Dear friends,
This month, Periidot turns one! So much of this year has been shaped by you, and it feels right to say thank you the way you'd say it directly to someone, not just announce it. When I picture the response this community has given this first year, the trust, the warmth, the way so many of you showed up again and again, I could not have imagined a first year like this one.
The truth is, this story started before there was ever a Periidot to open. The renovation began well over a year ago: an empty, unfinished room, a lot of vision, and honestly, a lot of faith that it would all come together. Every choice along the way, down to details many will never consciously notice, was made with one question in mind: what does it feel like to be cared for here? Last August, after all of that building, I finally opened the doors, and you walked through them.
That is the part I am most grateful for. You trusted a brand-new studio with your skin in those early months, and you kept coming back as the space, and the practice, found its footing. Some of you came for one ritual and stayed for a relationship. Some of you brought your partners, your mothers, your sisters, your friends. A year in, what stands out most to me isn't any single treatment. It is the accumulation of small, wonderful moments: a face relaxing under warm hands, a conversation that wandered somewhere honest, the quiet trust of someone closing their eyes in my care. Thank you for showing up, again and again, and for making this first year what it was.
This year also took me to IECSC, where I stood shoulder to shoulder with estheticians and formulators whose work shaped my own understanding of this craft long before I ever met them. There is something wonderful about realizing someone you have studied for years is just as curious, still learning, as you are. It reminded me that expertise is a rhythm of study and humility, not a destination, and I carried that lesson straight back into this studio and into how I care for you.
A heartfelt shout out, too, to the new owners of Paradise City Arts Festival, who welcomed me in as a vendor at their incredible festival last fall. Setting up a booth among that community of makers and artists was its own kind of gift. It was there that I met some of you for the first time, and felt, in a very real way, like part of the local community I had just started building a home in.
The brands on my shelves were never chosen to fill space, either. Every one was chosen because their approach to skin mirrors my own: barrier-first, ingredient-transparent, guided by nature and informed by science. Getting to build those relationships this year has been a quiet joy.
Something I am most proud of is the Periidot Local Love program through which we supported 12 incredible nonprofits in the area doing invaluable work to support our community. It takes a village, and together we were able to lend a helping hand.
A year is long enough to notice a rhythm, and short enough that it still feels new. I opened Periidot with a philosophy already in place: skin as a living ecosystem, deserving of patience rather than urgency. What I did not fully understand a year ago is how much this space would also become a place of community, built by every one of you who has chosen to be part of it.
So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making this first year one worth celebrating! Here's to the rhythm of the next one, together.
With gratitude,
Jess
