Why I Left Emergency Medicine to Start a Natural Skincare Company

When life presents you with the opportunity to hear your mother’s last heartbeat, with your ear desperately pressed against her chest while your 3-month-old baby is crying in the next room, time has a way of collapsing and expanding all at once. Or did it implode? I’m not sure, but it made me think long and hard about my life, how it might go faster than I had planned, and what I wanted to do with the time I have here on Planet Earth.

I’m a doctor. Countless sleepless nights and a degree from Georgetown University will prove it. I trained as an emergency physician in Washington DC, where I saw everything from stab wounds to anxiety attacks to babies born in the ambulance bay to foreign objects inserted in places beyond your wildest imagination. I had the best work stories at any dinner party—unless it was with my medical friends, and then it was a contest to see who had seen the most surreal or ridiculous or life-affirming cases that week. I finished my training and moved to Colorado with my husband and our then 2-year-old daughter. Until that point, I had lived within 10 miles of my parents for my entire life.

Practicing Emergency Medicine in Colorado

Mountain practice was different—like an orthopedic clinic, with occasional trauma and lots of high-altitude sickness. I brushed up on my skills and was soon putting dislocated shoulders back in place with ease. Things were swimming right along until my mom came to visit a few months later. We were hiking Red Hill, a favorite local hiking trail in Carbondale, CO, when she had a brief episode of stomach pain. It passed quickly, and we didn’t think much of it. A month later, back in DC, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

After 16 months of aggressive treatment, my stepfather finally made the call to say, “I think you’d better come home.” I stepped numbly on a plane with my brother and my second daughter, who was 3 months old. We spent a week in their house, caring for my frail, cancer-ravaged mom, telling her it was okay to let go. She slipped into a coma not long after we arrived, and died 8 days later, at age 64. She was my most precious, beautiful friend.

Returning to Medicine After Loss

I returned to work in the emergency department, but something was different.

Of course, everything is different when you lose someone you love. But there was something missing in the work, as if I couldn’t define my purpose. I knew I was helping people and that I was a good doctor. But, at the end of a shift, I felt exhausted and empty, rather than fulfilled. Looking back, I think it was a sense that I had not—despite 13 hours on my feet without peeing or eating—made the world more beautiful, or safer, or significantly healthier.

I saw so many patients with problems they could have prevented. Smoking, fast food, alcohol—their habits had caught up with them. After losing my mother, who lived a remarkably healthy life and died anyway, I started to resent patients who took their health for granted. And I didn’t want to become a resentful human. So I began to percolate.

Discovering Natural Skincare and Formulation

On a whim, I took a soap-making class at a local ranch. I was immediately transfixed: chemistry plus beauty was an irresistible combination for a girl who had loved lotions and potions all her life. I converted a windowless room in a dear friend’s house (fondly referred to as the “meth lab”) and spent two years working on formulations. I exploded things. I coated myself in every plant oil known to man. I learned about emulsions, surfactants, and preservatives. I was obsessed.

When I worked a shift in the ER, I counted the hours until I could get back to the lab. I knew something had to change. I just had to figure out how. And why.

You know how, when you fall in love, there’s no answer to the “why” part? That’s how I felt about making these beautiful, natural products. (And still do.) I wanted to shout from the rooftops: “Let’s stop using all these chemicals that cause early puberty, cancer, autoimmune disease, and mutations in fish and frogs! There are better options—and I now know how to make them!!!”

(I’m still up here, on the rooftop, shouting.)

Leaving Medicine to Start a Skincare Brand

The process of giving myself permission to leave emergency medicine was excruciating. My thoughts were stuck in an endless loop: I am a doctor. I worked so hard to become a doctor—while making babies, no less! My dad is a law professor. My mom was a lawyer. And I’m going to be a… soap maker?? My ego was in turmoil, making all kinds of noise to distract me from what I knew was my true calling.

I suffered silently for a long time and considered it from every angle. But I kept wondering what my mom would say, and I could hear it as clearly as I heard her little heart stop beating: “Honey, do what you love.” When I finally said it out loud, my prince of a husband cocked his head, smiled, and said, “OH. You’re serious. Okay, let’s make a plan.”

So we did. And fourteen years later, I’m still the CEO of a thriving, medium-sized skincare brand. We have an incredible team, a sustainably built facility, and we still make most of our products in-house. I use my medical training to help people with specific skin issues like perioral dermatitis, eczema, and acne, and formulate products using ingredients that are simple, natural, and effective.

Do I miss medicine? Sometimes, yes. But here’s how I see it:

• If one person finds relief from her eczema because of our products, I have practiced medicine.

• If our blog helps someone understand the dangers of personal care chemicals, I have practiced medicine.

• If the level of 1,4-dioxane in our water supply drops because of companies like ours, I have practiced medicine.

And most importantly, I have practiced love.

What Starting a Skincare Company Taught Me

I didn’t set out to build a skincare company. I set out to solve a problem I couldn’t ignore.

What I learned along the way is that meaningful work rarely follows a straight path. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and often illogical from the outside. But when you’re paying attention—really paying attention—you start to see the through line, which might just give you the courage to follow your heart.

For me, it was always about helping people feel better in their bodies. Emergency medicine was one expression of that. Skincare turns out to be another.

Finding Your Own Path

So, what’s your plan?

It might not involve soap or stethoscopes. But if you hear the whisper, the nudge, or the thunderous call—it’s time. I’ll be here cheering you on from the mountains of Colorado.

The information contained in this post is for educational interest only. This information is not intended to be used for diagnosis or treatment of any physical or mental illness, disease, or skin conditions.