Blissoma Organic Skincare, the St. Louis-based holistic skin care line, has a new brick and mortar store in town. I visited it’s LaSalle street storefront last week, near the Benton Park neighborhood. The store is bright, fresh and homey and serves as their manufacturing space as well as the retail location for their (ready for this?) plant-based, vegan, organic, cruelty-free products. Did you think for a second you were reading Goop?!?

Blissoma, the brand, is not new. It was started by Julie Longyear, a chemist by trade, roughly 10 years ago. She has since grown it to the business it is today, with a large web presence as well as shelf space in many stores around the US and 7 countries worldwide. I went specifically to buy their all natural, clay-based deodorant. I’m not a totally organic skincare gal, but the aluminum in store brand deodorant makes me squeamish. I’ve been using the deodorant all week and so far, so good. In addition to their own line of skincare, Blissoma carries other, all-natural makeup and skincare labels, like AILA and Lauren Brooke to name a few.

When I was there, I took some samples of their face wash and lotion and LOVE those too. The shtick behind the brand being holistic is that it caters to the health and well being of the whole person. So not only do the products use all natural ingredients, but when helping a client decide what to buy, Longyear tries to determine what might be at the root of a skin issue (is it diet, lack of sleep, stress?) in hopes of correcting the problem. The products I tried definitely fit that bill. They smelled wonderful. I almost felt like I was getting an aromatherapy treatment and face wash all rolled into one. The smell relaxed me before bed and I honestly think I slept better. And everyone knows better sleep begets better skin. So next time you see me, you’ll probably mistake me for Gweneth Paltrow.