evan healy
on being a truth seeker
Last week, I had the privilege to connect with Evan Healy for the very first time. What transpired was a lengthy and fascinating conversation about starting out and sustaining in the ever-changing landscape of the beauty industry. Evan, through her eponymous (and might I add, exquisite) brand evanhealy, has surpassed all conventional expectations, standards, and norms. As the co-founder, creator and visionary of her company, Evan has taken her time to thoughtfully release innovative, exceptional, and distinct products as she’s seen fit. Drawing upon observations and understandings gleaned from years spent working as a successful esthetician, Evan has built one of the most accessible, honest, and ethical brands available on the market. I’ve been delighted to work for her from time to time over the years and I am thrilled to offer you her story here.
MM: Tell us about your journey into natural skincare and the health foods store your parents owned and operated.
EH: In 1974, my father happened to be opening a natural foods store in San Diego. Some years later, he needed someone to come in and define, develop, and integrate a beauty department—in those days, we called it cosmetics. I was in San Francisco working as a fashion buyer at the time, but I was ready for a career change. I had no idea about the world of beauty, especially when it came to naturals. I was a Clinique girl back then. But in 1984, I joined the family business. It became an education and it was one I was ready for.
MM: And at this point in time, you fell in love with the line Dr. Hauschka?
EH: I did, I did. At the time, I was absolutely enthralled. I had never heard of a philosophy of skincare that embraced the natural world. Originally, Hauschka was a brand founded in the anthroposophical philosophy, and it was through a Rudolph Steiner reading group that I learned that Hauschka was a student of Steiner’s. I found a distributor of Hauschka in Los Angeles and within two years of bringing in their line, we became their number one retailer in the United States. This is how I was invited to Germany in 1986 for my first Hauschka training.
MM: What was that experience like for you?
EH: It was lifechanging, absolutely. I was young at the time, I went to Germany, and there was about eight of us from around the world participating. It was a training developed for estheticians and I just joined in. I got facials in the specially designed bed at the company headquarters in Germany, WALA. It was absolutely fascinating. We participated in the dawn mixing of the mother tincture and we were instructed not to wear makeup or perfume, and to stay away if we didn’t feel well or had a headache—that sort of thing. In a beautiful room, we chopped up tiny rose petals and took an eagle’s feather and moved it into the mother tincture. We said blessings around the products and worked at dawn when the sun forces were very low. My jaw was dropping at every enlightenment that they calmly offered. I remember it all today and that was 1986, so what is that 105 years ago? It was really an interesting bonding of likeminded people and they did establish in me, a love for the rhythms of nature. How all of the plants in nature contribute in some part to our wellness. This understanding that plants do the opposite of the human being. Instead of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, they exhale oxygen and inhale carbon dioxide. Once I started on this path of enlightenment, I had no interest in ingredients that didn’t align themselves with the nature principles I picked up from those trainings in Germany and the many postgraduate courses I took in homeopathy, aromatherapy, and Ayurveda. My education was nonstop for twenty-five years and I loved it.
MM: And when did you find yourself in esthetics school?
EH: I went to Germany as a cosmetics buyer and returned with a clear vision of what the next step on my journey was going to be. My time spent as a retailer filled me with invaluable information because you get so much insight from customers, face to face. But I knew I wanted to work on people’s skin, my hands were just vibrating. In 1988, I attended beauty school.
MM: It’s apparent that you have studied beauty from so many different lenses and perspectives, I am curious, what does beauty mean to you?
EH: Beauty is a difficult concept; when given the choice, who doesn’t want to be beautiful? But what makes us beautiful? In my practice, I always wanted to shift the conversation and reinforce the philosophy to my clients that the skin is simply communicating to you. Most people would come in saying things like “my skin is horrible,” “my skin is bad,” but your skin is not wrong, it is not bad. Beauty has nothing to do with wrinkles, acne, or rosacea. The skin is a wonderful, incredible organ that fights the battles we never even know are there. Its primary job is to defend us against the environment. It’s a particularly interesting concept to consider during this critical time. You know, I think it’s important for people to learn how to read the face, it communicates disharmony somewhere in the body whether it’s physical or emotional. It’s very often hormonal, dietary, or digestive. Or on the other side of the coin it can be emotional, issues like anxiety or fear. All of these things are reflected on our skin. Your skin is not an organ that needs complexity. In the area of our face, are our five key mucous membrane openings. When you think of the real estate of this area of the skin, it’s critical because everything ingresses through our eyes, our nose, our mouth, our ears, and the skin itself. That’s why I say the skin breathes. There’s an inhalation of nutrients from the environment and an exhalation of the metabolic impurities.
