Life & Work with Josalyn Holmes of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josalyn Holmes.

Hi Josalyn, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My Journey to Natural Detox Club

My name is Josalyn Holmes, and my story begins with food, creativity, service, and a deep desire to help people feel cared for.

I have spent more than 20 years in the culinary industry. I trained professionally as a chef and built my career working in restaurants, catering, special events, and hospitality. Over the years, I had the honor of preparing meals for many people from all walks of life, including Presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter.

Those experiences taught me that food is about so much more than feeding people. Food creates connection. It brings comfort, starts conversations, preserves memories, and makes people feel seen.

As a chef, I learned how to understand ingredients. I learned how flavors work together, how aroma affects an experience, and how presentation can completely change the way someone feels about what is placed in front of them.

But as my journey continued, I became increasingly interested in herbs, plants, teas, and natural wellness.

I wanted to understand how ingredients could be used beyond the kitchen. I began learning more about the traditional uses of herbs, how different cultures used plants, and how food and wellness could exist together.

That interest led me to become a certified herbalist.

Becoming an herbalist felt like a natural continuation of my culinary career. I was still working with ingredients, but I was learning to look at them in a completely different way.

I began experimenting with tea blends, fruits, flowers, roots, spices, infused honeys, extracts, and botanical creations. My chef training helped me create combinations that were not only inspired by traditional herbal knowledge, but also balanced, flavorful, aromatic, and enjoyable.

That is how Natural Detox Club began.

Natural Detox Club was created from the belief that wellness should not feel intimidating, unpleasant, or out of reach. I wanted to create products that made people feel excited about caring for themselves.

I wanted someone to open a jar of tea, smell the fruit and flowers, see the beautiful ingredients, and feel that they were giving themselves a meaningful moment.

The brand began with handcrafted tea blends and continued to grow into infused botanical honeys, herbal extracts, wellness beverages, bath products, and other plant-inspired creations.

Some of the products reflect comfort and rest, while others focus on enjoyment, creativity, and everyday wellness. Products such as our Lullaby Sleep Tea, Peach Ice Cream Tea, Detox Tea, and infused honeys each tell their own story through flavor and ingredients.

Natural Detox Club is different because it is rooted in both culinary artistry and herbal knowledge.

When I create a product, I am thinking like a chef and an herbalist at the same time. I am considering the traditional purpose of the ingredients, but I am also thinking about taste, color, texture, aroma, and the overall experience.

I believe people are more likely to remain consistent with wellness when it feels enjoyable.

I never wanted Natural Detox Club to feel overly clinical. I wanted it to feel warm, luxurious, creative, and welcoming.

My work in the community has also shaped the business.

Throughout my career, I have worked closely with children, families, community organizations, wellness programs, and local partners. Those experiences reminded me that wellness is not only personal. It is also connected to access, education, family, and community support.

That is why I want Natural Detox Club to be more than a company that sells tea.

I want it to be a brand that teaches people about herbs, introduces them to new ingredients, supports local collaborations, and creates experiences that bring people together.

Building a business has not always been easy.

Entrepreneurship has required me to learn about branding, packaging, marketing, websites, e-commerce, customer service, product regulations, social media, and business operations. There are moments when I am creating products, filming content, designing labels, solving technical problems, and planning the next stage of the company all at once.

But every challenge has strengthened me.

It has pushed me to become more confident in my ideas, more intentional about my decisions, and more protective of the purpose behind the brand.

What keeps me going is knowing that something I created may become part of someone’s day.

It may be the cup of tea they drink before bed. It may be the honey they add to a warm drink. It may be the moment they finally pause, breathe, and do something kind for themselves.

Those moments matter to me.

I understand that many people, especially women, spend much of their lives taking care of everyone else. They are managing careers, families, homes, businesses, and responsibilities.

Natural Detox Club is my way of reminding them that they deserve care too.

To me, wellness does not mean perfection.

Wellness can be drinking water, getting more sleep, spending time outside, stretching, preparing nourishing food, laughing, resting, or sitting quietly with a warm cup of tea.

It is about listening to yourself and recognizing what you need.

