Roots of Resistance: How Activism and Chickens Led Me to Cruelty-Free Botanical Skincare

There are moments that change the way you see everything. Not loudly — sometimes just a single word, a single image, a single question you can't un-ask. My life has been shaped by those moments. And each one led me here.

My activism began early. I was young, angry in the way that only comes from caring deeply, and I was paying attention. The world had no shortage of injustices demanding a response. I showed up. I marched. I believed — and still believe — that ordinary people have the power to change things when they refuse to look away.

That refusal to look away became the through-line of my life.

Over time, my focus shifted toward the environment. The more I learned, the more I understood that the health of the planet and the health of its people are inseparable. Polluted water, stripped forests, poisoned soil — these aren't abstract problems. They are violence, just slower and quieter than the kind that makes the news.

I got involved. I learned. And learning, as it always does, led me further down the road.

Environmental activism has a way of leading you to the meat industry — because the connections are impossible to ignore. The land use. The water consumption. The emissions. The scale of it. But beyond the environmental data, something more personal shifted in me.

Someone said to me yesterday, "I eat chicken." I replied: Really? You eat chickens. They are a thing, not a product in a package. They are a living being with emotions and feelings just like humans.

And eggs? An embryo. No one thinks of that either.

This is the thinking behind why I eat an 80% plant-based diet, why I use plant-based skincare, and why I choose organic food whenever possible.

It's not about perfection. It's about the willingness to see things as they actually are.

Once you start looking, you can't stop. And eventually I looked at the beauty industry, at the medicines I took and food in the fridge.

What I found disturbed me. Animals in laboratories. Rabbits, mice, guinea pigs and beagles (my dog at the time) — subjected to painful tests so that a mascara or a moisturizer could reach a store shelf. Living beings, treated as instruments. The same disconnection I had seen everywhere else: a product in a package, the cost of it hidden from view.

I couldn't participate in that. I wouldn't.

I didn't set out to start a skincare company. I set out to live consistently with what I believed. And when I couldn't find products that met that standard — truly plant-based, truly cruelty-free, rooted in the healing power of botanicals — I made them myself.

This included my former company MoonMaid, where I guided women who wanted alternatives to prescriptions for hormone imbalance — menopause, PMS, infertility, and more.

Every product at MedicineWoods exists because I chose to look. At the earth. At the animals. At the ingredients. At the true cost of beauty.

And once I looked, I couldn't stop.

MedicineWoods Botanicals — plant-based, cruelty-free, and made with intention.