From Shattered to Renewal: The Heart of Tea-Licious

I was raised on a 3,000-acre farm in Africa, where crop fields seemed to stretch into the horizon.

War locked us in for twelve long years—landmines, ambushes, rockets hitting remote homesteads at night. As children, we thought that’s just how life was for everyone.

After fleeing during the second wave of conflict in our country, leaving behind family and everything familiar, my husband and l, with our four teenagers, rebuilt our lives in the Great Smoky Mountains foothills in Tennessee.

I started painting murals to support our family, until one routine hip surgery changed everything. Two screws hit my spinal cord, causing cauda equina syndrome—a serious neurological emergency damaging the nerve bundle at the spine’s base. Chronic pain, leg weakness, neurological deficits followed. Doctors said I might never walk again.

The years were grueling: relentless therapy, unrelenting pain, the slow loss of my identity as an artist. In that long stillness, two lifelong companions returned.

First, the land’s gentle gifts. Living close to nature all my life taught me trust in her offerings. I turned to natural skincare—pure nourishing oils, healing herbs, simple butters. Nothing harsh or synthetic.

Second, tea time with family became sacred. Afternoon rituals—cups in hand, reminded us that pausing is medicine. Tea became soul-medicine.

These two—the closeness to nature’s honest care, the warmth of shared tea—had carried me through childhood wonder, war, and loss. Now they healed me through the deepest hurt.

One quiet day, the truth bloomed: Why keep them separate? They had both brought me back. Why not blend them so others could feel that same gentle comfort?

I began infusing real tea leaves slow, week after patient week, in nourishing oils. Folded them into pure butters with flowers, spices, and roots from the lands that shaped me. Nature never gets it wrong. She never gives too much, or too little. Just enough.

That union became Tea-licious Skincare—handmade soap bars at first, using real tea. But then demand for more products grew, like lotion bars, and body creams. Soon my three daughters joined me in my dream to share my products with the world. Since then we have gone from strength to strength.

Tea-licious is a symbol of defiance against brokenness—and the fierce belief that anything is still possible.

Tea-licious isn’t just skincare. Yet it is absolutely unique skincare, the kind nature intended.