Can you please share about your background? Where are you from, where do you currently live, and what is your cultural background?

I am from Elmhurst, Illinois, where I lived up until I was 13. My family moved from Illinois to Arizona, where I lived for many years up until my move to Los Angeles, California, my current home.

My father’s father immigrated to the United States from Germany. His mother was born in Vienna, Austria. On my mother’s side – her maternal grandparents immigrated from France. Her paternal grandparents were Scottish and English. I’m basically a mix of everything. I grew up in a big family (I have four siblings) in an upper to middle class environment. My family was and still is very close. The community we lived in was wonderful and filled with people from different backgrounds, who all seemed to value being kind and helping one another. I love being a Midwesterner.

What inspired you to become a Certified Aromatherapist and what led you to start Life Aromatherapy? What roles did you previously hold prior to this?

I became passionate about natural health and healing in my teens. In high school, I would walk to the local health food store and purchase herbs and teas. I would read about their healing properties and do my own experiments with them. Since they were all natural with little or no side effects, I felt confident experimenting. Over a period of time, I learned that the healing effects of essential oils were quite immediate and I transitioned into experimenting with essential oils. I was amazed when trying certain essential oils how quickly they worked on a physical and emotional level. As I entered college, I started making my own products and desired to know more about the science of the plants/oils and so I enrolled in the certification program to be an Aromatherapist.

I’ve always been entrepreneurial. When people would constantly ask me what skincare products I was using, I was testing products on family and friends with positive results, I realized that I wanted to make the products a full-fledged line available to everyone. I was aware of the powerful healing effects of essential oils and wanted other people to experience them too!

Prior to creating my business, I was a model and worked in marketing and corporate training for a prominent restaurant group. I eventually transitioned into Commercial Real Estate and Development while still modeling and building my product line. I love to work – to be busy and stimulated. I’ve always balanced my creativity with my different corporate roles.

Can you tell us about your intuitive guidance and reading sessions? When were you conscious of your gifts and how did you develop them?

I am a channel for higher spiritual wisdom and love energy. I am so grateful for this gift. Each spiritual session is very healing and empowering. I never know what I am going to come through in the sessions. I am an observer when channeling angels, spirit guides and deceased loved ones. I truly love this work.

It took me awhile to understand my gifts. I was naturally shy and introverted. It wasn’t until my late teens when I started to feel different, like I was viewing things from a higher perspective. I felt older than my years and would perceive things about people. I gravitated to studies about world religions, spirituality and ways to naturally improve health. It was when my grandmother passed just after my college graduation that things started to really open for me. I saw her in a dream. She told me she was okay, and after that day, I feel  that she guided me to books that would open my eyes to my intuitive gifts. My primary channel early on was clairsentience – an empathetic channel. I would feel other people’s emotions and energy and that didn’t always feel good. Having this ability cause me to be quite guarded.  I truly had to learn how to trust and be accepting of my abilities while learning to be open and accepting of people.

Can you share when you started offering guidance to support and empower people through their healing journey? What transformations have you witnessed through your sessions and through creating bespoke scents?

I started the readings in 2008. I was working on my product line and kept feeling nudged to work with people on a spiritual level. I was constantly receiving guidance through my meditations and I would share with my family and friends some of my visions and experiences. I began to experiment with giving readings to friends and that changed everything. I noticed a literally in front of my eyes how changed each person was after the session on such a deep level. The accuracy also was surprising. I was still insecure about providing readings because I feel this work is so sacred and delicate.  I finally built trust in myself and my abilities though the help of a spiritual mentor and committed myself to this work.

In my sessions, I’ve seen people recover from debilitating illness, heal years of trauma, find self-love, connect with loved ones that they haven’t spoken to for years, mended marriages… I’m constantly amazed and feel grateful to be a vehicle for this transformational work.

The scents and other products were an expression of using my gifts to create products that people can use to shift their energy and heal outside of the sessions. Formulating is my other great passion. It is art to me. A way to create. I found a way to capture the love energy I experience in my sessions into tiny aromatic vehicles.

What was your intention for creating Life Aromatherapy?

As a sensitive person, I started using natural products in my late teens. I had become hypersensitive to commercial skin care products and began to make my own natural products. The essential oils immediately uplifted my energy. My skin glowed. I realized that there was a need for natural products (this was in the late 90’s). I was educated on how many chemicals are in commercial skin care products, perfumes, cleaning products and how they disrupt the nervous system and immune system. I wanted to give people another option that was pure, effective and smelled yummy. The initial creation of the name “Life Aromatherapy” came from the intention of providing tools for life that could be incorporated daily.

Can you expand on the quality of the ingredients, essential oils, and packaging for your line of intentional Life Aromatherapy fragrances? Can you touch on the integrity of the source and materials of your products? Who would benefit from your scent offerings?

It’s important that I only use the purest of essential oils and carriers. Most of the oils I use are beyond organic grade. I’ve worked with many of the distilleries for over 10 years. I’ve been fortunate to have access to organic grade alcohol for my perfumes. I have a lot of integrity with my work and won’t compromise on ingredients. It’s important to provide pure, high vibrational products to my customers. Many of my customers have sensitivities and need special care with their skin and senses. My products work for everyone, especially those that are allergy prone and have hypersensitivity. They also are great for all people, men and women, desiring to have something evocative, luxurious, pure and natural. The perfumes are packaged in refurbished leather scraps. The other items come without a box as I don’t want to add waste.

What was your intention behind the “Archetype Series” and “Soul Series” lines? What is the significance of the peacock?

The Archetype Series was my very first scent collection. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I would see peacock feathers everywhere. They’re not very common. It seemed like every store and place I walked into would either have a peacock ornament or a peacock feather! I took it as an auspicious sign as they represent the spirit world – a world for me, full of beauty, magic and unconditional support. I was going through a lot of transitions with the move, missing my family and friends and I really needed a sign that I was on the right track.

Soon after the experiencing of seeing peacocks, I received a vision of the now Archetype line. The formulas flooded in. Initially, there were 11 scents (another auspicious number). Now, there are 5. I was guided to create scents with healing properties that would elevate, protect, evoke love, magic, etc. I loved the idea of creating energies and archetypes that people could choose from based on their mood. They really work!

The Soul Series was my passion project. I had refined my skills. I would have scent “impressions” of what places smell and at different time periods. I wanted to capture time periods that are special to me – to evoke a sensory time travel experience for people. My intuitive abilities assist me in capturing the “essence” and “energy” of people and places. I wanted to create an accessible, evocative line of luxury fragrances that everyone can access – something unique and otherworldly.

Can you please share the inspiration and intention behind your chakra sprays and creams available on Cultura Collection?

The chakra sprays were born from a desire to provide healing tools for people to use at home. I had been doing readings and wanted to empower my clients to integrate what they learned from the session by creating a daily ritual using the sprays for clearing, healing and empowerment. The skincare products were some of my very first products and were created because, surprisingly, at the time, there were very little, effective, natural products in the marketplace. I wanted to create something luxurious, nice smelling while being extremely effective.