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30. Own Your Journey: Lessons in Resilience and Scaling with Sarita Valdes, founder of Herbology Skincare
30 Plays4 days ago
💫 This episode of Gritty is the New Pretty we're talking with Sarita Valdes, visionary entrepreneur, artist, advocate, and the powerhouse behind Herbology Skincare. 🌿 From handcrafting skin-nourishing formulas using ancestral wisdom to building a thriving business with zero outside funding, Sarita’s journey is all about resilience, creativity, and trusting your vision.
As Miss Washington for America Strong, she champions radical self-trust and empowerment, showing us how transformation truly begins within. A dancer, poet, and influencer, Sarita embodies authenticity and the courage to rise even when the odds are stacked against you.
In this empowering conversation, we dive into:
- Scaling on Your Terms: How to grow your business and life without compromising your values or well-being.
- Celebrating Wins with Grace: The importance of honoring every victory, big or small, along your journey.
- Owning Your Vision & Grit: Using creativity, resilience, and radical self-trust to turn challenges into breakthroughs.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, leader, or creative making moves, this episode is packed with insights to help you pause, celebrate, and grow on your own terms. Tune in and get ready to redefine success while witnessing how grit, purpose, and heart are the ultimate formula for thriving. ✨
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Transcript
Introduction to Gritty is the New Pretty
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Gritty is the New Pretty, where resilience meets real talk. I'm your host, Crystal, entrepreneur, leadership coach, change maker, and outdoor enthusiast.
00:00:15
Speaker
Join me as I sit
The Podcast's Focus and Goals
00:00:16
Speaker
down with powerhouse women leaders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners who share their raw, unfiltered stories of success, struggle, and the grit it takes to make an impact.
00:00:27
Speaker
From navigating change to redefining success, we'll explore what it takes to rise, lead, and thrive. Expect raw conversations to fuel your journey, whether you're breaking down barriers in life or in business.
00:00:42
Speaker
We're redefining success, not by perfection, but by the strength it takes to rise again and again. Because in this space, gritty is the new pretty.
00:00:53
Speaker
Hit subscribe and
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
00:00:55
Speaker
let's get gritty with it.
00:00:58
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Hey Becks Creative House, founded by brand strategist Becky LaFranche, known for building crave-worthy brands that blend story, soul, and strategy.
00:01:10
Speaker
Explore the work at heybecks.com.
00:01:17
Speaker
On today's episode of Gritty is the New Pretty, we have c Sarita Valdez, a licensed master esthetician, the founder of Herbology Skin Care and 2024 Miss Washington for America Strong.
Sarita Valdez on Empowering Women through Skincare
00:01:30
Speaker
She blends ancestral healing, plant science, and radical self-trust to help women feel radiant, resilient, and rooted in their power on and off the stage. Welcome, Sarita. Hi, thank you It's such an honor to be here today. I so appreciate you.
00:01:45
Speaker
yeah of course. I'm excited to hear about your story. So why don't you kick us off with telling us about you? Sure, so my name is Sarita Valdez. Like you said, I'm a master esthetician. I have my own company, Herbology Skin Care, which is a beauty brand.
00:01:59
Speaker
So that means I have actual physical products. I have about 12 different skincare products that I personally have created the recipe, the formulas for, and then I also actually make the product physically as well. So I'm like half mad scientist and the other half is um doing all of the treatments. So being in person, working with my clients one-on-one,
00:02:20
Speaker
and being able to connect with them and actually talk with them about their lives, their stories, what's going on with their skin. And it's amazing to me how often what's happening in our personal life
Balancing Self-Care and Responsibilities
00:02:31
Speaker
shows up on our skin. You know, you think, oh, I'm just going to get a facial treatment. You know, it's going to be great. You know, kind of like getting a massage or whatever. And then you realize that that physical healing, that personal touch, is so much more than skin deep. And even just being able to talk with my clients about um their habits, their routines, their rituals around caring for themselves, this is so revolutionary for so many of my clients because especially as women, we tend to put others first. You kind of have to teach women, put on your own mask, you know, make sure that you're taken care of before you just give to everybody else and there's nothing left of you. You know, there's no...
00:03:12
Speaker
um air left in your tank, literally, you know, for you to be able to continue caring for people if you don't care for yourself first. So a lot of what I do in my work is not just giving people skincare treatments and selling them skincare products, but it's really helping to shape the way they view themselves so that their husbands, partners, children, everybody in their lives, bosses, people who feel they have a right to your time,
00:03:39
Speaker
understand that you put you first, yes, so that they can also prioritize and value you in that way. You know you have value, so they in turn treat you better. You know, it seems like such a simple concept, but It's something that doesn't always translate. You know, men take care of themselves. You don't have to worry. They're hungry. They're going to go to the grocery store and find themselves a corn dog or whatever. They're not going to worry about the whole family. You know, this is something that women do. We worry about the whole family and then realize at the end of the day, i haven't eaten. I haven't showered.
