MY STORY
MY BACKSTORY
Born and raised a California girl at heart, I always gravitated towards the beach and I feel blessed to be living a coastal lifestyle in San Diego. My HEALTHY GLOW.shop pays homage to my love affair with beach living.
After graduating from UC Santa Barbara, I launched a successful career in fashion merchandising in San Francisco. At the age of 29, I chose to make a dramatic departure and pursued my dream to become a hair stylist. While maybe unconventional, I have always been passionate about hair and possessed a burning desire to see transformation happen faster than the typical nine-month garment lifecycle. While I was certainly a bit of an anomaly amongst the 18-year old students, I was confident I was in my element and determined to succeed.
Once I got my Cosmetology license, the combination of my maturity and manufacturing experience quickly helped me to launch a successful business and take on the title “the hair extension guru.” Given my keen eye for detail, I was able to custom blend hair for my clients that gave them gorgeous, full-bodied hair they never imagined possible. In just three years, I opened my own thriving healthy hair salon in Del Mar.
MY DESIRES
Throughout my first 10 years of specializing in healthy hair styling and extensions, I identified a key void in the beauty/cosmetic market place, specifically the need in the market for an organic product that supports healthy hair growth, performs as a dry shampoo and styling serum and supports active lifestyles became dramatically apparent. – I wanted to have a safety net as hair stylists are generally not afforded 401Ks and I found myself avoiding the activities I enjoyed before styling hair, like snowboarding, because I was scared that I was putting myself at risk for injury and I wouldn’t be able to support myself. I also envisioned myself starting a family at 39 and I wanted to have the freedom and financial security to build and support a family unit.
When my GROW formula was in pre production, I discovered a Naturopath to help my clients also explore their internal solutions to combat hair loss. My research told me I had to address it topically and internally in order to achieve optimal results. I set up an appointment with a local Naturopath to see if she may be able to help my clients. To my surprise, after she took me through the initial client appointment, I learned that my immune system was compromised because my thyroid was not functioning well. This caused me to have an imbalance in my hormone levels and very low progesterone that sent my adrenals into over drive. She shared that if I ever wanted to have children, I would have to do some serious work to remedy my issues. I also discovered I had systemic candida - causing my body’s erratic state of health, but at the time I didn’t fully understand how drastically it was contributing to it. A dermatologist told me a while back the frequent rash on my back was candida recommended using head and shoulders shampoo to eradicate. While it had a positive short term effectI had unwanted side effects and it would always return.
The Naturopath suggested a health solution of supplements and thousands of dollars in IVs, which was not in my budget, nor was it something I felt comfortable recommending to my clients. I knew I had to find another solution.
As I was actively researching different ways that I could improve my health, I was very fortunate enough to meet a man who introduced me to a woman named Vicki, who became one of the greatest blessings in my life. She helped me to energetically release a lot of the issues I was dealing with. I didn’t totally understand what we were doing, but I could feel a difference. My body started to feel better and I felt like I was on my way to better health.
One session we decided that it was time to address the candida that was in my body by doing a Neem cleanse. The first day I took it I felt really weird! My body was super cold and I had flu like symptoms because the candida in my body was dying. The next day I didn’t get a chance to continue the cleanse because I actually learned that I was pregnant – what? Yes! I was pregnant. That was something I didn’t think was possible! How on earth could my body that was so unbalanced just 5 months ago get pregnant? I guessed what Vicki and I were doing was actually working!
I continued to work with Vicki when I was pregnant to make sure I had enough minerals and progesterone to support me and my baby and help him come into the world without the emotional baggage or ancestral wounds that I pass down from generations (more on that later!).
