A New Path

So....here's my story...I am a stay at home mom with a 3 1/2 year old daughter named Grace (hence the name of my company)...the Ivy part is a nickname that my close friends and family call me. So there you have it...pretty simple: Grace & Ivy. For the past three and half years that's what it's felt like. My life, redefined, as Mom and BABY.

The first year I cried a lot and felt utterly alone and clueless. Year two was much better but I still felt a little lost. Year three I realized that I had been looking at the map upside down. I was still holding onto a life that was long gone and refusing to embrace the "new" me. Cheesy..but true.

Around that time I started becoming more interested in improving my family's health and decided to go organic with our food. This brought about wonderful trips to the local farmer's markets and a new found joy of cooking.

Then one day, while spending far too much time online researching hair products, (I am constantly at battle with my frizzy curly hair) I stumbled upon another blog about all the chemicals in our beauty products. At first I was astonished, then curious and finally just plain mad! I was putting carcinogens and petrochemicals all over myself...and worse, all over my child!! Now I know this is not new to many of you...but to me it was brand spankin' new and I was angry! I got myself into quite a tizzy digging deeper and deeper into the facts about so many ingredients that are being readily used by the leading cosmetic companies, ingredients that had been banned in Europe and Japan for years!

I am a self proclaimed product junkie. It's an addiction that started in my tweens.

One after one, I squinted my eyes and read the ingredients to my beloved elixirs, creams, lotions and pomades only to find them riddled with offensive ingredients, most of which I could hardly pronounce.

One evening, after a couple glasses of wine, I was ranting on and on about it to my dear (and patient) husband when he said, “Why don’t you start making your own cosmetics?”  Excuses began pouring out of my mouth….”I don’t know how to do that! I have no training! I’m just a stay at home mom…blah blah…” But for some unknown reason I actually stopped and considered his idea for a moment and so began my obsession…and a path that had been undiscovered, opened up to me.