I spent years building beauty brands and winning press for clients in Vogue, Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar through my company, Nia PR. I trained as a beautician, then studied aromatherapy and beauty product creating at Regents College. Beauty has been the whole of my working life.

LLIO is the brand I made myself. Three bath and body oils, each blended with essential oils and setwith a crystal. It took three years, and it is named after my mother, Llio.

HOW THE OILS WERE CREATED

After Regents College I went back to aromatherapy privately, with a tutor from the college. Then cameyears of blending and experimenting with formulas. I travelled the world to beauty shows and spentweekends with aromatherapists, alchemists and balm makers, working on blends until they were right.

I have always been a little fascinated by the spiritual world, and I had always wanted to luxurisecrystals. Fusing them with essential oils seemed classy. I love Wales and always will, so the Welshsymbol went into the design. I love tie dye and the hippie markets of Ibiza, so the ribbon is tie dye.

WHY IT IS CALLED LLIO

My mother and I spoke on the telephone at least four times a day. She was my best friend, my cheerleader and my confidant.

Llio Gwenllian Thomas was a beauty therapist, and once crowned Miss Anglesey. There was a beauty room in our house and I grew up watching her pamper her clients. We blended essential oils together at the kitchen table for her to sell. She had a presence in a room and she was the life of every party. She was also my rock.

I had even trained as a beautician to be just like my mummy

THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY,2016

My mother had a sudden stroke in her beauty room. There had been no signs of illness. She played tennis for an hour every day. She was sixty.

Nobody tells you that grief can make you ill, or that it changes you as a person. My life changed in one split second. I turned to beauty to get through it, because playing with essential oils felt like spending time with her. I slowed the company right down and swapped an ultra busy life for long baths, long sleeps and every kind of self care I could find. Healers, reiki, crystal healing, despacho ceremonies. Anything that might help.

My mother always said: if you do not love yourself, then nothing good will ever come to you.

MANIFESTING

Somewhere in all of that I set myself a goal: move to America, and take LLIO with me. A couple of years later I did exactly that.

I now live under the candy skies of Palm Beach with my dogs, Ellis and Fifi.

A story of creating light in a time of darkness, and a beauty brand founded in memory of my beautiful mother. A mother’s love never dies.

BORN IN WALES · RAISED IN LONDON · HOME IN PALM BEACH

THE LLIO LAUNCH