MY EXTERNAL STRUGGLE
In 2015, not only did I give birth to my son Jett, I created the first GROW formula with natural, organic ingredients targeted to promote hair growth. The initial formulations were a home run with consumers, but my manufacturer constantly made changes to my formulas without my knowledge and caused a combination of inventory shortages and restraints. I needed to find a new manufacturer to help achieve the consistency I was seeking. With limited funding, unfortunately, I had to halt my attempt to scale GROW and revert back to the drawing board...Just when I was starting to gain momentum with impactful hair growth results and new accounts in California. While I had ample inventory to manage my sales in the salon and accounts for a while, I needed to figure out how to obtain a new manufacturer and nail down my formula for consistent results without spending a ton of capital.
MY INTERNAL STRUGGLE
The inconsistency of the product was a major obstacle to the business. Having invested so much personal and financial capital in the product development, I felt like a failure. I didn’t have that much money to figure it out and I was a new single mom and panic was setting in. I felt even worse because I had been in product manufacturing for 8 years prior to being a hair stylist. I should have known how to avoid the situation i was in. However many of my clients and advisors informed me that this is a natural progression in entrepreneurial endeavors, so I recommitted to myself to do whatever it took to make it a success.
THE FINAL WALL I HIT
The final straw that made me swiftly take action and fire my manufacturer was when a shipment I received was making hair grow like bananas but I did not like how the new hair looked when it grew in. While all of my previous batches might have been inconsistent with how the hair looked and felt, the hair and new hair growth always looked great. This shipment was creating INSANE hair growth, but I disliked the curly texture of the new hair growing in. Which meant I had to finally bite the bullet and start over with a smaller manufacturer that could help me finalize a consistent formula with the growth and styling features I wanted in a dry shampoo.
Then, as if by chance, something amazing happened…
MY EPIPHANY
A client of mine introduced me to biofeedback software that could help me read the energy of my formulas to determine what the vitamin, mineral and amino acid balance. I could also identify what organs, glands and body systems could be impacted long term by each formula. I finally started to understand the significance of every natural ingredient having a benefit and a heavy metal and/or environmental toxin component that needed to be neutralized for consumer safety long term.
While natural ingredients have many amazing benefits, I learned the imbalance of heavy metals found in all living things can pose a threat to our overall health and wellness if consumed in an unbalanced way. For example, kale has tin, green tea has lead and CBD has cadmium.
A lot of natural products say they contain "no heavy metals," but I found this to be energetically false. All living things are made of heavy metal, just as all humans are. If there aren't metals in an ingredient, it can't energetically exist. Once I comprehended this, my goal became to source high quality ingredients with low metal content and take it another step to neutralize the energy of the metals in them so our bodies can find harmony for a lifetime.
I also wanted to improve on a pharmaceutical or beauty company that promises results with possible side effects. To become a truly holistic and wholistic beauty manufacturer, I was committed to supporting our bodies in a way manufacturers in the natural beauty industry haven't addressed yet. I wanted to go well beyond "THE NEVER LIST" or "THE DIRTY LIST" and manufacture beauty tools that not only don't have unwanted toxic ingredients, but actually serve as a way to deliver vital nutrients into our largest organ (OUR SKIN) on a daily basis to support our optimal health and wellness.
While I was consuming all this new knowledge from a firehose, I was also blessed to find a small organic manufacturer in Colorado where I was finally able to take control of my formulation to produce the growth, appearance and consistency that I was seeking. I now had the ability to incorporate all my new discoveries since my original formula was created. With biofeedback technology, I accentuated the benefits of the ingredients and chelated and harmonized the ingredients in my formula. It was now crystal clear to me how the slightest change in ingredients and the synergy between them can affect hair growth, hair appearance and how the body will respond to the formula for a lifetime.
I then went into what I call “Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind Mode” where I noticed how my hair looked after a walk on the beach, after I took a bath, after I used deodorant, after I put lotion or oil on. I saw that the look of my hair shifted every time I added something topical to my body or every time I ate something with high acidity or sodium. I also started to see my hair color shift from red tones to beige tones to neutral tones to platinum tones based on what I was applying on and ingesting in my body. This was when I experienced the potential impact that system synergistic beauty tools could have on healthy hair growth.