00:04:13
Speaker
i haven't done anything for myself today. And that's why I feel crazy. Yeah. You know, sorry to use the
The Science and Journey of Herbology Skin Care
00:04:21
Speaker
bad word. I'm sorry. C word has never been for women. But, you know, you know what I mean, where we just feel out of sorts and imbalanced and not sure, you know, where we kind of went wrong. It just seems like a normal day. But when we don't start the day and end the day with that prioritization of our own spirit and our own heart, you know, our own physical body,
00:04:42
Speaker
we end up feeling super depleted and feeling like we have nothing. We're getting from an empty place, you know? But when you fill your own cup and really feel cared for before anybody else even wakes up, you know, you already feel like you're in your space and your zone and centered.
00:04:58
Speaker
It becomes a lot harder to knock you off that, you know? yeah Yeah. Gave me a lot. Sorry. No, I love the corndog analogy of going to the grocery store. Yeah.
00:05:10
Speaker
They will. It's not like, well, what's the whole family eating? Maybe I should save my appetite. Corn dog and eat it before we even leave the store. yeah Yeah. I mean, honestly, that reminded me of my husband so much. I was just laughing. but He likes hot dogs a lot. That's so funny.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah. So you had your own healing journey with skincare that sort of led you to the discovery of this brand where you did kind of the mad scientist thing, like you mentioned. Tell us about that and how you got kind of to where you are now with the brand.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. So I have always had fairly sensitive skin, dry skin, kind of just very temperamental, you know, and and um it was hard for me to find products that really seemed to do anything. You know, I'd put on a moisturizer, five minutes later, it'd feel...
00:05:59
Speaker
just as dry as before. Put on another one, another one different. I would try like layers of things. It just seemed like nothing felt nourishing. Nothing actually felt, made my skin feel cared for and hydrated and always felt or looked, especially my face, like kind of dull, sort of dehydrated, uneven, you know, I'm mixed, I'm Latina and white, you know, and it's like our skin can't find which color it wants to be, you know, especially if you go in the skin, parts get darker, other parts get lighter.
00:06:28
Speaker
It's like ah mess, you know? And so my journey was partially just finding the things that worked for my skin. um ah You know, I have my own issues, but in that journey, I realized just the like broad array of stuff that can happen when your skin is as simple as just being dry.
00:06:47
Speaker
You know, like feels like, oh, it's dry skin, put some moisture on it, I'll be fine. But when our skin is dry, It's personal, its own natural response is to produce more oil, right? It doesn't have any other recourse. That's the only protection our skin has is to just at least get some oil on it, you know?
00:07:03
Speaker
so when we don't take care of our skin and and dryness is maybe what we're starting with, now we end up with this oily, congested skin because our skin's overproduced oil. It's sitting in the pores.
00:07:14
Speaker
That dryness is sort of like um causing the oil to oxidize, you know? So then we end up getting like these kind of blackheads and stuff when really... our skin is not acneic.
00:07:24
Speaker
You know, it doesn't, it's not acne prone. It doesn't have a congestion issue. What it has is it dehydrated issue and it's leading to all these other different things, you know? So for me, it was, um, just finding a few key things. Like one of my main products that I sell, one of the ones that I create is a is just simple rose water. And it's not rose water made from, on the stove with rose petals and water and all that. I used to do it that way.
00:07:49
Speaker
But the way that I do it now is it's essentially what's called a hydrosol. So people who know about, um what do you call, um distilling, you know, like distilling essential oils. So you'd put...
00:08:00
Speaker
pounds and pounds of whatever product that you're using could be rose petals pine needles whatever and if it's a steam still you have all the water that goes through with it and at the end all that steam is condensed and it's become what's called a hydrosol so it could be of any plant and for a rose it's one of the cleanest clearest purest products you could ever use and
Challenges and Scaling Herbology Skin Care
00:08:21
Speaker
roses match the ph of the skin so it's kind of like that's always our goal with our skin is to get it to like that place where it matches a rose petal, right? Because roses match our skin already. So they're such a good ally for people who are, who tend to have dry skin, red skin, acne prone. It's like the list is endless.
00:08:39
Speaker
i always go back to roses. You still, roses are still your answer, you know? And I use that product almost like, um well, it's definitely a toner, but almost like the end of the cleanse, right? So after you've washed your skin, spritz with the rose water,
00:08:52
Speaker
I would add hyaluronic acid, which is something our body makes already. We just don't make a ton of it. It's like a salty little gel. One of the reasons we need salt in our diet is because we kind of need our skin to hang on to the moisture. Without salt, it just sort of goes right through. you can drink water, feel like you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead and go, you're just as dehydrated as you were before.
