Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Palmquist.
Shannon, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I moved here from Las Vegas Nevada, almost five years ago, I worked on the Las Vegas Strip in the Spa Department at Caesars Palace and The Mandarin Oriental. I opened Qua Spa at Caesars as the Lead Aesthetician in 2006, after 13 years at Caesars Palace I went on to The Mandarin Oriental Hotel and worked in the 5 star Spa until moving to Georgia.
So, I have almost 25 years experience in skincare, so it was a no-brainer when we moved to the country, that I would farm and start developing my skincare line. We sold our fruits, veggies, flowers and skincare and soap at the Norcross Farmers Market for two years and did pop-ups here and there to get our name out. This last year, we decided to just focus on the herbs, flowers, and skincare.
So now we have accounts in and around Atlanta that carry our line, and we are growing organically, which is what we want. We keep the integrity and a small footprint our main priority in our products, and all are made right here on our farm in our Studio (Ms. Bertha)
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Learning to farm is a long hard road! Soil Testing, composting, growing without pesticides, bee stings! Every season is different. And because I grow without pesticides, you have to always know what’s going on in your growing areas.
One year we had thousands of sunflowers, and the next year the squirrels ate the majority of my sunflower seeds, and after replanting four times, and installing an electric fence, we just didn’t get the volume we had in the previous spring/summer. And sometimes you have a great idea for a product on paper, but when you make a test batch it just isn’t right! It’s all trial and error. I have learned to have lots of patience with Mother Nature.
Please tell us about Farm 2 Face Beauty.
So there are many natural skincare lines on Instagram and online. Many of them are small indie brands, and they look up recipes on the internet, put a few oils in a bottle and call themselves a company. I’ve been an aesthetician for 25 years plus some, and I’ve worked with many many skincare brands and educated for many and got certified in Essential Oils in 1887, and I’ve used them on myself and my family since then.
I grow my herbs and flowers myself, I infuse them in my oils for products, and those herbs and flowers are hand-picked and dried in the sun before we even put them in an oil. And that is what we are known for, from beginning to end, everything is hand picked, hand packed, hand poured with an intention, we hand stamp many of our packagings, we use recycled paper in our packaging and labels.
Our jars & bottles can be recycled as well. We keep things simple, just like it use to be. We don’t believe in elaborate packaging that will go in the landfill and take years to decompose… Natural and organic is what we use and who we are. Our recycled paper and boxes can go into your compost or trash.
We use natural and organic oils and butters along with Ecocert ingredients to give you more than just a few oils in a bottle. We produce results. Our Men’s lines use oil that we infuse with Cedarwood and Pine needles we cut from our woods. We infuse those in Olive Oil for 3-4 weeks before using. Our Goat Milk Soaps have milk that is sourced from other Georgia farms, and our honey and beeswax we use are local as well. We will be getting bee hives in spring 2019.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have learned more about growing responsibly and what I would be up against. And definitely use my Farmers Almanac!
Pricing:
- Kiss My Grits 38.99
- C You Glow Vitamin C Cream 26.99
Contact Info:
- Website: Farm2facebeauty.com
- Email: farm2facebeauty@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/farm2facebeauty
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/farm2facebeauty
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