To keep it simple, my theory was based on the fact that we go through our day “collecting ingredients” in our body, good and bad. We need a way to make sure the good outweigh the bad, the good are harmonized to support a healthy body and the bad are eliminated or “tossed out” like we empty a trash can. I knew one hair product alone can support hair growth, GROW does, but it may not be as impactful as a system of tools all working together with one goal in mind.
Most people ask me, “Why not start with just GROW? You were already strapped for cash when you had to halt your plans to scale and get a consistent hair product manufacturer. Why not stop there? Never launch a brand with more than one item at a time or else you are doomed to fail. Why invest so much money into the research and development or the creation of additional products?”
This is where my previous personal history of health problems starts to rear its head. While my hair product research led me to learn about the relationships between ingredients and how to accentuate the good features and harmonize the metals and toxins that lead to side effects, it also exposed the connection between ingredient imbalances, combinations and natural environmental toxins with the chronic inflammation and symptoms that I had experienced for 30 years. The symptoms that western medicine often failed to diagnose or help treat long term relief without side effects from.
I experienced painful chronic yeast infections, bacterial infections, UTI’s, acne, ulcers, hemorrhoids, rashes, allergies and digestive problems. I also had annoying white spots on my back and chest that would come and go. Coincidentally, these reactions happened to be in flare up mode when I switched to my new manufacturer. It turned out to be fate that I was learning about how I could support people with hair loss in a profound way and the realization that the same interventions can support and relieve my 30 years of chronic inflammation simultaneously. I confidently knew how to make hair grow, but my desire to achieve the cleanest hair product in the market for healthy hair for a lifetime, motivated me to solve my ultimate personal goal of achieving clear and pain free skin and a happy and healthy digestive tract. I discovered the key to healthy hair growth and clear, pain free skin that I so desperately wanted for decades, went hand in hand.
It was this symbiotic relationship that also made me double down on the need for a system to address hair loss. My discoveries led me to believe that if we only use GROW, all our other beauty items we use on our body will run “interference” with the ingredients of GROW and we won’t get optimal results because we are still left battling systemic inflammation, which is one of the 3 reasons why hair thins. I knew had to wipe out inflammation systemically to achieve long term results for a broader audience. Society as a whole is results oriented and doesn’t have an ounce of patience. We tend to jump from one option to another looking for a miracle solution to restore or maintain healthy hair. If we use a system that is designed to work together to support our optimal health and wellness and the daily rejuvenation of our hair and skin, we give ourselves a higher probability to see faster shifts because ingredients are all in a synergetic dance with one another to create a major shift that we are seeking as consumers. The "dance" of ingredients within each product and a system of products that work with one another to support optimal health and wellness for a lifetime, is what I now call the "NECTAR EFFECT.”
As I was seeing my and my clients hair and skin improve, I also learned that I could support my son’s battle with chronic congestion and hyper activity with the same technology I was using with my adult formulas. My son Jett is the reason why I developed HG Kids because his birth opened my eyes to how mothers pass down our toxins and heavy metals that can contribute to our child’s chronic inflammation, rashes and hyperactivity. I want to help our kids have a new “normal” without steroids and antibiotics to treat their symptoms. I believe that it is just as important for my son to have beneficial tools to use daily to support his wellness and the detox of environmental toxins. I felt guilty using my HG clean beauty tools, when I didn’t have anything viable to support Jett’s health, which did not sit well with me! Since using HEALTHY GLOW KIDS, I can see a major difference in Jett, who loves HG. He gives 2 thumbs up and always reminds me to put on his detox paste! I am beyond excited for more parents to see positive shifts in their children’s wellness.
Remember when I said I would fill you in later on the energetic stuff I was doing with my friend to support my healing and Jett’s entry into the world? Well…..the expansion of the “NECTAR effect” happened while I was utilizing biofeedback to help me understand ingredient relationships. This research Ied me to realize that I could merge my learnings of the emotion code with biofeedback technology.
