 18 months apart in age and we’re pretty inseparable. She went to boarding school two years before me and that was hard because I was the only one left at home. Once I was boarding, I would see her every afternoon. We talk about everything; there probably isn’t much that’s not on the table.

We went our separate ways a little bit after school. I went jillarooing up north and Shona followed a teaching career. She was immersed in uni life and I couldn’t have been further removed from it, living on a remote cattle station, but there were always lots of phone calls. We would meet up somewhere — at a B&S ball or a concert — on the weekend because that was always a high priority for both of us.

We had been out mustering cattle and came in for coffee when we came up with the idea for FarmHer Hands. Shona took off her gloves — the fishing ones — and said, “You know, these gloves are so boring.” And I thought, “Why don’t we just make our own?”

I was like a dog with a bone. I went home and started researching; I had about 95,000 tabs open on my computer. Then I contacted a friend, Julie Brown, who had a swimwear business and she gave me a few places to get started. Within about a week, I came back to Shona with someone who I thought could do it for us.

We both love fashion. We love getting dressed up for races and doing this kind of stuff, so it was a very organic process. We thought, “Let’s make them fun and funky.” All of this literally happened on the kitchen table. We had no business, no fancy office, nothing. We drew what we wanted, sent it to our glove manufacturer, rejigged the samples to suit and that’s it, we fell in love with them. It was very exciting when our first order came through. We popped the bubbles!

What’s next? Well, we are on an absolute mission to protect 15,000 hands in the agricultural industry by 2026. Conversations about looking after your skin need to be a priority. In rural and remote Australia, it is really hard to get appointments to check your skin and we need to close that gap. We would love to find some skin doctors to come out to remote areas and build a rapport with the people out here.

Shona is by far the most creative of the two of us and her attention to detail is incredible. At the beginning, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I hope we don’t clash and annoy each other, and end up not wanting to do it.” But Shona and I are so different in our strengths and weaknesses that it’s actually a bit like a marriage. There are things that I don’t do so well that she pulls me up on and vice versa. I guess you could say we have a perfect sister relationship.

Update: Angie has been announced the Queensland winner of the 2026 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award for her work in spreading the word on sun-safety. The national award winner will be announced at a gala celebration in September.  

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