Emma Allen, founder of Everyday Oil, was generous enough to work with us on the launch of our newest color. Together with photographer Sadie Culberson, we spent a summer afternoon near Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Read on to learn a little bit more about Emma Allen, fellow North Carolinian and founder of the best-smelling, plant-based skincare brand, Everyday Oil.

Everyday Oil was just certified organic. Congratulations! What are you hopeful about for the future of natural beauty?

Thank you! I’m so happy to see the way beauty standards have evolved away from the very narrow, absurd ones of the past.

We have so many people embracing natural beauty in all its forms — embracing some wrinkles and grey hair and choosing to present themselves to the world in a more real and raw form. I hope people moving away from limiting and unnatural forms of beauty find strength in one another and that we continue to open our eyes to the beauty of humanity.

How do you recenter and nurture your sense of creativity?

My primary ways to recenter are to travel to a beach or swim in cold water :) I’ve been thinking lately that I want to take some sort of class or something totally unrelated to work or anything I want to do “professionally” and just play more. Maybe I’ll do one at Penland, I’ve always wanted to!

Is there a certain scent that has a powerful emotional response? What is it and why?

I have a strong emotional response to scent in general. The smell of campfires, fresh-cut grass, my parent’s house, “Sunflowers” by Elizabeth Arden, and every perfume I wore in different stages of life. They all evoke so many feelings!

What has failure/adversity looked like in the past? How has it impacted you?

I’m a big proponent of failure. One of the things that has helped me the most in life is to take failure on the chin and keep going. I think success usually comes from many failures (or maybe that’s just me?).

I believe that failure is just part of the process. If you don’t have kind people in your life who tell you it's ok to keep trying and experimenting and falling and getting up, then be your own cheerleader. When things aren’t going well, speak kindly to yourself and give yourself some space to figure it out and improve based on what you learned.

Are you a morning or evening person? What does your gear-up/wind-down ritual look like?

I would love to say I’m a morning person, I do LOVE the early morning when I’m awake for it, but I'm up most days at 7:30 and I like to read until 8. In the evenings I love to take a bath, and I have some weird superpower where I fall asleep literally as soon as I put my head on the pillow.

What’s something you can’t live without (besides Everyday Oil)?

I would have a hard time living without beans and greens.

What’s a surefire way to cheer up a loved one?

Hmm, good question. Whenever people I love are sad I try to sit next to them and not talk too much...I don’t know if that’s right or wrong :)

What book, film, poem, or song is inspiring you at the moment?

I just went to Greece and I read Circe while I was there. It takes stories from Greek mythology and puts them in the form of a novel from the perspective of a goddess named Circe. I loved it. Being in Greece inspired a love for the deep, strong blue of the Aegean Sea and all of the stark white houses with blue trim.

How do you balance creativity with productivity? 

A lot of my creativity is channeled through work, so the two are intertwined. I’m grateful for that. 

No day is complete unless you… 

Hug my new puppy, Paco :)