Maker: Jessica Ress, age 38
Where: Portland, Oregon Maker of: Angel Face Botanicals, aromatherapy bath and beauty products
In business: 4 years
Best sellers: Rock Star Detox Body Scrub and Chamomile Exquisite Crème
Sites: angelfacebotanicals.com and spagoddess.etsy.com

So how’d you become the SpaGoddess?
I was working in real estate, which was the opposite of what I wanted to be doing. I have a fine art degree and creating and being creative is a huge part of who I am and how I grew up. I had studied herbs and herbal remedies when I was in my early twenties, and I had dabbled in product making—for holidays and birthdays I would make people bath and beauty products.

Do you have a favorite pantry item you love to use?
Honey. It has amazing variations in scent, color, texture, consistency, and taste–all due to the conditions under which it was created. I pay attention to scent and texture in my products. When talking to the beekeepers about their honey and beeswax, I am always interested in where the hives are kept and what sorts of flowers the bees are collecting their nectar from. I’ve had honey from a field of French sunflowers, which was very light in color and flavor and more dense and sugary in texture, and honey from a field of blackberries, which was runny and smooth in texture, richer and fruitier in flavor, and dark in color. It also makes sense that the honey carries some of the botanical properties from the flowers of which it was made. Honey also has natural antibacterial properties, and it’s a natural way to moisturize without any oils, which is a pretty amazing property. And it smells really good.

You recently started selling perfume. What inspires you when creating scents?
I have a solid cream perfume called Honey Jasmine that was inspired by my move from California up to Oregon. I had my car packed with everything I needed for my business and as I’m driving up the sun was beating down on one side of the car and it happened to be warming up these bricks of beeswax and jasmine wax that were in the same box. I started smelling this insanely delicious honey and jasmine mingling in the car and I thought, Oh, my god! I need to make a perfume that smells like that because that’s really off the hook.

What’s the best part of your work?
I love creating new recipes. It all feels a little bit witchcrafty sometimes. I’m not a pagan or a witch or anything but sometimes I’m stirring my brews of things and it feels a little medieval.

Small batch handmade products vs. mass-produced: thoughts?
When working with such natural materials as essential oils and herbs, there is a magical, esoteric element that comes into play with a personal touch and mindful intention. It’s similar to comparing artisan-made bread to Wonder Bread; there is a clear and poignant difference.

But are you secretly hoping for a call from Sephora?
I consider myself an eco-entrepreneur—I recycle, I source from reputable suppliers who are fair-trade, and I buy organic. So the bigger my business gets, the bigger my ecological impact can be, and that’s one of the main reasons I started this business—to make a positive difference in that sense. So, yeah, I would love for it to get big, and I would love it if Sephora would call me! It would, however, also be scary and I would have to work hard to do it in a way that was true to myself. I feel like I could, though I’d have to hire some helpers!

Images, top to bottom: Jessica Ress shows off one of her botanical-based salt scrubs, and the honey she sources from around the world.