00:09:12
Speaker
But if you add a little electrolytes to our diet, right, then our body tends to hang on to the water. Same thing with our skin. So adding it topically like that with the rose water is essentially giving your skin water with electrolytes.
00:09:23
Speaker
And it's one of the first, easiest, simplest, first things you can do so that no matter what you add from there, your skin's already got this really nice jelly, almost like that texture of like a sea creature, you know? That's kind of what you want on your skin. And then add your moisturizer. Because I have dry skin, I would follow with a facial oil.
00:09:43
Speaker
It's specifically, there's a lot of them, but the one I love is a Korean facial oil. and it's specifically meant for the face. So, and this is a really big distinction because oils can be hard on the skin. They can congest the skin, they attract dust and dirt and pollutants and stuff, and it can be a hard thing just to slap on some oil. I used to do this a lot, this is actually kind of how I started, was making beeswax, salves, and creams and stuff that all had this oily base, thinking, oh, I have dry skin, this is gonna help, right? It's gonna insulate it, it's gonna protect it,
00:10:15
Speaker
It's sort of a natural s SPF, right? Oils and and um beeswax are. But all it was doing was sealing in the dryness. So whenever we use something that's like an unocclusive, right? Occlusive, O-C-C-L-U-S-I-V, occlusive, meaning that it occludes or keeps out anything.
00:10:35
Speaker
So if you already have dry skin, it's almost like putting plastic wrap over your dry skin. You know, it can be really hard for the skin to breathe and to do the little um processes that our skin needs to do, especially while we're sleeping. It's so good to go to bed with clean
Community Building and Business Success
00:10:51
Speaker
skin. That's another big one I always um work with my clients on. If nothing else, least go to bed with clean skin because at night our skin is sort of like brings out all the janitors and the custodians, right? And it pushes everything out.
00:11:04
Speaker
So the cleaner we can go to bed already and, you know, drink a little water and stuff, it sort of gives our skin... something to work with. You know, it's not trying to mop with like makeup ah stuck in the pores, you know? So, um, yeah, that's a big one is just kind of having sort of like a skincare sandwich that works for your skin. And there's a couple of things that I recommend for almost everyone, like the rose water and the Hyaluronic, that's kind of universal, but where you go from there, the moisturizer, whether you add a facial oil or not, that's kind of
00:11:36
Speaker
you know, dependent on your skin. But, um, sorry, coming back to the facial oils, they've essentially been like the oils themselves have been whipped or fractionated so that they, the molecules are smaller because oil molecules are bigger than skin pores.
00:11:50
Speaker
And that's why they clog the skin. Not only do they attract stuff, but the skin essentially can't eat it, right? It can't assimilate it. So it sits on top, just blocking everything. But a facial oil is It's been whipped enough that the actual molecules in the oil are smaller than our pores so your skin can eat it but doesn't clog it. Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
I just learned so much. Thank you. I know i feel it for you. When I'm working with my clients, I have to kind of like stop myself. but Like often I'll give people like 30 second bits here and there if they're interested, because I really do want people to just have the chance to sit and chill and not have to be
Pageantry and Personal Growth
00:12:31
Speaker
listening to me yapping in their ear the whole time. you know, I have some clients that do like to talk, but for a lot of them,
00:12:36
Speaker
This is one of their few times where no one is asking anything from them. And that's really sacred. But I'm such an educator. So it's nice to have like a podcast like this where I can be like, yeah let me tell you why we're doing what we're doing. There's no.
00:12:51
Speaker
ah Yeah, i you know, I will be 100% honest that I don't do much with my skin and I am pretty illiterate. Yeah, I am pretty illiterate to all that stuff. So I learned a lot um about what you just said, the moisturizing. And also i have some rose water spray. I don't know if it's, you know, any good, but I always thought it was because it just smelled nice. Like I didn't realize that it was about the pH in a rose petal or, you know, and is that,
00:13:25
Speaker
I mean, they're pretty soft. Like, rose petals are soft. Does that have something to do with kind of the same texture, like skin? like there Yeah, because roses... Right. They almost have this fleshy, soft feeling to them. Like, when I feel roses, it's almost like you're like if you ever put a rose petal... I know is getting weird, but if you put a rose petal up against your skin, it's like baby. Like a baby cheek or whatever. Yeah. It has this soft...
00:13:49
Speaker
ah moist, almost kind of like um delicateness to it that is kind of, for the skin, what we're always striving for, you know, that it has moisture to it, it's dewy, it's fresh, it doesn't feel like It's got these um lines that tend to come from just being dry, you know? And um yeah, roses tend to hold their water. They require a lot of water
Embracing Success and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:14:11
Speaker
if you've ever grown a rose bush.
