I did not start Bodhi & Fae with a grand plan to build a skincare brand.
It started with Penny, a beautiful, bouncing 8½-pound baby girl, born at just 35 weeks.
She was huge compared to the other babies in NICU, this chubby little thing amongst rows of tiny, fragile preemies. After a week in intensive care, we finally brought her home and everyone was desperate to meet her…but her story was only just beginning.
Where the feeding tubes and breathing supports had been taped to her newborn skin, she had these angry red reactions. At the time, I did not know much about skin barrier function or how fragile brand-new skin can be, I just knew her cheek looked sore, like it had had the top layer ripped off and I hated that she had already had to go through so much.
Then, somewhere along the way, perhaps a hand on her cheek or a kiss from a visitor, a cold sore virus (but not that we knew what that was at that point!) found its way into that vulnerable little patch of skin and burrowed right down into her nerves for life. A while later, a sore appeared right in the middle of her cheek.
At first, we thought it was nothing much but it grew aggressively until her whole cheek was covered - The doctor said it was impetigo, that “It’ll run its course. It’s very common.”
But it did not run its course. It kept coming back, in exactly the same place. Over and over again.
Every flare-up meant disinfecting every toy, every surface, everything she touched. I was exhausted and I mean properly exhausted! I started to believe that it was my fault. That somehow, despite me doing my best, I was not cleaning enough and not protecting her enough. Not doing something I should have known to do.
I remember walking into a pharmacy one day in tears, asking the woman behind the counter how I was meant to disinfect everything properly as I can’t keep going like this.
She said, very gently, “Have you tried a Dettol bath?”
I was horrified and, although I have difficulty in saying this, ashamed.
Me? Put my baby in a Dettol bath? I had spent years avoiding chemicals, making my own cleaning products and using cloth nappies trying to do my best for our family…to then bathe my baby in disinfectant?! But I was desperate so I bought the bottle and sobbed all the way home.
That night felt like the lowest point, but it was also the turning point.
The next morning, I noticed the sores had stopped spreading and they almost looked dried up. I picked up the Dettol bottle and there, in tiny print on the back, it said: kills herpes simplex virus.
Something shifted in me and I knew in my gut that this was not impetigo.
It was herpes simplex.
From that point, I went down a rabbit hole. Scientific papers, herbal studies, traditional remedies, anything I could get my hands on. Page after page spoke about plants and the ways they had been used, yet nobody had ever mentioned any of it to me.
It still took another two years for Penny to be diagnosed with herpes simplex. By then, I had already started making balms for her. I was learning, testing, researching and paying attention.
Wind and sun could bring it on. So could being poorly, exhausted, upset, having a big fall or simply having too much going on. I began to see that her skin did not exist in a little bubble on her face. Her body noticed everything and when she was run down, stressed or overwhelmed, her face would show it.
The doctors wanted to put her on antivirals for life, but she was too young to tell me when she felt that first tingle. I could not accept that this was simply going to be her childhood. There had to be another way to support her and I believed that nature had the way.
So I kept going.
I kept blending, testing and learning. Her outbreaks became less severe. The gaps between them grew longer. And every time I saw even a little improvement, I felt more certain that I needed to keep looking, keep asking questions and keep making something better - but it was hard to watch. She was in pain, and the visible side of it brought its own cruelty. People stared, they pointed, some whispered and some even recoiled in disgust!
All I could do was fight back the tears until I was somewhere private.
I remember thinking, how do I protect this beautiful little girl from growing up believing there is something wrong with her face, or with her?
I know how cruel the world can be. I thought about comments, especially at school when I would not be there to protect her, and how they could chip away at her confidence, her sense of worth and her whole beautiful soul.
I could not let that happen, and so I set out to do what I always do: find an alternative solution.
There were late nights at the kitchen table, notes everywhere, oils warming gently and Penny beside me. I learned to recognise the earliest signs that her skin was unsettled, and as she grew older, she learned that caring for herself was not about fixing a flaw. It was about noticing her body, understanding what it was asking for and knowing she deserved tenderness.
Whenever I made a balm, she wanted to be involved. Measuring, stirring, planting herbs in her fairy garden and making her own potions. That was when it hit me. What if she could grow up knowing how to care for herself? What if she knew the names of the plants around her, understood how her skin and her emotions speak to each other, and trusted her own body instead of being taught to be frightened of it?
I wanted that for her, and I wanted that for the world.
I wanted her to have a connection to herself, to nature and to the little rituals that help us feel steadier when life is not.
That is Bodhi & Fae and that matters to me more than I can say.
Bodhi & Fae grew from that kitchen table, but it has never only been about cold sores or children. It is for the person whose skin becomes more reactive when life is loud. The person who is run down, overstimulated, hormonal, grieving, exhausted or carrying too much. The parent trying to find something simple and kind for their child. The woman who has spent years being sold products designed to make her feel like she needs correcting.
Skin is often where overwhelm shows itself first.
That is why every Bodhi & Fae product has a practical purpose for the skin, alongside an emotional benefit too. The warmth of balm between your fingers, a familiar scent, the quiet act of caring for your feet before bed or a tin in your pocket when you need something grounding to come back to.
None of that is frivolous. Small rituals can be a way of saying, I am here, I am listening, I am worth looking after.
I make pure, honest formulations with botanicals, plant wisdom and a great deal of care. I believe the skin, body and mind are connected. I believe the ritual around a product can matter just as much as the product itself. I believe we have lost too much of the knowledge that used to pass from one generation to the next and I believe our children deserve some of it back.
For Penny. For your little wild ones. For a generation that knows how to heal and for all those who have been made to feel less than because of their skin. This is for you💕