MM: Tell us about the journey with your brand evanhealy?
EH: Well, I had worked for some aromatherapeutic lines and had direct relationships with distillers of essential oils and hydrosouls. So, I first had to source ingredients, and then the bottles, the packaging, those sorts of things. But from all the years spent working as a retailer, working for the aromatherapy line, all of the exposure I had through my postgraduate training and my skincare practice, I knew what I wanted. I knew what type of skin I was going to see. I knew how to educate people about skincare. I knew what I wanted, I just had to look for it. I was in Canada at the time and the headache of working across the border posed issues at first, but in 1998 and 1999, I began to sell products. I advertised ads in Yoga Journal offering to send people free samples. The response was huge! In 2000, we incorporated as a brand and started to have products carried on shelves.
MM: We jump ahead to 2020 and evanhealy feels like it is everywhere—not in an oversaturated sense but in a manner that feels accessible to the wider population.
EH: I’m so proud of that. Coming from an extensive retail background, when we started I was so confident in my training and practice, that I just assumed everyone would get that. I forgot about the competition that was also vying for shelf space. I foolishly thought that it would be easier than it was. After some digging in however, around 2004, at a Framingham, MA Whole Foods we were demoing our products and caught the attention of a woman who was the store’s beauty buyer. This delightful woman went to her team leader, who went to their team leader, and got us in through the backdoor. We met more and more team leaders and were carried on more and more shelves. We’d drive from Toronto to Boston, to New York, to Chicago, demoing in all of the respective stores. From Whole Foods we spread to other natural food stores, co-ops, and beauty boutiques. But, Whole Foods was the turning point for us.
MM: Many of my friends that are original brand founders from the 90s, describe a glorious moment in time for aromatherapy conferences (often led by Kurt Schnaubelt) in the late twentieth century, were you a part of those?
EH: Yes, I studied with Kurt Schnaubelt way, way back in the good old days. He was full of critically interesting and relevant information. I learned chemistry as a second language, so to speak. I learned the chemistry of essential oils—the difference between a terpene, sesquiterpene, and a ketone. Of course, you still need a GCMS*, but then you have a baseline ability to read the activity of the essential oil. I have all of his books, I used to train with him and actually worked for him as a trainer back in the day.
*Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is an analytical method that combines the features of gas-chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify different substances within a test sample*
MM: On that subject, who have been your other greatest teachers?
EH: Even before Kurt, for me, was Marcel Lavabre, who wrote The Aromatherapy Workbook. He had a company called Aromavera in the 80s. We would have Marcel, who lived in LA, come down to San Diego and do trainings. Then there was the aromatherapist and biochemist Dr. Dietrich Gumbel and his wife Barbara, who was an esthetician. Both of them were brilliant and he wrote phenomenal books about skincare and the senses. His wife was trained as an esthetician in Germany, so her degree of mastery was far greater than that derived from traditional American esthetics training. We would visit them in Europe. In 1996, I went back to Germany for another Hauschka training along with two east coast estheticians, who were good friends of mine. By then, we knew Dietrich well and had studied with him a number of times in the United States. From Germany we drove to France where Dietrich and Barbara were. We spent a weekend with them. These educational trainings were nonstop for me back then. The ones in Europe were really astonishing. I ended up taking several Hauschka trainings both in Germany and in the United States, some at the anthroposophical Rudolph Steiner college in Sacramento.
MM: How has evanhealy gone against the grain?