00:14:13
Speaker
um they yeah I'm from California. Like I said, they're a little hard to grow in California. One of the things I loved about Oregon, Portland is that everybody grows roses everywhere. But they take a lot of water. Portland's a great place to grow them because that's like a forest. You know, they, well, maybe cut down all the trees a long time ago, but it still has that very foresty feel to it. There's a lot of moisture, a lot of hydration in the air, and that's partially why roses do...
00:14:37
Speaker
So great there. um And I personally feel that way a lot about our humidity. You know, if that's another thing that if you have any control over that in your house, um we're really lucky and blessed up here in the Northwest that we have a lot of moisture in our air.
00:14:51
Speaker
But if you live in a new home, even up here, it can be really, really dry. So even though you're drinking water, it's like, it's not getting to the skin, you know? So sometimes just having maybe a humidifier that you turn on occasionally when your skin's dry, it doesn't have to be on all the time, you know?
00:15:06
Speaker
Um, but just allowing that moisture to kind of be a good thing. It's, it's really good to take a shower every day, even if you don't, it's not that you're dirty. It's not that you need to wash off something from you. It's because your skin itself loves that steam and it loves the moisture. It's just like ah Like a rose where it it wants to have kind of have a little bit of moisture coming from the air as well as from its tissues, right? Roots for us drinking, you know, but also having it in the air. That's so so good for our skin. It kind of is like a sponge where if you leave a sponge,
00:15:39
Speaker
you know, in your cupboard or whatever for a few months, it's like dried and shriveled up, you know, but even if you just left it near your shower, you know, it didn't necessarily get wet every day, but it got a little moisture in the air.
00:15:50
Speaker
You notice
Final Reflections and Contact Information
00:15:51
Speaker
how it stays a little puffed up, right? It kind of keeps it or hangs on to that in the air. Our skin's the same, same way. Interesting. So I did a little internet sleuthing on your website and I saw that um you you have skincare that's so clean you can actually eat it Yes.
00:16:13
Speaker
Have you eaten it? Have eaten it? Yes, I actually have. That's so funny. Yeah, that was my original tagline, even when I used to do the markets and stuff, which I don't do as much anymore. But years ago, you know, my son would come along with me and we actually had a product that was called the Queen Bee that was all bee related stuff. So it had the entire hive, basically beeswax, honey, propolis, what do you call? Um,
00:16:39
Speaker
pollen, you know, and, and of course, um, the actual oil that held everything together. Right. But this product was literally, I mean, it didn't taste great and taste bad. It just didn't taste great. You could literally spread it on toast. I mean, every single thing about it was edible. So we would have like little crackers and just for fun, put a tiny bit on so people could try it. Um, I had one person who actually really liked it. I'm, I'm kind of sure she bought a jar so that she could put it on her toast or whatever.
00:17:07
Speaker
but you know what that's fine whatever it makes you happy yeah people eat weirder stuff i I think that's true and worse stuff so at least that one is healthy yeah maybe maybe her skin you know really supercharged from the inside out she's like it's my new skincare routine I eat my skincare and then it just blows yeah i like to get my calories through my skincare products
00:17:36
Speaker
So you built this brand from the ground up with no outside funding. What's your biggest lesson learned without bending to the industry? Yeah. You know, I think if I could do it all over again, i would love to have had some private funding, you know, I think, and and eventually I guess I i did. I had a, I have a really good friend who loaned me couple different times, not a ton, maybe, you know, around a few thousand dollars so that I could make different products that I've been trying to make. I could invest in a couple things while I was still a student and wanting to build the business.
00:18:09
Speaker
So what I didn't do was, you know, for instance, take out a big credit card um loan or, um you know, use whatever, refinance my house or whatever so that I had some capital to start with. A lot of people do stuff like that to start businesses and kudos to them for having that to work with. I just didn't, you know, I didn't have, I've think at the time I had one or two credit cards, each with maybe $1,500 limits. You know, there just wasn't a whole lot of room for me to grow it like that, you know. And I think in a way it helped because it made me scale in a way that was more manageable. You know, if if someone had said, you know, here's 20 grand, you know, to start your business at the very beginning,
00:18:52
Speaker
I think I wouldn't have known how to spend it properly and I probably would have invested in things I didn't need and not realized till later, oh, what I really should have done was invested in a different way, you know? So I think it's great to have business funding if you have access to capital, you know, that's not at a high interest rate that you know is manageable, you can pay down, great, go for it.
00:19:13
Speaker
um I was always scared of that. I was scared of student loans, which now feels like maybe a good thing, you know? um It just made me nervous to feel like I was biting off more than I could chew. Because he starting a business is already hard. It's not for some... but It's not for...
00:19:29
Speaker
um The faint of heart is not for people who need a lot of external validation. And it's not for people who have a hard time with rejection.
00:19:40
Speaker
You know, and I really want to be upfront and honest. You know, like I think people think, oh, I'm great at making cupcakes. I should start a business. There is that side of it, for sure, being a creator, of having your passion, of doing something that you love on your own terms. And I love encouraging people to go for it, you know.
