The Childhood Curiosity That Eventually Led Me to Formulation

October 23, 2026

As a child, I made what I called potions.

My parents allowed me to experiment with homemade face masks, hair treatments, lotions, fragrances, and mixtures made from ingredients around the house. Not every experiment was sophisticated or successful. That was not the point. The freedom to combine, observe, make a mess, and try again taught me that ingredients could be transformed.

Curiosity came before expertise

I did not know then that formulation would become part of my professional life. I only knew that I was fascinated by what happened when materials met. Texture changed. Fragrance changed. Something separate became something new.

That curiosity belonged to the same creative world as drawing, making projects from art books, and eventually designing houses. I liked understanding parts, imagining a different whole, and creating something another person could experience.

Childhood experimentation is not a substitute for tested formulation, safety review, or professional manufacturing. I would never turn those early mixtures into instructions for someone to copy. Their importance is personal. They show how long the question has interested me.

Manufacturing changed the scale of the question

Later, my work in the hemp industry moved that curiosity into commercial product development and large-scale manufacturing. I learned that an idea is only the beginning. Formulation requires precision. Manufacturing requires repeatable processes, documentation, testing, sourcing, quality systems, and people who understand the responsibility attached to scale.

That experience taught me how products move from a concept into production. It also taught me that growth adds layers of accountability. The more people who may use something, the less room there is for casual assumptions.

Returning to the household

Botanic brings that long arc back into ordinary home life. The question is no longer simply, “What can these ingredients become?” It is, “Can this become a useful, thoughtfully developed product that makes sense in a real household?”

I want Botanic to remain focused on products people understand and use in the practical work of daily life. The home is not a small ambition. It is where repeated choices become habits, where products meet real surfaces and routines, and where trust must continue after the first purchase.

The thread I can see now

When I look backward, the path feels less disconnected than it once did. A child was given permission to experiment. An artist learned to see parts and relationships. A designer learned that function and beauty should support one another. A manufacturer learned what scale demands. A founder returned to the household with better questions.

I could not have named that path while I was making mixtures at home. Most beginnings do not announce what they will become.

Sometimes a childhood curiosity is not merely a phase we leave behind. It is the first expression of a question we spend years learning how to answer responsibly.

With love and intention,

Jennifer