EH: Essentially, as a brand you’re trying to articulate what beauty means to people and it means something different to everybody. The people I think are beautiful have a sparkle in their faces, are interested in what they’re doing, and have a good sense of humor. People who are curious and interested in life, those are the people I find beautiful. Some of the most interesting books I’ve read lately: In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren, offer this notion of humble beauty, beauty that changes. Embracing the patina and depth that passing years bestow upon us. As an esthetician, I often heard the phrase “well, I didn’t have this last year,” and I’d always remind them that they were a year older now. I couldn’t not tell the truth. I’m reminded now of one client in particular, a woman with severe acne-rosacea who came to me in tears. I touched her face and it was so hot with inflammation. I told her gently “my goodness, your skin is so sensitive.” She turned around and looked at me and said, “no one has ever called my skin sensitive, they’ve always treated my skin as if they were carpet-bombing the desert—throwing acids, laser treatments, heat on it.” I had to assure her that her skin was not dirty, it wasn’t unclean, it was merely sensitive. Acne is an indication of sensitivity. To answer your question, I suppose I’ve gone against the grain by telling the truth.
MM: How did those client experiences inform the range of products you went on to formulate?
EH: The 90s were a period of rampant alpha and beta hydroxy acid use and what I witnessed on many clients was a weakened, thinning barrier. These acids were dissolving the epidermal layer of the skin and I kept telling my clients that the epidermal layer was there for a reason. I had some clients who would insist I use acids, so I would pull the least harmful ones I could find. Over periods of months, we would both witness the skin lose vitality. That dissolving of the epidermal layer led to redness and irritability. To restore the epidermal layer, I used oils, fats, shea butter, hydrosouls, nourishing plant oils, and clay masks. Clays are ideal as a substitute for these harsh exfoliating acids. They draw metabolic impurities out of your dermal pores without disturbing the terrain or microbiome of the acid mantle. Cooling by nature, the clays work wonders for acne-prone skin by reducing heat/inflammation and keeping the skin decongested. If you use a product line like mine and you find success with it, as many do, that’s the good news and the bad news. Good news for you and your skin’s balance but bad news for the cosmetic chemist working for the larger, conventional companies whose livelihoods depend on innovation.
(Michael’s note: evanhealy’s Green Tea Clay is a powerful detoxifier and purifier, best used as an active treatment while the French Rose Clay is a perfect “date night” mask, gentler but still effective!)
MM: If you had the power to eliminate one type or category of products from the beauty market because of their damage (to the skin or environment) would it be the acids?
EH: Yes, because as estheticians, we have sixty minutes to make miracles happen on the face. Your client wants to leave transformed. I don’t blame them, I would too. But I would not take an iron of exfoliating acids and smooth out the skin. I would focus, instead, on the nervous system and the lymph. This would include rhythmical massages for the face, legs, arms, and feet. There are three main parts of a facial, the middle is the point of deepest relaxation in the treatment. The skin cools down and the eyes relax. All of the tension and stress that we hold in the face and neck releases. That’s what I would work towards and strive to achieve in every session. When you focus on those things, you completely shift the parasympathetic nervous system, and you accomplish a temple healing. It’s that whole craniosacral therapy.
MM: What was the first product you formulated?
EH: The first product I made from soup to nuts was the Whipped Shea Butter with Olive Leaf. I knew what I was looking for and worked one long, steamy Toronto summer crafting it. I played with West African shea butter and East African shea butter. I experimented a lot with whipping it because shea is traditionally so hard. I wanted mine to be soft like a soufflé. I had a cake mixer and had ordered different oils and infusions that I wanted to blend into it. The turning point in the formulation was when I met a local Ghanaian woman at Whole Foods—she had shea butter from Western African—and she was teaching a small class and I just fell in love with her. She had been raised in Northwestern Ghana and introduced me to their village’s shea butter. Her village was trying to make a livelihood off of the shea butter and she wanted to help out, so she purchased tons of it to resell and had it shipped to her home on Vancouver Island, BC.
At this point, Evan and I discussed the proprietary process the product undergoes. What I can share with you is this: it’s an involved labor of love. It’s also a product that is so versatile and beautiful that I hope I will never be without it.