00:19:59
Speaker
But caveat, also remember that a business is not a way to make money the first couple years. You know, you kind of have to... pay for it more. It's almost like taking on another rent. and In fact, my business does have a rent, you know, not, not every business has its own rent, but it is a lot. And I think being a student through COVID really taught me how to, um,
00:20:23
Speaker
like but like, I already, sorry, for instance, going back a little bit, I already had my business, um the skincare part of it before I became a master esthetician, before COVID, before being a student and all of that. I already had that part of the brand.
00:20:36
Speaker
But going through my master aesthetics program, which happened to coincide with COVID, I was a student at the same time. um It really helped me to kind of reevaluate what was important about my company, what products I wanted to offer, how I wanted to like,
00:20:51
Speaker
structure, um not only the product line, but just the brand itself. What did i want it to portray? You know what I mean? What did I want it to say? How does my skincare stand apart from somebody else's? These are all things that...
00:21:05
Speaker
you know, our a lot to take on, even just to decide for yourself, what does my brand mean? What do I bring value-wise to the world? What am I trying to accomplish with this? I think these are all great questions to ask yourself before you decide to get a business. And from there, you know, if you can build something that feels like it has a voice, you know, it feels like bigger than just yourself and your interest, it really has a value to the broader world, I think it's great at that point to have a little bit of savings. You know, try not to do this with just, you know, $20 left at the end of the week or whatever, because it will bury you so quickly. You know, I think having...
00:21:45
Speaker
Say, for instance, a um a day job or whatever that pays the majority of your bills, gives you a little bit of leftover, save that little bit for a while, you know, a couple years or whatever. It depends on how much it is.
00:21:56
Speaker
And then use that that you've built yourself, this little nest egg, to reinvest. Because I think it teaches you, for one, to value this money. You know, it's not just like somebody gave you ah ah credit card with a really high limit or whatever, a credit line,
00:22:10
Speaker
and you can make the most of it or you could completely waste it and owe it all at the end. You know, i think just having this thing that you already worked for, you already got this money, you already earned it. Now we're going to learn how to invest it and make more.
00:22:25
Speaker
um It's just such a nice order to it. Personally, I feel like that's great. You know, i I, if I get, you know, to where I have money to invest in people's companies, I will, but I'd love to see people get past that first tier on their own.
00:22:37
Speaker
you know, like really see them get the brand developed, have a voice, have a platform, have your website and everything dialed in have some money kind of started so that you can make that initial investment. And then when you need to scale up, like for instance, I would love just, this is my next scale up, right? I would really love all my products to be in their own individual boxes.
00:22:59
Speaker
Seems basic, right? You buy a product at TJ Maxx and it has its own box. It's like $30,000 to even think about having one of my product in boxes.
00:23:11
Speaker
And then you need all of the place to keep all of your boxes. You know, you need a place to assemble them because they come all flat and you've got to assemble them yourselves yourself. So just... just Something as simple as that. I need that branding to make my product stand out, to send it to the next level. And even just with shipping, the practicality of it being in its own box, it's not going to get, you know, messed up or broken as easily because all my product is in glass. That's a big...
00:23:37
Speaker
Part of my ethics as well is I really try to avoid single-use plastic whenever I can. There's sometimes you can't, you know, a little lipstick or lip balm, you know, containers, those I always had to do plastic. But whenever I can, I try to use glass.
00:23:50
Speaker
But when you're shipping or going to markets or whatever, it's heavy. It can get broken. It can cause a mess, you know, so just something like having a box is a huge deal, but I can't afford it still right now. You know, I would love to. If any investors out there want to help me get boxes,
00:24:10
Speaker
call me. but um Yeah, right now I'm just working on um kind of figuring out how to do it. I have a great space, a brick and mortar space in the stadium district right on 3rd and Yakima where I do all my treatments and It's such a beautiful, beautiful space. I am so blessed to have it. I've been there for about four or five years now. And it the treatment room connects through with a little cute little Jack and Jill bathroom. And it's very like Victorian. It was built in 1890s. Really, really beautiful, like old Victorian kind of mansion, like a mini mansion.
00:24:40
Speaker
um And then that Jack and Jill bathroom connects through to my lab where i have all my products. I do all my shipments and everything. But if I were to have a bunch of boxes in there, I wouldn't fit in there anymore. You know, I need to rent a second space or just completely move, which I'm not ready to do yet. So, you know, sometimes these like scale up things are more complicated than just let me get this in boxes. Yeah.
00:25:02
Speaker
right right right right or even if you have enough money for the boxes now you need money for the real estate and to to store the boxes and still maintain your operations and now you add another task onto it of packaging the box unfolding them they probably come flat so you you guys have someone put them together you got to package them that might not be you.
