These things connected me with the next person I interviewed – Julia March. Just like her, my great grandmother passed on me the knowledge about healing plants that I am tapping into whenever my daughter or me are feeling sick.

Native Slovak, Julia has been living in New York City over past 20 years. “I came to the States against my father’s wishes – he wanted me to become a teacher. I followed my heart instead, my grandmother’s healing wisdom always in the back of my mind.” In fact, Julia has become an outstanding skin care therapist and healer, with her own beauty salon situated on 5th Avenue. Her business is the result of hard work, goal-oriented personality and extra positive attitude.

But on the beginning, Julia had to listen to her internal call. It all began when she was a young child, back in Slovakia. Her grandmother was actually her first teacher who taught her how to make her own creams out of flower petals, herbs and oils. Julia learned early that nature provides everything we need. As a teenager she already had her own beauty rituals: weekly herbal steams and fruit yogurt masks. Her perseverance paid off later, when she started her new life in NYC. First, she worked as aesthetician at one of the most prestigious salons in NYC where she treated celebrities, models and editors. “One of my first clients was a British Vogue editor who asked me how long I’d been an esthetician. When I told her I just started, she was stunned – she said that my hands felt like those of her veteran facialist…” – Julia felt that she was on the right path. In 2001 she opened her own salon.

From her clients feedbacks she realized that she’s gifted also as energy worker so she decided to supplement her skills by various trainings such as Reiki, Pranic and Vortex Healing, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Personally, I had a chance to try her craniosacral treatment at a difficult moment of my life, and it was very beneficial to me. It allowed me to cope with stress much better.

Julia is now transmitting her passion to her daughter, like her grandma did before. You can spot them both enjoying mother-daughter time wearing face masks on Julia’s Instagram. Besides that, Julia pays attention to pass down her Slovak heritage, like language, traditions and food, to her three kids. When I asked her about top three favorite Slovak places in NYC, she cited restaurants Brooklyn Beet Company and Koliba, and Czech and Slovak Cultural Center in Astoria. It is in one of these places that we had a delicious brunch on one Sunday afternoon, bursting with Slovak-Brooklyn vibes!

 

During last summer, my daughter has been initiated to the healing power of the nature by her grandmother too! I left her for a week with my mom in our family’s mountain house in Slovakia where I used to spend summers with my great grand-mother as a child. Few days later I was celebrating my birthday, and I was happily shocked when my daughter offered me this wonderful gift: a bunch of hand painted bags with medicinal plants she and my mom picked and dried for me during that week!

And if you would like to spend a relaxing mother-daughter moment too, here is Julia’s recipe for the face mask you can try: Teen Honey-Banana probiotic mask

Ingredients:

• 1/2 tsp raw honey
• 1 tbsp banana, cut into pieces
• 1/4 tsp sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 1 capsule pearl powder supplement
• 1 capsule probiotic supplement
• 2 drops of German Chamomile essential oil

In a blender, blend cut pieces of the banana. Move it to a smaller bowl, add honey mixed with corn starch and oil. Stir the powders from the capsules of pearl and/or probiotics. And finally add two drops of blue chamomile oil. Mom’s can use Roman chamomile, rose, lavender or frankincense essential oils.

Apply on the face using a brush and leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes. Wash the mask off with warm water and apply a gentle cream or a few drops of jojoba oil, which is suitable for reactive or oily skin of teenagers as well as for mom’s drier skin.

Before the first use, try a mask on the wrist. Little bit of redness is normal, as probiotics are active and the honey detoxifies and cleans the skin with its enzymes.

Share a picture of you when you will try Julia’s mask, and hashtag us (#kitndo and #juliamarchskincare) for a chance to win a skin product!

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By Martina Hornakova, Founder of KITnDO