My history in the kitchen

As you may know by now, my background is in the culinary world. Since childhood, I loved being in the kitchen, creating mouth-watering dishes with nutrient-dense ingredients. Back in the day, I actually ran a small meal delivery business. I would create delicious, healthy meals and deliver them to my clients. I guess you could say that I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a deep passion for spreading wellness. 

One day, my love for superfoods and healing inspired me to combine some of my favourite ingredients (cacao powder, rose water, hemp oil, turmeric, oatmeal powder and manuka honey) and whip them into a creamy concoction using my beloved stick blender. This was the very first version of Putty. 

I shared that creation with my yoga students (yes, I was also a yoga teacher at that time), and the feedback was glowing! Of course, that motivated me to keep blending healthy, healing and beautiful skincare concoctions. Inspired by my morning breakfast bowl, I combined blueberries, probiotics and cacao powder as the basis for Berry Rich. A favourite smoothie recipe using pomegranate, black currants, rosehips and maple water was the inspiration for Skin Stuff. 

At this time, I was living in Southern California and a celebrity facialist friend of mine noticed impactful results when she used my “eccentric smoothies” on her clients. This is when I had my aha moment and started thinking about creating my own skincare line.

From the kitchen to the lab

In order to transform my kitchen concoctions into a true beauty brand, I had to rethink my formulations. It was time to say bye-bye to those farmers market blueberries and start sourcing accredited cosmetic grade ingredients. 

Just a quick side note to say that I mean no disrespect to farmers market blueberries. They’re delicious, nutritious, and loaded with antioxidants! I still use them in my food recipes… just not in Graydon Skincare formulations.

Anyway, I started to research. Then I did some research. And even more research. I wondered how I could marry my superfood inspirations with clinically proven skincare actives. And of course, I wanted those actives to be plant-based as well. A perfect example of this is the moth bean extract used in our Fullmoon Serum. Moth beans are an edible, nutrient-dense legume and when the extract is applied topically, it helps to speed cell renewal and boost collagen production; just like conventional retinol (but without the less-than-ideal side effects). 

I have to tell you, it’s a truly magical feeling when what basically started as my breakfast becomes a properly formulated, shelf-stable, skincare product that gives you good skin days, every day!

The inspiration behind our latest product!

We’re so excited to be launching Moon Boost Serum and the inspiration came from—you guessed it—my kitchen!

Here’s the story…

Truth be told, I have a supplement cupboard and it takes up a significant amount of space in my kitchen. 

I know what you might be thinking, and yes, I firmly believe that the best way to get vitamins and minerals is through food. I also think that multivitamins have a bit of a bad reputation, but that’s a whole other topic for another time. 

So anyway, one day, I’m standing in front of my supplement cupboard and I’m spinning the multi-level, rotating organizer that houses my vast collection of supplements when it hits me! No, not a bottle of supplements—a question.

Why isn’t there a multivitamin for our skin? 

There are certainly lots of individual vitamin serums. But that can be confusing. Can you use them all at once? If so, in which order should you apply them? And the cost! Wow! The cost of purchasing all these individual vitamin serums.

At that moment, I realized that I could create something new, solve a problem and make people’s lives easier. And so, we got to work trying to figure out how to pack multiple vitamins into one convenient skincare product. Let me tell you, we quickly realized that this had likely never been done before because it’s not easy. 

To be honest, we didn’t start from scratch. We used our Superfood Serum as a base and improved it. Some of the superfood ingredients like raspberry seed oil and goji seed oil made the cut. Others didn’t. But don’t worry, we added new superfood ingredients like prickly pear and pumpkin. 

After years of formulation and countless versions, we’ve finally created a multivitamin for your skin! This velvety-rich serum is infused with vitamins A, B, C, D, E, F and K sourced from superfood ingredients to deeply nourish your skin. 

If you want to be one of the first people to experience our new multivitamin Moon Boost Serum, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to get all of the release information!

Final words

All these years later, the inspiration for Graydon Skincare products still remains in my kitchen. It’s my happy place. A place where inspiration strikes, even when I’m not looking for it. The first version of every Graydon Skincare product is something I’ve whipped up at home with one of my many blenders.