Dec 21, 2017

ON THE SCENE X PALERMO BODY

palermo-body-natural-beauty

JESSICA MORELLI
(Founder of Palermo Body)

Like most entrepreneurs, Jessica Morelli wears many hats running Palermo Body, but her favorite role would be that of a soap maker. Since 2008, Jess has been hand making soaps, scrubs, and all types of skincare using high-quality natural ingredients. In addition to products that drive results, she creates products with purpose.

How did you come to start Palermo Body? What were you doing before starting your own business?

I've always felt strongly about holistic living, natural remedies and cooking due to the influence and teachings of my Sicilian grandmother - after whom Palermo Body is named. This led me to try soap-making a little over eight years ago, and I completely fell in love with the process. I began making anything and everything I could think of as a natural alternative for skin care. Since then, Palermo Body has streamlined our offering to a cohesive and purpose driven line of facial and body products, including soaps, oils, scrubs and aromatherapy rollers. In 2015, I branded the line as it looks today, and since then our reach and our team has only grown.

Eight years ago, these kinds of products just weren't available on the market and I wanted to change that. I'm so happy with how widely the clean skincare and clean beauty markets have expanded in the past few years, and though my focus is still on providing customers with easy to use, effective products of the utmost quality, I feel very strongly about using Palermo Body as a platform for outreach to educate people on the benefits of using natural products.

Prior to Palermo I had a stationery business, I’m what you call a serial entrepreneur! I used to hand make customizable stationery.

When you're not busy creating skin care by hand, where could we find you?

When I’m not working (which does happen occasionally!!), I am super social and like to be around friends and family. I’m loyal to a fault. I always bite off more than I can chew. I am one of those people who has a million hobbies. I love working with my hands and creating things whether it’s through cooking, ceramics, floral arrangements, or knitting. Additionally, yoga and exercise play a big role in my life. I always feel best mentally when I am physically active regularly.

What's your winter skin care routine?

My nightly skin rituals are my favorite. I shower at night because if feels so nice to wash off the day. My body and facial cleanser of choice is whichever one of our soaps I’m in the mood for (I usually have at least three of them in the shower at any given time.) If I am washing my hair, I’ll use one of our body scrubs so I can leave it on my skin allowing the benefits of the scrub to absorb while I shampoo.

Post shower, I lightly dry off intentionally leaving behind a good amount of water before slathering our hydrating body oil on my still dewy skin. I choose our Hydrating Oil at night since it’s scented with a grounding blend of essential oils that helps me wind down. Our Body Oils are blended to absorb quickly especially when used in the way I’ve described above. If I’ve used a Body Scrub that night then no need for body oil since the scrubs are very moisturizing.

My nightly facial routine is simple and easy, but always necessary. A few spritzes of our hydrating facial toner followed by our regenerative facial serum. I also do this every morning, but generally use a more liberal amount of each at night.

As I slip into bed, I’ll apply our tranquility aromatherapy oil on my wrists, pulse points and temples to help calm and soothe my still busy mind. I have an overactive imagination that fires on all cylinders at night so I created this blend to really help me chill out.