00:25:28
Speaker
Now you might need to hire somebody. So all of those systems and processes, I think it's good advice to, you know, just bring the story to light for people to really understand if they're looking to do a product and what comes with the brand, just what they're looking at and to sort of plan, try to plan the best you can. I think we all know with business and entrepreneurship,
00:25:50
Speaker
It ebbs and flows and things change and you have to pivot, but at least just to be aware that if I don't want to go into debt or take out loans to start, I have to have a plan to scale up to reach the brand goals that I that i want and the sales that I want.
00:26:08
Speaker
Absolutely. And i recommend, you know, reaching out to as many resources as you have before you take on that debt, if you can, you know, if you have parents or whatever, who are willing to invest in your dream for a little bit, you know, start off small, you know, i wouldn't ask for a ton, just something that you can get started with that you know you can manage paying back, that you won't feel bad if the business doesn't work. And you're like, hey, I owe you five grand, no big.
00:26:31
Speaker
You know, oh it's much better than 50 grand and feeling like your whole world is falling apart and you're a failure. You know, it's okay to try something. And maybe like you said, you pivot. It might be, you know, you start in one business and you realize,
00:26:43
Speaker
I love running a business. I just need to do this other one that's like slightly better for my personality, or i need to do an online business instead of a in-person one. And, um, and that's fine. I think having a, um, a company or a business really informs you about yourself. And it really makes you kind of like grow up about and be realistic about what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. And, And being able to do as much as you can on your own, being self-taught, you know, kind of being a self-starter is essential, you know, because not everybody knows how to do everything or can afford to take classes or has the time.
00:27:19
Speaker
But everybody can go on YouTube and figure something basic out really quick. And then when you find you need more... instruction, you know, from there, you can figure out if you're going to take a class or whatever, but at least it gives you somewhere to begin, you know, and somewhere to know, um yeah, where where to take your um expertise from there.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. So you've also done some performing and you hold the title of Miss America Strong. Tell us about that and what that visibility means to you.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yes, Miss Washington for American. Miss Washington, sorry. Apologize. No, they're picky about it, so we'll let them be picky. So, ah yeah, you know, it's so funny. um My personality is so far from a pageant girl that I never considered I would ever, ever do pageants. I didn't grow up doing them. I don't know anybody. Well, now I do, but at the time, I didn't know anyone who competed in them.
00:28:16
Speaker
I really just... um i I had been a performer, write a ballroom and Latin dancer for about 20 years. And there's a part of me that kind of missed that, um the performance art, you know, element of it and missed kind of having a stage and having um costumes. I know it sounds silly, but it's like the adult version of dress up, you know, and it is really fun. If you've done that majority of your life, it kind of feels like something's missing when that's that whole sparkle world is gone, you know, and I I don't think I want to compete in ballroom and Latin dance probably again. I mean, there's part of me that always kind of entertains, but I feel like that chapter is like had its whole life, you know, and um I've really moved forward to other things and pageantry.
00:28:59
Speaker
came up because I know as a business owner, um it can be really isolating and really um like you're kind of on your own little island, you know, even though I have clients and stuff. um You know, when I started my business, I didn't have a partner. i My family's all in California. I'm up here kind of by myself. I have my son in Seattle.
00:29:17
Speaker
um I don't go to church. i don't really have a boss or anything. I never have. I've been an entrepreneur pretty much my entire adult life. So I felt very insular and very kind of like disconnected. And really what I need as a business owner who works with clients in a personal, you know, business, I need to be connected. I need to be plugged in in like a million different ways.
00:29:39
Speaker
And um I just wasn't exactly sure how to like go about being involved. Like for instance, I love volunteering and there's a lot of organizations that you could volunteer for.
00:29:50
Speaker
where do you start? You know, how do you find even just who to talk to about it? You go on their website and it's just like a basic info thing, you know, like having a community that is involved in their, um, you know, space and their town and their city, which pageant girls completely are, you know, like that's a big part of it. I would say that's probably half of what we're doing is, is creating a platform where you actually have a lot to talk about as far as how you build your community, how you're invested in it, what is it that you give back. So it's not just about my business and come visit my business, but here's what I'm actually doing to invest in my community.
00:30:28
Speaker
And when I changed my mindset around that, all of a sudden I became plugged in and everywhere that I'd wanted to and just didn't know how, you know, because when you're... when you're willing to and able to offer your time and you have some sort of visibility, like, um, cause even before you win your title, you have to have a title to run. Right. So I ran as Miss, Miss Cascadia.
00:30:49
Speaker
So, um, a lot of people are more specific. Mine was kind of very vague and broad cause I'm not a pageant girl and I didn't get it. And it's still, it's beautiful. Miss Cascadia is really great, but most people are like Miss Tacoma or Miss Lake Stevens or Miss,
00:31:02
Speaker
Pierce County, you know, they're very specific. So if you represent um Pierce County or whatever, Thurston County, you know, and the um mayor of Thurston County is having some event or whatever, it's really great and really easy for you to get right plugged in as Miss Thurston County. You know, even with nothing else behind you, just them knowing that you're there representing as their face.
