This week’s Beauty Boss is holistic esthetician Evan Healy, Co-Founder of evanhealy and a pioneer in the natural personal care industry. Healy found her passion for natural beauty after moving to San Diego in 1984 to join her father’s natural food store assisting to develop a beauty department.

A champion of organically grown, biologically active, plant-based ingredients, Healy trained as a holistic esthetician all around the world including the United States, Europe, Asia and India. Her mission is to inspire others to treat their skin through the wisdom of nature and a commitment to the care of the earth.

We caught up with Healy to learn more about her journey, her favorite plant-based ingredients, advice, and more.

What attracted you to getting into the industry and working with the healing powers of plants?

Many years ago, my family sailed to the South Pacific and lived in Tahiti for a year. We were moored on the remote outer island of Huahine when my mother was scalded on her leg with freshly boiled water. My father and I rowed her to shore to find a medical clinic. We found one run by a French medical doctor who cleaned her wound and applied layers of very aromatic gauze strips that had been saturated in healing medicinal oils and a specific blend of antibacterial essential oils to fight off staphylococcal bacteria. We brought her back to the clinic in one week, the doctor removed the gauze pads and we were astonished to see the skin had healed remarkably well and very quick. This event was a turning point in my career and sent me in the direction of using pure plant essential oils and alternative therapies.

I started my natural skincare career in 1984 and there was no notion of natural ingredients then nor was there an emphasis on words like organic, natural, green or sustainable. That has now shifted, and the benefits of oils and green beauty are now on-trend. But at the start of my career, I was looking for natural skincare solutions that met my standards for purity and quality and ultimately realized I’d have to create my own. 

I earned my California Esthetician’s license in October 1988 and then went into private practice. While building my practice I also took post-graduate classes in the US and the EU in a wide variety of natural and alternative skincare treatment therapies. Over the years these areas included a specialty in aromatherapy, Ayurvedic skin and body treatment therapies in India and the US, and training in Canada from the British Institute of Homeopathy in Bach Flower Therapy. I also traveled to France and Germany to study in a homeopathic clinic, where I learned about the healing powers of organic essential oils and hydrosols and the importance of sustainable gardening methods.

When was evanhealy founded and what inspired you to launch your brand?

My vision was to create skin care that heightened our connection with nature while acting as a nourishing sanctuary for the skin. evanhealy was incorporated in 1999, but before then I was making each product by hand, labeling them, taking them to the post office and shipping it all myself. 

Our company began with a small selection of products for the care of the face that included a cleansing cream, Rose Hip Oil Serum, Day Moisture Cream, and stream distilled HydroSoul as a toner. It wasn’t until I created my Whipped Shea Butter with Olive Leaf a few years later that we started branching out into more retail stores. 

Now we’ve been in Whole Foods stores nationwide for almost 10 years and have maintained a leading presence in many natural stores and co-ops. Another way we’ve grown is by establishing a nationwide network of enthusiastic and sincere educators and estheticians who share our skincare philosophy and provide demonstrations, product knowledge and sourcing stories in natural food stores and at events.

Do you have a hero product and what are some of your favorite products from your collection?

The Whipped Shea Butter was a creation of mine that came from a chance meeting with a woman I met in Toronto who was originally from Ghana, and that’s what really launched evanhealy as a pioneering natural brand. The woman I met had connections to a women’s co-op there who offered a handmade production of shea butter. It wasn’t until some years later that we had a chance to visit the Kpersi Village in the northwest corner of sub-Saharan Africa, where I experienced first-hand the inspiring work of these women who not only run the production of shea butter, but are also the ones responsible for their children’s education, feeding their families and ultimately holding the communities together by their networks, hearts and hands. 

As far as favorite products go, I reach for our Pomegranate Repair Serum daily and love washing my face with the Patchouli Rose Cleansing Milk. I wish I could narrow it down, but I love literally all of my HydroSouls! Douglas Fir is a favorite in the colder winter months, and Lavender and Immortelle are refreshing in the hotter summer months. 

You are known for using essential oils in your products. Are there any essential oils that you particularly love working with?

A few of my favorites are rose geranium and lavender because they are very effective at healing the skin and calming the nervous system. Lavender is well known to calm and soothe the signs of redness and irritation, and rose geranium is known for balancing and is especially beneficial for oily and dry skin conditions. We specifically use certified organic essential oils because we work with some of the gentlest flowers and want to maintain their potency and healing powers.