As I look toward the future, I see Natural Detox Club continuing to grow through tea collections, infused honeys, botanical products, educational content, community partnerships, culinary demonstrations, wellness experiences, and creative collaborations.

I want to continue combining everything I have learned as a chef, herbalist, entrepreneur, and community advocate.

My journey has taken me from professional kitchens to herbal creations, from serving meals to creating moments of wellness, and from working behind the scenes to building something of my own.

Natural Detox Club represents every part of that journey.

It represents creativity, resilience, compassion, knowledge, flavor, wellness, and the courage to turn an idea into something real.

More than anything, I want people to remember that wellness can be beautiful, flavorful, and accessible.

That is the heart of Natural Detox Club, and that is the story I am continuing to build.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Here’s a personal, honest answer that still keeps the focus on your resilience and growth:

It has not always been a smooth road. Building Natural Detox Club has required me to learn far beyond the creative side of developing teas and wellness products.

One of the biggest challenges has been balancing my vision with the day-to-day realities of running a business. I have had to learn about branding, packaging, pricing, e-commerce, product compliance, social media, marketing, customer service, and business operations—often while continuing to work, serve my community, and manage other responsibilities.

There have also been moments when I have felt overlooked or underestimated, especially when trying to introduce new ideas or create opportunities in spaces where my experience was not always fully recognized. As a chef, herbalist, and entrepreneur, I have had to learn how to stand firmly behind my knowledge and trust the value of what I bring.

Another challenge has been building visibility. Creating a quality product is only one part of the process. You also have to help people understand the story, purpose, and value behind it. That takes consistency, patience, and the willingness to keep showing up even when the results are not immediate.

Financial limitations, changing online platforms, product regulations, and learning new technology have also created obstacles along the way. At times, it has felt like I was building the business while also learning how to build it.

But every challenge has made me more resourceful, disciplined, and confident. I have learned how to adapt without losing the heart of the brand. The road has not been perfect, but it has been meaningful, and each struggle has helped shape Natural Detox Club into something stronger and more intentional.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Here’s the expanded version, combining your artistry, professional work, accomplishments, and what makes you distinctive:

I have always considered myself an artist and a creative person. My creativity shows up through food, herbs, movement, storytelling, product development, visual design, and the experiences I create for others.

As a classically trained chef with more than 20 years of experience, food became one of my first artistic languages. I work with flavor, color, texture, aroma, and presentation in the same way a painter works with a canvas. I enjoy taking familiar ingredients and transforming them into something beautiful, unexpected, and memorable.

Throughout my culinary career, I have worked in restaurants, catering, special events, hospitality, and community programming. I have had the honor of preparing meals for people from many different backgrounds, including Presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. I have also owned a food truck, created original recipes, developed desserts and beverages, and worked in both intimate and large-scale culinary environments.

My work eventually expanded beyond traditional culinary arts as I became more interested in herbs, plants, teas, and natural wellness. That curiosity led me to become a certified herbalist and later to create Natural Detox Club.

Through Natural Detox Club, I specialize in handcrafted tea blends, botanical-infused honeys, herbal extracts, wellness beverages, bath products, and plant-inspired culinary creations. I am especially known for combining traditional herbal ingredients with the creativity and flavor knowledge of a professional chef.

When I develop a product, I am not only thinking about the individual ingredients. I am considering how everything works together—the flavor, aroma, color, texture, appearance, purpose, and overall experience. I want people to enjoy the product while also feeling that they are doing something intentional and caring for themselves.

Some of my creations include Peach Ice Cream Tea, Lullaby Sleep Tea, Detox Tea, fruit and floral tea blends, infused botanical honeys, herbal extracts, and imaginative matcha and wellness beverages. My products are designed to feel approachable, flavorful, elevated, and visually beautiful.

What sets me apart is that I bring together several different worlds. I am a chef, herbalist, entrepreneur, community advocate, storyteller, and creative artist. I understand the technical side of ingredients, but I also understand the emotions and memories they can create.

I do not believe wellness has to feel clinical, intimidating, or unpleasant. I believe wellness can be delicious, colorful, comforting, luxurious, and joyful. My goal is to create products that people are excited to incorporate into their everyday lives.

