About Us

Why a veterinarian makes body oil

I have a doctorate in veterinary medicine and a PhD in lipid science. That means I spent years studying fats — how they're structured, how they behave, how they move into skin and what happens when they don't. It is a genuinely unglamorous specialty. Nobody grows up wanting to study lipids.

But it turns out that a body oil is almost entirely a lipid problem, and almost nobody selling one treats it that way.

I kept reading labels. Oils priced like luxury goods that were mostly cheap filler with one botanical listed high enough on the ingredient deck to justify the number on the front. Products that felt slick instead of silken because no one had thought carefully about the base — only about what could be named on the label.

So I built the base first, and named the scents second.

What the base actually is

Fractionated coconut, calendula-infused sweet almond, jojoba, and meadowfoam. Every bottle I sell is built on it.

Jojoba is the reason this feels the way it does. It isn't technically an oil — it's a liquid wax ester, and its structure is remarkably close to the sebum your own skin produces. That similarity is why it absorbs instead of sitting on the surface. Meadowfoam is extraordinarily stable, which is why the oil doesn't turn. Fractionated coconut carries the whole thing without weight.

The formula is anhydrous — no water at all. That's why it needs no preservative, and I'd rather tell you the real reason than let you assume I found some clever natural alternative. The vitamin E in there is an antioxidant protecting the oils, not a preservative. Most brands blur that line. I won't.

What I won't tell you

I won't tell you this heals anything, or calms anything, or repairs your skin barrier. It's a body oil. It absorbs well, it smells beautiful, and it's built out of ingredients I can defend. That's the whole claim.

The differences between the three bottles are scent and one signature infusion each — not different miracles. Anyone telling you their 3% inclusion rate transformed their formula is selling you the label, not the oil.

Three rivers: A Harlem, New York native makes her way back to South Carolina, the origin of her ancestry. 

HARLEM is named for the river of my childhood. EDISTO for the water that taught me to slow down. SALUDA for the water that runs clear.

Everything is made by hand in Lexington, South Carolina, in batches of fifty. I infuse the botanicals, mix the base, fill the bottles, apply the labels, and pack the boxes. The first batch will be the first fifty bottles of this that have ever existed.

— Dr. Sherrelle Milligan, DVM, PhD