Can you share a little about where the ingredients in your products come from?

We make an extra effort to partner with family farms, women’s co-operatives, and tribal villages to ethically source the highest quality product ingredients. Maintaining this intimate connection with plants and the cultures that have known their healing properties for centuries elevates the efficacy and therapeutic benefits of our products. It keeps the profound prana of the plant alive and well so that by the time the bottle is in your hand it’s still bursting with vitality.

We source many of our ingredients from women-run groups, like the Al Amal Women’s Co-operative in Morocco, where we receive certified organic argan oil. We also co-sponsored the planting of 400 argan saplings for this cooperative. 

We source shea butter from the Kpersi Village in Ghana and have partnered with them in different ways throughout the years, like providing a shea nut grinding machine and shed so the women would no longer need to walk miles to another village to grind the nuts.

We have also cultivated rich relationships with small family farms, who respect the original paradigm of organic farming. These farms carry integrity in their hearts and profound consideration for the long-term health of the soil, the earth and our bodies. All of our hydrosols that we’ve named HydroSouls are sourced from organic certified farms, including several farms along the Columbia River Valley where we source our Rose Geranium, Lavender, Tulsi and Lemon Thyme. In order to sustainably harvest, we offer a curated selection of hydrosols that are available seasonally and year-round based on the times each plant is in bloom.

Do you have any beauty secrets or skincare advice that you can share?

The most important lesson I learned from years of working with my clients was to apply the philosophy of “radical simplicity”—less is more. Each of us has an individual skin type and each person’s skin adapts and changes to their lifestyle, environment, diet, genetics and general health. I found that the easiest and most effective way of working with the energy of the body and the skin was to understand what it requires for basic health. In the very simplest language, the skin is made of oil (sebum) and water (sweat). It’s your largest organ and the first line of defense. The more chemicals or unnatural things that are applied to the skin in an attempt to control its inherent activity, the more the skin overreacts to this glut of complex products and ends up in a confused state. Treatment with acids only serves to dissolve your protective epidermal layer, which ultimately weakens the skin's ability to protect the body.

I like to think of the skin as a garden. It’s a constantly changing and vibrant ecosystem that requires the right conditions and nourishment to thrive. Instead of fighting off what our culture has deemed “problem skin,” we provide the skin with a unique nourishment of serums and plant waters that is both effective and supportive of self-healing. It’s a radically simple concept, but just two products can do wonders. 

That’s why we named our oil and water combination a skincare ritual. It should be done every day. We have enough going on in our day-to-day lives, so keeping our skin care simple by starting and ending our day with an uncomplicated yet effective ritual will do wonders for our sense of serenity and peace. It has for me and all our evanhealy truth seekers.

Wellness tip?

I strongly believe in the power of our ability to impact our own skin and health. Taking the time to cleanse, apply a mask, mist with HydroSouls, and apply an oil serum can make all the difference. For instance, our Blue Cactus Beauty Balm helps hit the reset button on our nervous system with the natural fragrance and absorption into the skin. The power to restore our skin health is literally in our own hands and greatly benefits from the incorporation of organic and natural elements of the earth.

Who inspires you?

I don’t know if this is so much a who answer or more of a what, but whenever I go outside to take a walk, bike ride, or photograph, nothing seems to inspire more awe and gratitude in my spirit than Mother Nature.  

Secret to success?

What’s key for me and has maintained evanhealy’s staying power and growth is having a purpose for a business rather than just meeting the bottom line. We don’t want beauty at any cost—we want beauty that holds hands with global gardens around the world and conveys the ‘radically simple’ philosophy into our products.

Favorite ways to relax?

Yoga, meditation, walking, being with friends, reading or watching a movie are my go-to relaxation activities. 

Best advice?

Appreciate and accept your own unique and authentic beauty! Pared down to the barest essence is where real beauty lies. It's to give a voice to the thought that authentic beauty is never perfect nor elusive, but lies in the cracks and crevices of our lives every minute of the day.

To learn more, visit evanhealy.com and follow @evanhealy on Instagram.

[Images courtesy of evanhealy]

Lizzy Sherman is an award-winning digital content writer/editor. She has been a featured guest speaker at Cal State University Northridge, Digital LA and The National Association of Audience Marketing Professionals. When she's not writing, Lizzy enjoys yoga and playing guitar. Follow her on Instagram: @zillizy