My creativity is also expressed through aerial hoop, aerial silks, jewelry, gardening, nature, visual design, and storytelling. Aerial arts allow me to express strength, movement, freedom, and beauty in a completely different way. Gardening and working with plants keep me connected to nature and continue to inspire my herbal and culinary creations.

I do not believe creativity has to fit into one category. For me, creativity is a way of seeing possibilities. It is the ability to take an idea, ingredient, feeling, or experience and transform it into something people can see, taste, feel, or remember.

I am most proud of the fact that I have continued to evolve. I have taken more than two decades of culinary experience and allowed it to grow into something that also includes herbal education, wellness, entrepreneurship, movement, and community service.

I am also proud that I have continued creating even when the road was challenging. Building a business requires more than having a good product. I have had to learn packaging, branding, marketing, e-commerce, social media, compliance, customer service, technology, and business operations. Much of that work has required me to teach myself, adapt quickly, and continue believing in my vision even when the results were not immediate.

I am proud of my ability to serve people through different stages of my career. Whether I am preparing a meal, creating a tea blend, organizing a community experience, working with children and families, or sharing herbal education, care remains at the center of my work.

That is probably the strongest connection between everything I do. My artistry is deeply rooted in service. I do not create simply for something to look beautiful. I create because I want it to bring someone comfort, joy, curiosity, nourishment, or connection.

Natural Detox Club represents all of those parts of me. It brings together my culinary background, my knowledge of herbs, my love of nature, my imagination, my resilience, and my desire to help people care for themselves in ways that feel enjoyable and accessible.

What I want people to remember about my work is that it is intentional. There is a story, a feeling, and a purpose behind what I create. My work reflects where I have been, what I have learned, and the many ways I continue to express who I am as an artist, chef, herbalist, and entrepreneur.

This version gives the interviewer a complete picture of you while keeping the tone personal, confident, and story-centered.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck has played a role in my journey, but I have learned that luck often meets preparation, persistence, and the willingness to recognize an opportunity when it appears.

I believe both good luck and difficult circumstances have played a role in my life and business, but neither has defined the full story.

I have experienced good fortune through the people I have met, the opportunities that have opened unexpectedly, and the experiences that placed me in rooms I may not have imagined for myself. Throughout my culinary career, I have had the honor of working with talented chefs, serving diverse communities, and preparing meals for distinguished guests, including Presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. Those opportunities may appear to be luck from the outside, but they were also connected to years of training, discipline, hard work, and being prepared when the opportunity arrived.

Some of my greatest ideas have also come through unexpected moments. A conversation, an ingredient, a plant growing nearby, a customer’s need, or a creative experiment can inspire an entirely new product or direction. In those moments, good luck often looks like being open enough to notice what is in front of me.

There have also been periods that felt like bad luck—delays, missed opportunities, financial limitations, changing technology, online platform restrictions, and times when my work or experience was overlooked. There have been moments when I believed something was finally moving forward, only to face another obstacle or have to begin again.

Those experiences were discouraging, but they also made me more resourceful. They taught me to adapt, learn new skills, protect my vision, and create alternative paths instead of waiting for someone else to open a door.

I have learned that what initially feels like bad luck can sometimes redirect you toward something that is more aligned with who you are becoming. Some disappointments pushed me to take my own ideas more seriously. Some closed doors encouraged me to create Natural Detox Club and build something that reflects my creativity, culinary background, herbal knowledge, and desire to serve others.

I do not believe success comes from luck alone. Luck may introduce an opportunity, but preparation determines whether you can step into it. Persistence determines whether you continue when the opportunity does not come quickly.

My journey has been a combination of timing, faith, creativity, hard work, resilience, and the courage to keep moving forward. I am grateful for the fortunate moments, but I am equally grateful for the difficult ones because they helped shape the artist, entrepreneur, chef, and herbalist I am today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yournaturaldetoxclub.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/royalteas_emporium
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CegiFhajW/
• LinkedIn: Josalyn Holmes
• Youtube: @naturaldetoxclub
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@naturaldetoxclub