About Us

A little about me

My name is Shannon and I have come full circle back to the area where I spent most of my youth. Now that I am older, and wiser if only by trying not to make the same mistake twice, I have spent the past three years into a project, that I turned into a fully functional, state registered, federally recognized and insured entity that creates the products we use today with my knowledge and skills of modern methods and passed down generational practices to which I am fully committed.

As rising tariffs and global shortages remind us, the future may demand what our ancestors knew all along: how to rely on the land and each other. The same ingenuity that turned my great-grandmother’s orange rinds and strawberry tops into precious remedies now calls us to rekindle that local, collaborative spirit. When store shelves thin and prices climb, we’ll fall back on the old wisdom—not out of nostalgia, but survival. Every small batch I craft is a protest against waste, a nod to the neighbors who traded her soap for eggs, and a blueprint for the day we’ll all need to dig deeper into our roots and shared knowledge.

This isn’t just skincare; it’s a quiet revolution in self-reliance and a refusal to engage my hard earned money for products that contain toxins, ingredients that mess with hormones, and other harsh chemicals, then ‘green-wash’ a product line to make you think they are in line with your beliefs. This is a protest against oligarchy run multinational corporations who own many brands, raw material suppliers, and in many cases, our leaders elected to practice in our country’s citizens’ best interests. I will tell you all about how my sourcing has shifted since the beginning of this venture in a future article.

Before I stirred my first pot of herbal soap, I spent years studying the invisible forces that make healing possible. I have earned a Master’s and sometimes considered the PhD path so many in my family have achieved, yet I long for creating. My path began in college in my pre-nursing studies, where I was required to do coursework in

*Ecology and Environmental Studies
Genetics and Molecular Biology so I have mixed feelings about GMO’s and try to avoid them.
*Cell and Molecular Biology and Physiology which help me understand a little better when I read medical journals how certain ingredients I use in my products also work to repair particular damage to and under our skin.
*Bacterial Growth and hot topics such as Antibiotic Resistance, pH testing, gram staining. Many hours hunched over a microscope wondering back then how this would ever be useful as a surgical nurse.
*Microbial biology, Immunology, viruses things unseen to the naked eye and how they our body and how western medicine detects and handles these cases.
*Organic & Inorganic Chemistry – Understanding elements, compounds, how molecules bind (and now understanding why, for example, lye saponifies fats and water (which on their own do not combine) into gentle soap or at what pH level should each product be).
*Biology & Microbiology – Learning how plant compounds interact with skin microbiomes (and why my great-grandmother’s antifungal elderberry infusions worked). It also kept me keen on lab safety, clean lab and production environments, and following the guidelines such as CTFA Guidleines for Cosmetic Good Manufacturing, Cleaning and Sanitation Guidelines, and Raw material Microbial content.
Pharmacology Principles – Recognizing how dosage and extraction methods transform a plant from inert to active.

But in my labs, I noticed something: Modern science often rediscovers what traditions already perfected. So I began decoding my ancestors’ and other great masters’ recipes through a clinical lens: When research confirmed that willow bark (her “pain-relief twigs”) contained salicin—a precursor to aspirin—I wept. Other traditional Ojibwe healers often used willow, white pine, nettles, or cedar for pain relief and honey for wound healing. I grew up off reservation, but did live on it for decades, and learned some, not enough, traditional ways not only of healing but in gathering, hunting, and ricing. I measure pH and microbial counts with the same reverence she used to test lye with a chicken feather. I high temperature hot process my soaps just like her. I watch cold process YouTubers make it look so easy. Sometimes it is, but when you HTHP, time is never your friend. Science didn’t replace her wisdom—it gave me new language to honor it #soapart

My great Grandmother, Mary, came from Chicago with some of her family to Minnesota. She was devoted to Christ, graduated from he university, and raised my grandfather, for what she hoped that he would be fully prepared for Medical School. She never let us near the iron pot when the lye hissed into snowmelt—but she’d let us stir the strawberry infusion with an oak stick, grinning as it blushed pink. My great-grandmother’s soap cauldron bubbled under the open sky, a ceremony of caution and creativity: She’d barricade the fire with stones when children, grandchildren and neighbor kids played nearby, chanting “Lye bites faster than a winter wind”—a warning that later echoed in my chemistry labs.