My first experience with energetic formulation was when I created my release frequency. This is based on the 6 months of intense 1-2x a week energy clearing sessions I did with my friend Vicki. Our sessions were inspired by Dr Brad Nelson’s, The Emotion Code. We used this technology to help alleviate my symptoms that I had been suffering from for decades and when these were gone, I ended up pregnant too!
It took me a couple years to wrap my brain around the energy that transformed my mind and body back then. I still marvel at the beauty this amazing gift has….
Since I learned that there is a clear connection between the way our brain thinks and the way our body feels and appears, I decided to put everything I learned from my sessions with Vicki into my RELEASE frequency and had my clients start listening to it. Some clients were using GROW, some were also using some of my new products, some were just listening to the frequency and ALL were overwhelmingly positive hair growth results.
This convinced me I can create a frequency program to serve as a replacement for everything else we try to repair our chronic inflammation. Why not keep it simple if we can? So I created HEALTHY GLOW FOR THE SOUL energy frequencies to capture the essence of my profound healing sessions. Biofeedback technology allows me to share an energetic experience inspired by my own healing sessions in a unique way that people can access every day. Just like we use our body to support our health and wellness with physical activity, we can use our mind to support our optimal health and wellness with mental activity. HEALTHY GLOW FOR THE SOUL allows us to train our mind to help our body support its optimal health and wellness without spending a ton of time and money chasing the rabbit down the hole with supplements and everything else we try.
The ability to aid and maintain optimal health and wellness with our mind is “energy medicine.” Since it’s energy…I don’t work in %’s of ingredients as I do in the physical products, my energetic formulas are based on intention statements I create to support our body to do what it innately knows how to do. All of HG frequencies are created for the purpose of harmonizing our mind to support the body function innately perform what it knows how to do.
Since we are not perfect human beings, HG frequencies allow us to get back into the wellness mindset if we fall off, no guilt here. Let’s enjoy those things we want to enjoy, but also have a support system customized to our optimal health and wellness that gets us back on track.
Experiencing my new synergistic NECTAR EFFECT not only provided me with healthy hair growth and beautiful hair, my clear skin is glowing and my digestive problems that I had suffered since I was a pre teen are finally gone. Not to mention, my hormones, cortisol and histamine levels are harmonized AND my relationships are better because I find myself happier and more energized. Jett’s congestion is gone and his hyper activity has significantly decreased so he can focus on conversations and tasks.
But I still had a problem...
MY FINAL CONFLICT
Just as I was finalizing the research and development on HEALTHY GLOW’s NECTAR EFFECT, getting final feedback and testimonials, Covid hit and my income stream from the salon halted, which was funding my R+D and inventory. Bottles and pumps were in limited supply because everyone was using them for hand sanitizer. There was a tremendous amount of uncertainty regarding product availability and the supply chain. Hair stylists were prohibited from working and my bills were piling up. Things were looking grim, but in June 2020 I was grateful to receive a small business loan from California so I could continue HEALTHY. GLOW production. Finally by November 2020, I was ready to launch my products online for those outside of my Del Mar family/friend bubble to experience.
MY ACHIEVEMENTS
I am amazed that my 30 years of personal health issues and my manufacturing trials and errors ultimately helped me to create synergistic beauty and wellness tools to support healthy hair growth, clear glowing skin and optimal health and wellness for the entire family.
MY TRANFORMATION
My journey the past 6 years has led me to an unexpected but incredibly exciting destination and I want to share my discovery with those who enjoy clean living and those who are learning about clean living due to the chronic inflammation and painful physical and mental symptoms they have experienced from it. HEALTHYGLOW.shop supports healthy hair growth, clear glowing skin and overall health and wellness to make clean living a simple reality for you and your family.
Here’s to Healthy Hair Growth + Clear Glowing Skin!
SK