IN THIS ARTICLE:
Vegan smoothie goodness
I recently learned a new smoothie recipe that I’m living for.
My friend, Ingrid, and I were having one of our typical skincare talks, and she actually recommended this recipe to me. Here it is:
Toss some raw cacao powder, pumpkin slices, chaga, dried coconut flakes, cashews, chia seeds, brown rice and one peeled banana into a blender. Blend and voila! You’ve got a healthy, nutritious, light meal in just under five minutes.
Ingrid knows that I’m always on the lookout for some healthy, vegan goodness and this smoothie tastes incredible!
As I’m sitting here on my back porch, sipping the smoothie, the honey golden rays of sunset are hitting my garden and I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.
This smoothie reminds me of the beginning days of Graydon Skincare.
How a blender started it all
You may already know my entrepreneurial story. In case you don’t, the gist is...before I ventured into the skincare world, my background was in the vegan culinary and yoga spaces. Yes, you heard that right! At the beginning of my career, before I was a skincare business owner, I used to craft wonderful vegan dishes and hold yoga classes.
But it wasn’t always like that, either! I haven’t always been a vegan or done yoga.
My journey into the vegan world didn’t begin until my early 20s, when I moved to California. As you probably know, California is a place where healthy living is highly encouraged.
While I was there, I got into a 2-year Master of Fine Arts program, taking courses like philosophy and post-modern arts. It was wonderful! I learned to view life through a different lens—one that I wouldn’t necessarily have had otherwise. Specifically, I came to understand that everything in the universe is intertwined somehow, and that absolutely everything is connected in strange ways.
That lesson would re-emerge later and become the bedrock of Graydon Skincare. However, at that time, I didn’t appreciate it.
Instead, I felt dejected.
As interesting as it was, my arts degree wasn’t exactly marketable (AKA: I struggled to find a job). Not to mention, I was there all alone in a foreign land, and my parents were less than willing to let me take up another degree.
Was this the right choice? Was I meant to be here? How am I meant to live now?
Existential questions swirled around in my head, taking up residence in the deepest, darkest corner of my mind. I felt trapped. I didn’t know what to do or how to move forward. At the time, I felt like I couldn’t move back home to Toronto, even though that might have been a wise choice. Not to mention, my student visa was going to expire soon and that added extra pressure.
Even to this day, I’m anxious to share these feelings because saying them out loud means that I have to acknowledge them. And that means admitting that I was (and still am) flawed. The environment that I grew up in was one where we simply didn’t talk about our hardships. There was a certain sense of shame involved. And as you can imagine, not being able to talk about hardships made dealing with them even harder.
During those dark moments, I did the one thing that I could think of: Cook!
Growing up, cooking was something I always enjoyed. There’s something exciting, yet so therapeutic about it. So much so that, throughout the years, I’ve always made sure to nourish this small passion by taking cooking classes here and there without thinking much about them. It was pure, simple joy that, since moving to California, I’d forgotten about.
Now, I’ll spare you the details and just say this: Through rediscovering my passion for cooking, I also rediscovered what it meant to be me. It made me realize how starved I was for so long: physically, mentally and spiritually.
And just like that, I once again found a passion and direction in life. I managed to get to a place where I could choose health without being stuck. In addition to that, I took up yoga, which also played a huge role in my salvation.
It made me realize that I wasn’t a victim. I was the creator of my own universe.
Making my own food was my form of self-care. This new direction in life marked the beginning of my love affair with the stick blender. I used it the most! I was always blending stuff: morning smoothies, brunch cocktails, wine and even ice cream. There was nothing my trusted blender couldn’t do.
And it was with this stick blender that I used to create the first version of Putty.
With my knowledge about superfoods, in a fit of inspiration, I put together several ingredients (cacao powder, rose water, hemp oil, carrot seed oil, turmeric, oatmeal powder, a bit of zinc, tamanu oil, manuka honey) and used my trusted stick blender to whip them into a concoction.
And that’s how Putty was born: In a kitchen, out of passion and love.
I went on to create several more concoctions with my beloved stick blender—all of which were met with glowing reviews from my yoga students.
I kept blending and blending. Broccoli seed oil inspired Green Cream (which has now been renamed to Phyto Clear). Pomegranate created the base for Skin Stuff. So on and so forth. And in no time, I created an impressive range of creams that were loved and trusted among everyone in the community.
And the rest? Well, you already know.
This is why I like to joke around with my team and refer to our products as “smoothies.” It’s truly a reminder of my humble beginning.
About skin smoothies
When I created Graydon Skincare, it was my wish to come up with fun, enjoyable products that can be combined to suit a person’s unique skin needs, but still remain efficacious as individual products. We call these product combinations skin smoothies and I have two personal favourites.
In the morning, after cleansing, I love mixing up and applying our Glow Getter skin smoothie. It nourishes the skin while giving a subtle glow for the perfect no-makeup, makeup look.
In the evening, my dry and sensitive skin really benefits from the Nourish skin smoothie.
Take a look at our skin smoothie collection. We have eight different recipes to choose from. ❤️
Depending on what your skin needs, you might have to make a different skin smoothie that suits you. Don’t be afraid to mix and match! But if you need help, email our product experts at hello@graydonskincare.com.
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