3 locally crafted self-care bundles to help you unwind
If we’ve learned anything during the last year in quarantine, it’s that we need to prioritize our well-being. But for those of us who still need help on the tension-taming front, we’ve got good news—there’s a box for that! Three local businesses have put their spin on self-care with curated packages that offer everything from bathing rituals powered by local farm botanicals to embroidery lessons for the DIY-inclined. Stress, you’ve met your match.
Hella Happy Life’s “Grow and Glow” box (Photo courtesy of Hella Happy Life)
Hella Happy Life
In March, Sacramento resident Tori Steele launched Hella Happy Life, a line of themed monthly self-care boxes. In each package, you’ll typically get a handmade object from a local maker and a related DIY project with a QR code for a video of Steele’s step-by-step directions. The June box includes a self-love bar soap from Nachi Body Candy and a bucket hat with all the DIY materials to embroider your own design, while last month’s “Grow and Glow” box featured Southside Park-based plant shop The Prickly Pear’s fountain-of-youth elixir and Queen of the Night face oil, plus the tools you’ll need to craft a macramé plant hanger. “When we get into a creative flow, we start to create dopamine in our brains,” Steele says. “Crafting is self-care.” $29.25 a month. hellahappylife.com
Quercus Collective crafts each potion in its seasonal self-care boxes from a 35-acre commune in Grass Valley. (Photo courtesy of Quercus Collective)
Quercus Collective
The self-proclaimed “femmes ferals” behind Quercus Collective launched an herbal CSA program last year as an extension of their natural food and medicine co-op. Boxes in the yearlong subscription coincide with the annual solstice and equinox cycles, and include handcrafted potions, salves and elixirs made from homegrown and ethically foraged plants in the Sierra foothills. Currently growing for the forthcoming summer solstice box (set to release June 21): a cooling tea blend of marshmallow root, lemon balm and mint, as well as digestive bitters distilled with angelica and dandelion root. Co-owners Kira Greene and Carissa Rose Hayes, a clinical herbalist, run their business from a 35-acre commune in Grass Valley and draw inspiration from the property’s history as Nisenan tribal land. Available for home delivery or pickup at the ranch. $95 per box. $150 or $220 per subscription. quercuscollective.com
A box from Magpie Alchemy with a shower melt, candle, bath bomb and CBD massage oil (Photo Courtesy of Magpie Alchemy)
Magpie Alchemy
Since 2019, husband and wife Lucas Ives and Jamie Cardenas have crafted locally sourced botanical skincare products in their brick-and-mortar shop at the WAL Marketplace. In addition to their ready-made self-care boxes (the Box of Everything, for example, is packed with CBD-infused massage oil, a Filipino-style vapor rub of moringa oil and guava leaf, plus a shower melt made with arrowroot powder and sea salt sourced from the San Francisco Bay), the duo can create personalized packages to fit customers’ specific needs. The “boxes”—reusable redwood planters handcrafted by Jecca Labangco Mallo—can be stuffed with homemade soaps scented with lavender from Wilton-based Bask Farm and African blue basil from Soil Born Farms in Rancho Cordova, along with CBD-infused bath bombs and fresh-distilled hydrosols for aromatherapy on the go (we’re serial spritzers of the stress-relieving lemongrass). $30-$165 per box. 1104 R Street. 916-917-6117. magpiealchemy.com
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