While others used plain tallow, she simmered orange rinds in vinegar (for bright, clarifying suds), ground strawberry tops (for gentle exfoliation), and used wildflowers to decorate the tops. A few times a year, the horse-drawn buggy brought glass bottles of vanilla extract, clove oil, and golden beeswax—luxuries she’d blend into soaps for the town midwife, who swore they eased childbirth aches.

Her ‘fancy soaps’ were just scraps + ingenuity. Leftover lavender sachets? Steeped into milk baths. Birch bark? Boiled into a psoriasis wash. Nothing was wasted—not even knowledge. Now, I recreate her rituals with ISO-certified precision and strive for ECOCERT and European standards of soaps, lotions, and other cosmetic standards set by the EU. Replacing her snowmelt-lye tests (she judged strength by egg floatation) with digital pH meters—but keeping her rule of know what you are doing before you begin, gather all supplies so you never leave the high temperature hot processed soap unattended, be safe and clean, creative, take good notes and keep them organized with your batch records (or in her case a lot of qualitative data on who liked what or which recipe seemed to work best for which chore or part of the body) and share your products and knowledge with anyone willing to learn.

I was the most curious of all the grandchildren perhaps as to what the adults were doing, as I was always helping grandpa with whatever chores he was doing, or listening to the latest politics my grandmother kept up to date with daily, or hourly as she was an avid radio listener. But my great grandma Mary was so creative and made lovely things anytime it was wanted or needed. I try to learn more about local flowers and scents, but some are so exotic, such as ylang ylang, jasmine, or plumeria, that I have to purchase the essential oils instead of make my own. Honoring her trading spirit: I now barter with a local maple tree tapper for fresh 100% handmade locally produced maple syrup or trade my lye-rich all-natural “Shop Soap” for a discount on car repairs, just as she traded soaps for the Watkins man’s vanilla.

I don’t just make soap. I engineer small-batch biomedicines—the way nature intended. My great-grandmother’s soap pot was her laboratory. Now, I honor her with mine. I reverse engineer any top recommended high-priced product or big YouTuber and use all-natural, more simple formulations that achieve the same result. My batches are small enough to quickly bring a client exactly what they need or want, quickly test a new forumulation or make changes to them, and this obsession keeps me busy learning new things, perfecting what I know so I do my best work effectively, efficiently, with precision. I also incorporate my own traditions such as making sure each product gets both sunlight and moonlight. Why? I will save that for another time.

I devote nights to such subjects as mastering what she intuited—the precise physics of healing formulations:

Surfactant Science – Engineering gentle cleansers that respect the skin’s acid mantle (no stripping sulfates, just sugar-based glucosides).

Emulsion Theory – Perfecting stable, nutrient-rich lotions where water and oil actually harmonize (unlike store-bought “natural” brands that contain ingredients that certainly are not something you wound want, which is why I always read the SDS of every ingredient I source. SDS is the Safety Data Sheet that is formatted similarly containing the most critical data about a compound Many times I have had to remove from my cart a beloved popular fragrance oil because of negative SDS data.

Humectant Synergy – Combining hyaluronic acid with silk for woud healing, in articles such as this titled “Challenges and opportunities of silk protein” in the Royal Society of Chemistry Journal.

Upgrading her infused herbal oils with CO2 extractions to preserve volatile antimicrobial compounds. And anything related to health-care as a skin application instead of a pill. And I’m a huge fan of Korean skin care.

I stand between two worlds and as a mixed blood Turtle Island, Land of the big lakes, indigenous tribal enrollee, that’s all I’ve ever known): one that whispers when the willow bark is ready, and another that measures its salicylic acid percentage. Both are sacred. It is my hope that not just the people who think like me to be my customers, but to also invite the brand-loyal followers to give me a try. You will enjoy the end result of hours, months, years, decades, and how the latest technology integrates generational insight within each product.

As for now, I invite you to Join Our Newsletter, as we will keep you posted on new website updates. Many are in the pipeline! I have also deep dove back into art during the off season and have some Minnesopa Keychains and other keychains, jewelry, and epoxy resin and UV resin as well as a few fluid art paintings.

My work and products are generally Minnesota Lake themed with Anishinaabe influence. I hope you will stay tuned to this page as we embrace the next shift of our emerging and blossoming embrace to nature. I will be in retail locations and will let you know where if you subscribe, and key events this spring and summer. I look forward to meeting you!