MM: What is your favorite source you have cultivated?
EH: That’s tough but I would have to say the hydrosouls. These were paramount for my line because I needed to find a product that could replace the soapy, alcohol rich toners on the market. The small family farmers that we work with today have contributed so much of their hard work and time.
MM: What are the foundational principles or mantras of your brand?
EH: Truth Heals. The Skin Breathes. Oil, water, clay.
MM: Favorite ingredient that you employ?
EH: Sea buckthorn oil, the seed, and the berry. My next trip will be to Scotland, where we hope to take part in the harvest of Sea Buckthorn on the upper coast of Scotland. I cannot wait to get there.
MM: Without fail, every time I wear your Pomegranate Repair Serum, I get a compliment on my skin. (The Pomegranate Repair Serum is a rich source of Sea Buckthorn and my #1 favorite oil serum from evanhealy’s range of products. Pair it with any of their hydrosouls and your skin will delight!)
EH: I believe it! I’m really excited because I am working on a new formula for a face balm that contains Sea Buckthorn, Prickly Pear, and a few other ingredients. I’ve been working on that for months and it will come out, even if I have to turn my kitchen into a lab!
MM: What’s a day in the life of Evan Healy look like?
EH: These days of COVID-19, I believe it’s even more important to pay attention to our nervous system, to nurture ourselves. I am a student of yoga and like to do a slow stretch in front of the window. I’ll walk barefoot in the backyard underneath my apple tree and do some deep breathing. I never schedule anything right away in the morning. I wash my face and brush my teeth and often will mask in the morning, too. I make a tea made from sacred Tulsi from a friend and a colleague who grows it on Orcas Island. Anything with caffeine is far too stimulating for me right now, there’s too much going on in the world. I’m a breakfast person. I’ll often eat porridge or salmon in the winter, fresh fruit in the summer. I find the smoothies that I make are much simpler than what I see out there. I don’t understand mixing the vegetables and fruits together. For me, that’s a big no-no for digestion. The key to my day is a slow morning. Mornings are a creative time for me. That’s when I write, photograph, and envision new products.
MM: What does your bathroom counter look like?
EH: You can’t even see the countertop because I’m a mad scientist. I’m always playing in my own line and with other lines that I admire. I use first and foremost my own line, it’s what I love most of all. But other brands I admire include…Ula Botanics…La Bella Figura, I particularly enjoy their La Flora oil…Kjaer Weis makeup is absolutely exquisite, the packaging begs to be shown off. My oil serums dovetail really well with her makeup. I love Patrick’s line, Sigil Scent. Amor Fati is my favorite of his fragrances. His scents stand out in an industry filled with so much of the same. And, I always come back to Alexis Smart Flower Remedies, her First Aid Kit tincture is staring right at me.
MM: What art or artists have brought you peace through difficult times?
EH: I love impressionist artists, the gentleness of someone like Monet. Aboriginal Art in Australia is fascinating to me. Tibetan jewelry, the Māori tribes from New Zealand—their tattoos and jewelry, that’s art. I tend to go global. I don’t have to go into a gallery, though I love them, to see art. I think Nature is the artist I admire most. The philosophy of that imperfection and the ephemeral quality of it. Musically, I love Sanskrit chants. Luciano Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma. It’s that Joseph Campbell thing, you look for your bliss, that vibrational resonance when your body says “yes.”
R A P I D F I R E E D I T I O N
MM: Fan of fruit enzymes on the skin?
EH: Eat the papaya or pineapple, turn the skin over and rub it on your face. Skip the chemist.
MM: Retinol?
EH: It’s a teratogenic, NO!
MM: Vitamin C?
EH: I am not a chemist, I’m a theorist. I won’t say no categorically, but it definitely depends on who makes it and how it’s formulated, especially since it can oxidize so rapidly.
MM: Sunscreen or sun exposure without it?
