When I grow up I want to live on the beach. Like really on it. Some quiet strip of pink, white sand, where the water glows neon blue and there are lots and lots of sea shells. I'll forever and always wear a little bikini, pulled up high on my hips, maybe a bra made of coconuts and living on a diet of guavas and melons and white fishes cooked over open flames and topped with fruit salsas. I'll steep mint leaves in mason jars and leave them in the sun for noon time teas and spend lots of time reading books and taking naps. My skin will be crispy and dark from perpetual exposure to high sun. For money, I'll sell homemade soaps made out of rose hips and oatmeal. Bath salts for soaking with rosemary springs crushed by hand in a mortar and pestle.
Maybe in Florida somewhere like Caladesi Island or South Walton or maybe some island of Honduras. My brother and his wife like Roatán a lot.
Tim can come, and Lars too, and we'll be happy forever, collecting kelp and sleeping by the salty sea.
I know it all sounds like a silly fantasy, and maybe a little bit it is.
But also maybe it's not because a best friend of mine named Ashley Rorro is basically living this dream right now. Maybe not in the Florida Keys, wearing a skirt braided from beach grasses and wildflowers, but still on a beach and making skincare products all the same.
Ashley is a best friend of mine because we love all the same things and because we are so much alike.
Both, we are readers and writers and poets who care so much about the presentation of things. A well-laid table. Food on the plate. A centerpiece that really ties the room together.
We want nice things. Bungalow homes with a backyard pool. Weekend getaways to second homes in Malibu. No limits on our credit cards. But we also want to work hard to enjoy hard.
We love to be in love. Hand holds and reclines with our men in light sheets, dinner by candlelight and reading by the fireside.
Ashley and I love foamy, hot espresso coffees and briny, fresh oysters, soft sand and pink beach blankets. We love cranberry juice and sparkling water with lime and crushed ice. Hot in the sun. Blackberries, vine-ripened and poached eggs with runny yolks on toast for breakfast, hip-opening poses on our yoga mats and Mercury in retrograde for everything that is wrong and not working right.
Imagine an outdoor shower in the garden, little bluebells and lady slippers growing up from the cedar slats of the shower floor.
Rose teas and rose gardens and rose soaps and rose oils. Summer swims paired with hot dogs and hamburgers and sea salty potato chips.
Both, we are living by the ocean, our hearts full of sea salt.
A big 30th birthday approaches for us both this year and we've had to take a good long hard look at our lives and say "OK, it's time to grow up and get my shit together and be an adult that provides for myself now."
But it takes a strong women to grow up and say, "OK, it's time to grow up and get my shit together and be an adult that provides for myself now, but life is short and I'm only going to spend my time doing the things that make me really happy and fill me up completely."
And we're strong women so that's what we did.
I'm here, blogging about weekends in Palm Springs and Caesar salad dressings on the side of my dream museum job and Ashley is there, on the Cape, the owner of Atlantic Alchemy Wellness, an ocean inspired apothecary line for which she makes bath and body products by her own hand with local and organic ingredients. She is an alchemist, the alchemist being someone who turns metals into gold, whose products can transform your skin.
Sometimes I like to imagine Ashley whipping up body butters and night serums, early in the morning in a Cape Cod kitchen with all the windows and doors blown wide open. I can see her desperately trying to bottle the fragrance of the geranium breezes that whistle through the Massachusetts forests and into her bedroom at night, in springtime, decorating her dreams with garden delights. I see citrus and lavender essential oils in glass vials, cuticle cream recipes and notes about serums and sprays jotted down on the corners of envelops, the edges of newspapers, ideas for salt soak flavors scratched into the title pages of forgotten-about paperback books.
I like to think about her spending her days combing the beaches in search of apothecary inspiration. Sourcing local seaweed pieces and beach roses in a big fisherman's net that she hoists over her shoulder.
She's making it all. (And you can buy it!)
Salt soaks. Cuticle creams. Body oils. Serums. Sprays.
Each of her products unique and so thoughtfully created.
I love how all of her skincare goods are fragrant and fresh, mixed together with a quality you can detect. The scents are familiar, uplifting and clean.
