Hey everyone!
Wow, I have such an interesting and exciting podcast episode for you! Two questions before we get started. Have you heard of gua sha? Have you ever tried gua sha?
This was such a fun conversation with 3 incredible founders of Wildling Beauty. Wildling is a holistic beauty brand with a strong foundation in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Their mission is committed to sourcing small-batch, organically grown, and wild harvested herbs to concoct their unique vegan skincare products which complement their one of a kind gua sha stone perfectly.
I spoke with the three founders including, Britta McCrea, who has been practicing as a holistic esthetician for almost 20 years (wow!) and started her journey by using beauty as a form of self care. She intuitively used gua sha and self care to soothe herself from PTSD and anxiety. While practicing, she brought her own self care practices into her treatment room which created a healing and safe space for her clients. Gianna de la Torre, is a long time acupuncturist including facial acupuncture. Gianna has been in the beauty industry for many many years and always gravitated towards holistic beauty methodologies. Jill Gerber has been in the beauty industry for two decades focusing primarily on product development while, more recently, studying herbalism and plant medicine.
I loved hearing about how they met in 2015! It’s such a funny founders story and I loved how they described the different perspectives of how they met. Wildling was born out of the desire to create a ritual around facial gua sha while incorporating beautifully crafted tools, oils, herbs, and aromas. They originally launched with a mist and oil to go along with their gua sha tool and have now expanded even more. One of the aspects of their business that I appreciate so much is how they work with small farms to source herbs.
Their Empress Gua Sha Stone was developed from working with different gua sha stones within their practice or personally for many years and taking the best features to curate the perfect stone for Wildling. They imagined a stone they would want to use on themselves, and on clients, to create the Empress Stone. It took them a while to manufacture it but nailed the design after lots of hard work. They actually gifted me a stone and I must say, it’s pretty amazing and I love using the different edges for specific needs.
I’m so curious if you have tried gua sha before? Its popularity has grown so much over the past 5 years and Wildling was way ahead of the curve. Gua sha is an ancient practice which has been around for thousands of years and a pillar of TCM. Using gua sha on the body helps to clear heat and stagnation from the tissues which reduces inflammation. Traditionally, gua sha was used on the body, such as the upper back to reduce fever or reduce tension, and increased the overall health of the body by bringing stagnation to the surface.
Over time, gua sha has been used as a natural beauty staple because of its amazing skin benefits. There are several meridians, acupressure points, and fascia in the face that are gently stimulated throughout a treatment. Britta went into how we treat different areas of the face including the differences in pressure applied to the jaw vs around the eyes, direction, pressure, and speed which are all very important. Minimizing fine lines, wrinkles, decongesting, moving the lymph, lifting, and depuffing are just a few of the amazing results of gua sha. It’s an alternative to botox or fillers and a beautiful alternative for medical type of treatments.
On top of the amazing benefits to gua sha, we also discussed marketing with influencers, production and supply chain issues, and launching before they were ready. As they grew, they focused heavily on forecasting and operations to help scale their business without as many supply chain issues.
They just launched a cleanser, moisturizer, and will be launching more skincare products in the near future! As mentioned, they source ingredients that are organic, small farmed, and use science-backed ingredients that don’t strip your skin barrier. They focus on building the health of the skin and take a whole body approach.
They gifted me not only their gua sha stone but a few of their products and I am loving them! They were so kind to offer this community 10% off your purchase so use the code below. I’m so excited to see how Wildling expands over the next few years! I hope you enjoy this episode!
Use code FridaySociety for 10% off your Wildling purchase.
Check out their tutorials and gua sha challenges on their website!
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