EH: I used to say absolutely no sunscreen but wear coverings. But the fact of the matter is, then you miss out on Vitamin D absorption. I have Irish skin. I’ve had skin cancers removed, my family is all the same. I love the sun, but I am cautious about it. I sell a sunblock that I love, the sheer tint zinc oxide sunscreen stick, it’s a light neutral color and helps to even out the redness in my skin from rosacea. Zinc Oxide is also dermally protective for the skin. I don’t like Titanium Dioxide. Personally, I stay away from it. I definitely don’t recommend chemical sunscreens either. You know, skin cancer can take twenty to thirty years to show up. Thirty years ago, I was living in the mountains of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, skiing. I didn’t wear sunblock and have lots of sun damage from those eight years. I also grew up in California and attended Laguna Beach High School, so we were always at the beach. The result of those days is a lot of hyperpigmentation. (Evan’s pro-tip: wear sunscreen whenever you fly, the extremely high altitudes will expose you to more intense rays from the sun.)
MM: Microcurrent or Gua Sha?
EH: Gua Sha. I don’t like any electricity on the head.
MM: Supplements you’re taking daily?
EH: Alexis Smart Flower Remedies, magnesium, zinc, and selenium. I don’t do a multivitamin because I want most of my vitamins to come from my food.
MM: Go to meals?
EH: I live off salmon and lots of dandelion greens. I make a seed bread. I watch blood sugar, so I eat a little bit of fruit and only what is in season, thankfully I am not a sugar person. I crave bitters, there’s something called bitter melon that grows in certain climates. It’s one of the most bitter foods in the world. Every time I go to our farm stand in Chino, I get a bunch of them. Food is our medicine.
MM: Three essential oils you love?
EH: Patchouli, vetiver, and oud—agarwood.
MM: Deserted island evanhealy products?
EH: Wild Carrot Nourishing Eye Balm and a Hydrosoul—but it will have to be a 50-gallon drum.
MM: Guilty pleasure?
EH: Shopping. Or relaxing at the end of the day with a good series or movie.
MM: Bath or shower?
EH: I don’t have a bathtub—but if I did, I’d pick baths. Trust me. My next house will have a big one!
MM: A favorite quote of mine comes from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button script: “for what it’s worth, it’s never too late or too early to become what you might have been.” In another universe and in honor of the late, great Mary Oliver, what would you do with your one and precious life?
EH: I would continue trying to be as accessible to the public as I could be, to help them be comfortable. There’s something about wanting to help people. A friend of mine had an opportunity to do facial treatments on the Nepalese Women who line the pathways leading up to base camp at Mt. Everest. I’m dying to get my hands on their faces with our Sea Buckthorn and Whipped Shea Butter and all the plant oils we have. I guess I would want to make more people feel better…You know, my mother just died. Taking care of her towards the end of her life, I’d put our oil serums and hydrosouls on her face. Towards the end, she was having a difficult time breathing and she was on oxygen, but I would spray her face and she’d lay there with her eyes open and say “god, that feels so good.” We had a typical mom-daughter relationship, we had our good days and we had our bad days, but she was an incredible and creative woman. When I would go over there, it would be at the end of a busy day and I’d be tired, but it was really important for me to go visit her (even before she was dying) to make her feel good. My father had died, and she was depressed. Towards the end, I would drive away from her house after doing facial treatments on her and ask myself, whose life am I saving? Am I saving her life or am I saving mine? And I decided, I was doing a little bit of both. I didn’t do it out of necessity, it was making me feel better too. You want to spend your last moments with the people you love. In a sense, we saved each other. Life isn’t always the path you thought it would be or want it to be. Life is tough. To answer your question, I suppose I’d just want to help more people.
MM: What do you know, deep in your bones, to be true?
EH: That nothing stays the same. Things change. The only way we survive these changes is by adapting to them and allowing them to happen. That’s the only thing you can depend on. People come and go. Possessions come and go. Money comes and goes. Our health comes and goes. Our youth comes and goes. You need to embrace the things you go through to get to where you are going.
MM: Finally, what gives you hope?
EH: What gives me hope for the future is the integrity of the human spirit. I mean look at what has happened since COVID-19. The world has come together in so many ways. What gives me hope are the birds flying where they’ve never been before, animals tiptoeing back onto roads that have been far too busy for so long. Nature returning…