00:31:24
Speaker
People want you there. And then once you actually have a platform and you are invested in other parts of your community, you volunteer in a lot of different areas, people are used to seeing you around, there's a lot of trust built that is, yeah, it's just hard hard to get as a business owner when it always looks like you're just trying to get clients or you're just trying to make money. or you And those are all noble goals. You know, as a business owner, that's kind of goal number one, you know, without that, you have no business.
00:31:50
Speaker
But when people see that you are not just money focused, that you actually care about human beings, that you're a giver, that you're invested, they want to invest back with you. So it was very reciprocal um experience for me to realize that like all the ways that I felt like I was kind of lacking in my community just running, not even winning, just running in a pageant helped connect me in those ways. So I recommend it for people, even if you're not trying to win missed title of any kind. You don't need recognition. You don't need people to see how beautiful you are and clap for you. Because for me, I'd already had so much of that, wearing beautiful dresses, you know, being on stage.
00:32:28
Speaker
It's like I've had that whole experience over and over and over and a part of me missed that, but a part of me also knew um that I didn't necessarily need it to feel good about myself, you know, that having that validation is really great, but It's not everything. It's beautiful just to be connected. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at was that winning.
00:32:52
Speaker
We might have talked about this through the um our emails or whatever, but I i really, really, i don't know how to express this enough. I did not expect to win. I always feel like I'm kind of like outside the group, just happy to be invited, you know? um I didn't have my son there because I didn't want to bore him. It's a long time of watching...
00:33:11
Speaker
people cross the stage that aren't your mom, you know? um i had a couple friends there, but I really didn't invite a lot of people because I was doing this more for like a personal thing and it wasn't necessarily like to get this type of validation and recognition as a winner.
00:33:25
Speaker
So when i won, i was like, are you guys serious? Like, like I don't, I don't know that not only didn't expect to win, I already knew who was going to win. And i had a whole story about her. She actually won this year. I was able to give my title to her. It was really kind of sweet, um full circle moment, but um The girl who I knew was going to win, her sister or twin, had won the year before.
00:33:45
Speaker
i In my head, i thought she had been running for a long time, whereas I kind of squeezed in at the end. And it just felt like her moment. So when I won, I actually felt kind of bad, like kind of really bad. Like I went to the restaurant after to celebrate and she was there like crying and just wanted to give her the crown. i didn't even...
00:34:03
Speaker
I expected or need it, you know, and it felt like it was hers. And um a big part of me winning personally was learning how to like take your wins with grace too, you know. Sometimes it can be hard to take a loss to feel like you earned it or you deserved it, but sometimes it can be hard to take a win too when like you didn't come there to win.
00:34:21
Speaker
you know? um I've always competed, but to be honest, I'm not like a hugely competitive person. Even when I competed in dance, I would have partners, you know, and I'd be like, honestly, I really just want to be the people, the couple that people love to watch.
00:34:34
Speaker
I want to be the one that you can't take your eyes off of. You know, I really don't care that much about winning a title. And it would honestly turn a lot of partners, potential partners off because they want to win, you know? And i understand that, but my goals have always just been a little bit different. You know, I love Honestly, I don't care what some old man with a clipboard thinks about my dancing. Like, I know my dancing is beautiful and I want to be the one that people talk about when they leave. You know, do you remember that girl with the whatever dress? You know, she stood out and she should have won. That's the one that I want to be, you know, and to actually have like a real legitimate win.
00:35:07
Speaker
i definitely struggled with a little bit of. um um What is that? i Like, imposter syndrome? Like, it felt to me like if I could win on my first night, either the win doesn't mean anything or I didn't deserve it.
00:35:20
Speaker
You know, because there's no way in a dance competition you'd come in and win on your first day. You know, you just started dancing, you come in and win for these people from these people who've been dancing their whole lives. It just wouldn't happen. um But pageantry is different, you know, and there were a lot of transferable skills to just being a ballroom and Latin dancer, knowing how to walk, knowing how to carry yourself, having great posture, knowing how to command a room to look at you without words. You know, these are all skills that really helped. And the beauty pageant stage that um I definitely snagged from my ballroom and Latin dancing days. um Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's my story. It does. And I think you hit on a point that I've seen and I've talked about quite a bit is, you know, to gracefully take your wins, like you mentioned, and take your awards and put them on your wall, put them on your, you know, display them on your, I have mine kind of back there, you know. I love it.
00:36:23
Speaker
have them somewhere. Because i think oftentimes, we do get that thought in our head of we didn't deserve it, or yeah, but x, y, z, I didn't do this good enough, or this wasn't good enough, or I messed up on this.