How a long soak in a bath steeped with her Local Rose and Lavender Salts takes me back to beach days on the Cape, floating in shallow, sparkly pools, warm and clear. They invite the sea into your home, ocean air blowing around your bathroom and sea birds calling to you from out your window. Can you hear? You know there's nothing better than a good mermaid bath. Close your eyes. Can you feel the spray of the waves? Do you smell the brine? For me, a salt soak not only reminiscent of past summers spent near the shore with my dear friend, but also it's relaxing here and right now. Melting away and dissolving any thoughts of responsibility or obligation.
Her Vanilla and Rosehip Salve is moisturizing and not greasy. Warm it up in your hands and rub it into your nail beds. Use it consistently and you'll notice an improvement in the overall health and appearance of your cuticles and nails.
Try her Beach Rose Bath and Body Oil for an at-home spa treatment that is simply softening and soothing. The directions on the bottle instruct you to rub a few drops into your palm and massage it in to your freshly showered, lightly towel-dried skin, but I also like to use it in the bath. A few drops to help soften the water but also for the most heavenly, flowery scent. Imagine a bouquet of one million roses, pink in the petals, powdery and fresh on the nose.
Do you use a night serum? Ashley taught me how to. Before bed, I apply her Blue Tansy and Lily of the Valley potion onto my face after I wash but before I moisturize so that even when I'm sleeping I'm still working hard to clear blemishes and smooth dreaded wrinkles.
And in the morning? I like to roll her Vitamin E and Rosemary Serum under my eyes so that my co-workers don't know that I actually woke up and rolled out of bed only about 10 minutes before I clocked-in. I keep it in the refrigerator. I like how the cold feel and the herbal smell invigorate my sleepy mornings.
I always knew Ashley was capable of creating beautiful things. I always knew she was determined. I'm really proud of Ashley and all the work she's done to build up the Atlantic Alchemy Wellness brand. I'm proud of her for seeking out her passion and dedicating herself wholly to it's realization. And for doing it almost entirely on her own.
In her first year of business alone, she was invited to sell at Wellfleet Oysterfest, an event to which you must apply and be accepted to participate, collaborated with well-known local Cape Cod companies such as the Wellfleet Sea Salt Company and Beanstock Coffee Roasters and installed her product in several boutiques on the Cape including Adorn in Orleans, Pelo Mar in Brewster and Fisherman's Daughter in Chatham.
And I'm not just writing this because Ashley is my friend.
I'm writing this because I truly am impressed with her product, her process.
I can see what a labor of love this project has been for her. It's all so thoughtfully, themed, designed, produced, packaged. You can tell that she is meticulous and thoughtful in all the steps of creation. Her brand looks expensive. She spends hours debating between glass bottles; this one or that one? Droppers or screw tops? Which labels for the salts? Which business cards? Which website mock-up?
With Atlantic Alchemy Wellness, Ashley has created a skincare line that I can relate to and that feel comfortable using. With her products I am intimidated by neither skincare rules, applications and instructions. She makes me feel closer to the ocean and all it’s healing properties, at home.
Perhaps that's what I love most about Ashley's skincare line: it's dedication to purity. In developing recipes and experimenting with ingredients, she has learned that the key to a really good skincare line lies in it's simplicity. Too many ingredients don't always make for a better product, you know? It's important to be able to read and pronounce all the ingredients in your beauty products. And what's more is that a good skincare, made with natural ingredients, doesn’t (and shouldn't) cost thousands of dollars to make a difference. It just has to be made with pure and whole ingredients.
All of her hard work is paying off. Always, Ashley tells me excitedly about how her business is growing. How bigger and bigger orders are coming in for more and more product and that people are starting to recognize her brand. She's developing new recipes. Testing out trial face masks and coffee scrubs, toner sprays and bath melts. Sampling scents and sourcing seaweeds.
I really can't wait to buy and use all of them.
And one day, when I grow up, maybe I can live on the beach with Tim and Lars and Ashley, and we can spend our days making coconut milks and kelp butters, together, on some quiet strip of pink, white sand, where the water glows neon blue and there are lots and lots of sea shells...
In the meantime, I'll be at home, the sea in my tub.
This post was sponsored by Atlantic Alchemy Wellness, however all opinions are my own.