G R A S S L A N D

Some are forest people, some are ocean people, or desert people... I'm a prairie person. A soul-deep sense of relaxation washes over me when I'm in a vast expanse of tall grass. As someone with a highly attuned nervous system, it puts my mind at ease to have an unfettered view of my surroundings, and a direct connection to the land and sky.

M Y  C A L L I N G

Being an esthetician is a profound thing. I use my hands to convey love in such a literal way. I graduated from esthetics school in 1998, and I decided right away that I wanted to be the best esthetician ever. So I devoted myself to learning and perfecting my craft. Unfortunately, I allowed an outside metric into the equation, which threw the whole thing out of true. I let the beauty industry define "best" for me. This externally defined "best" ended up not being a very authentic "best".

I mean, how can anyone be their best if they're trying to conform to an outside idea of what's best?

Let that sink in. Let it be a lesson to us both.

After many years of constant giving, coming home at the end of the day too exhausted to talk, I finally burned out like a candle. I had been gifted with a brain injury, and it made my life of constant perfection-driven striving untenable. I closed my esthetics practice, signed up for a bioregional herbalism school, and spent a year of focused study and experimentation, learning how to make the skin care products I'd been dreaming of for decades.

I spent a very happy, very fulfilling several years making skin care under the name Heart of Gold. A confluence of catastrophic events in 2020 led to the closure of Heart of Gold. At first I was relieved, but eventually I realized that I really missed it. Formulating skin care products is such a spiritual practice for me, and I feel a very magical whistle-while-you-work sort of flow when I'm co-creating with my botanical soulmates.

As an esthetician with over 25 years of hands-on experience, I know that part of what makes me a great formulator is my many years of hands-on experience. I've had the priviledge of testing thousands of products over the years, and my discernment is honed to a very keen edge. I've used this superpower to research, test, and curate a gorgeous array of skin care lines for GRASSLAND. I know there is something for everyone, and I'm thrilled to share these sweet friends with you. You'll never meet a more skin-fascinated nerd, so please reach out if you want help figuring out your optimal routine.

I am also offering seasonal capsule collections of my own skin care line- Heart of Gold- launching on each solstice and equinox, with a mix of perennial favorites and limited edition treasures. My goal is to mark the beginning of each season with a capsule collection of freshly handmade skin care products, available by way of my newsletter called Grassland Quarterly, which I hope will help us to settle into the present moment with seasonal recipes, inspiring interviews, and a seasonal playlist.

The goal here is to offer products of exquisite quality and efficacy, presented with my folksy-yet-hyper-educated take, so you can get a real feel for which products might best suit your skin and how to incorporate them into your life.