00:36:38
Speaker
um Or I should have got it five years ago. And now it's like, do they really care? Or is it just sort of a pity trophy now, you know, like you have this kind of thought process.
00:36:49
Speaker
And i think a lot of women struggle with that. And so I I have my stuff, anything mounted on my walls. and I love that. i I feel... Sometimes I feel weird about it. like Sometimes I'm like, is this...
00:37:06
Speaker
is this vain of me? Is this like, and you know, am I being like full of myself? But at the end of the day, it really is there for me to remember when I'm having those intrusive thoughts of I'm not good enough, or I don't know if I can do this or X, Y, z I can look at these things and be like, okay, like you have been recognized and you need to be able to accept that energy and that vibration into your life and to be able to level up essentially.
00:37:43
Speaker
i remember my dad. he you know In his job, he had so many awards that his entire office, every wall was covered with awards.
00:37:56
Speaker
And I remember as a little girl, yeah, I would walk in there. um He was number one salesman in the nation for many years in his in his job. And I remember walking in there and just seeing...
00:38:08
Speaker
all the awards and reading them and just being like, this is like insane. This is Yeah. You're like, dad's kind of the boss. Yeah. I was like, ok But you know, just seeing that makes me want, like, I'm also like, okay, I'm going to do that. Like if, if my dad's going to do it and if other men are going to do that, have their stuff up in their office, I'm I bring my trophies into work that I get outside of work. I'm like, I'm putting this in my, you know, in my desk, in my cubicle when I worked, um when I had one. Now I work from home. So I have them here. But you know, I i brought them into work. And I was like, I wanted people to come when they come and people that work for me.
00:38:47
Speaker
um when they come into my area and we have a chat i want them to see kind of what i'm about and what ah what i do not just in that you know office space and in that industry but outside in you know the community and the other things that i work on um because i think that's important especially for women and where i came from in a male-dominated industry um so i love that you brought that up and shared that with us thank you yeah i love that What's your biggest piece of advice for Grit City women?
00:39:20
Speaker
Oh, that's so great. um I would say biggest piece of advice is to... i love I love what you just said. To be honest, I think owning your wins and really sitting in recognition of them is something that most of us don't do enough. You know, honestly, we all get on to ourselves about this we could have done or that we could have said. and And maybe that's true. You know, we always have room for improvement. It's great to have self-awareness.
00:39:49
Speaker
But I think just owning and embodying your wins is one of the best ways to build confidence. And confidence is like ah social lubricant like no other.
00:40:01
Speaker
You know, when you have confidence and you believe in what you say and you know who you are and you can't be dissuaded, you know, from the person you are at your core, right? it's People trust you. It wins you friends and allies and um clients and business, right? People want to associate with someone who is confident.
00:40:23
Speaker
And it's really hard to be confident if you don't own your wins, you know? Like, I didn't feel like a queen for... It took me probably several months of being an actual beauty queen before I could really, like, own up. This is a title I get to have forever, you know? It's a small title that's not, like...
00:40:41
Speaker
Miss whatever queen of England, obviously, you know. um But it's beautiful to represent your state and to be recognized as a beauty queen no matter where I go, no matter what I do, that title will stay with me, you know. And there'll be other beauty queens who follow and have my title after.
00:40:59
Speaker
but no one can take that Miss Washington 2024. That will always be mine. You know, that's always my little, um, slice of the rainbow, you know? And, um, I think it's beautiful to,
00:41:12
Speaker
to recognize the parts of our lives that are wins and to just bask in it for a little bit and to recognize that sure, I have ways I could be better, I always have improvements to make, but I'm really an amazing person I've accomplished so much and I really want to honor myself the way I would honor someone else.
00:41:31
Speaker
if they had these same things that they've accomplished, you know, and some of these wins are not even big wins that you got a trophy for, you know, might be you finally learned how to forgive somebody, you know, that you couldn't forgive for a really long time, or, um you know, you finally had that thing that used to always set you off that doesn't even phase you anymore, you know, these are wins that no one gives you an award for, but you know what a big deal it is for you in your life, and I think it's really good to celebrate those as well.
00:42:02
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for such great advice and sharing your story with us. And um how can, yeah, how can people find you? Great question. So you can go on to my Instagram. um It's Sarita Enigma is my personal one. And then I also have my business one that's Herbology Skin.
00:42:21
Speaker
um You can also go on to my website, herbologyskin.com. If you want to book an appointment, there's a little link that is like book now or whatever. And it takes you directly to my platform. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:42:34
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and opening a platform for people like me. It's really important work. Born from the spirit of Grit City Women, Gritty is the New Pretty carries the torch, amplifying the voices, stories, and power of women who lead with resilience, purpose, and unapologetic grit.
00:42:54
Speaker
To support Gritty is the New Pretty, follow us on Instagram at Grit City Women or shop our online store at gritcitywomen.com.