Transcript
Episode 25. Sarita Valdes
00:01.00
Krystle Edwards
On today's episode of Gritty is the New Pretty, we have Sarita Valdez, a licensed master esthetician, the founder of Herbology Skin Care, and 2024 Miss Washington for America Strong.
00:13.58
Krystle Edwards
She blends ancestral healing, plant science, and radical self-trust to help women feel radiant, resilient, and rooted in their power on and off the stage. Welcome, Sarita. Welcome, Sarita.
00:24.21
Sarita Valdes
Hi, thank you. it's such an honor to be here today. I so appreciate you.
00:28.94
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, of course. I'm excited to hear about your story. So why don't you kick us off with telling us about you?
00:34.83
Sarita Valdes
Sure, so my name is Sarita Valdez. Like you said, I'm a master esthetician. I have my own company, Herbology Skin Care, which is a beauty brand. So that means I have actual physical products. I have about 12 different skincare products that I personally have created the recipe, the formulas for, and then I also actually make the product physically as well. So I'm like half mad scientist and the other half is um doing all the treatments. So being in person, working with my clients one-on-one,
01:04.23
Sarita Valdes
and being able to connect with them and actually talk with them about their lives, their stories, what's going on with their skin. And it's amazing to me how often what's happening in our personal life shows up on our skin. You know, you think, oh, I'm just going to get a facial treatment. You know, it's it's going to be great. You know, kind of like getting a massage or whatever. And then you realize that that physical healing, that personal touch is so much more than skin deep. And even just being able to talk with my clients about um their habits, their routines, their rituals around caring for themselves, this is so revolutionary for so many of my clients because especially as women, we tend to put others first. You kind of have to teach women, put on your own mask, you know, make sure that you're taken care of before you just give to everybody else and there's nothing left of you. You know, there's no...
01:55.87
Sarita Valdes
um air left in your tank, literally, you know, for you to be able to continue caring for people if you don't care for yourself first. So a lot of what I do in my work is not just giving people skincare treatments and selling them skincare products, but it's really helping to shape the way they view themselves so that their husbands, partners, children, everybody in their lives, bosses, people who feel they have a right to your time, understand that you put you first and Yes, so that they can also prioritize and value you in that way. You know you have value, so they in turn treat you better. You know, it seems like such a simple concept, but it's something that doesn't always translate. You know, men take care of themselves. You don't have to worry. They're hungry. They're going go to the grocery store and find themselves a corn dog or whatever. They're not going to worry about the whole family, you know? This is something that women do. We worry about the whole family and then realize at the end of the day, i haven't eaten. i haven't showered.
02:57.22
Sarita Valdes
I haven't done anything for myself today. And that's why I feel crazy. yeah You know, sorry to use the bad word. I'm sorry. c word is never good for women. But, you know, you know what I mean, where we just feel out of sorts and imbalanced and not sure You know, where we kind of went wrong, it just seems like a normal day. But when we don't start the day and end the day with that prioritization of our own spirit and our own heart, you know, our own physical body, we end up feeling super depleted and feeling like we have nothing we're getting from an empty.
03:30.37
Sarita Valdes
place, you know, but when you fill your own cup and really feel cared for before anybody else even wakes up, you know, you already feel like you're in your space and your zone and centered, it becomes a lot harder to knock you off that, you know?
03:45.99
Sarita Valdes
Yeah.
03:46.14
Krystle Edwards
Yeah.
03:46.42
Sarita Valdes
So that gave me a lot. Sorry.
03:48.19
Krystle Edwards
No, I love the corn dog analogy of going to the grocery store.
03:50.29
Sarita Valdes
Yeah. They will. It's not like, well, what's the whole family eating?
03:54.98
Krystle Edwards
yeah
03:56.08
Sarita Valdes
Maybe I should save my appetite. Corn dog and it before we even even leave the store. That's so funny.
04:01.92
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, yeah.
04:04.03
Sarita Valdes
Yeah.
04:04.19
Krystle Edwards
I mean, honestly, that reminded me of my husband so much. I was just laughing, but but he likes hot dogs a lot.
04:08.57
Sarita Valdes
is ah
04:10.43
Krystle Edwards
Um,
04:11.19
Sarita Valdes
but so funny
04:13.80
Krystle Edwards
So you had your own healing journey with skincare that sort of led you to the discovery of this brand where you did kind of the mad scientist thing, like you mentioned, tell us about that and how you got kind of to where you are now with the brand.
04:27.62
Sarita Valdes
Yeah, that's a great question. So I have always had fairly sensitive skin, dry skin, kind of just very temperamental, you know, and and um it was hard for me to find products that really seemed to do anything. You know, I'd put on a moisturizer, five minutes later, it'd feel just as dry as before. put on another one, another one, different. i would try like layers of things. It just seemed like nothing...
04:49.57
Sarita Valdes
felt nourishing. Nothing actually felt made my skin feel cared for and hydrated and always felt or looked, especially my face, like kind of dull, sort of dehydrated, uneven, you know, I'm mixed, I'm Latina and white, you know, and it's like our skin can't find which color it wants to be, you know, especially if you go in the skin, parts get darker, other parts get lighter.
05:06.97
Krystle Edwards
Thank you.
05:11.26
Sarita Valdes
It's like ah mess, you know? And so my journey was partially just finding the things that worked for my skin. Um, ah you know, I have my own issues, but in that journey, I realized just the like broad array of stuff that can happen when your skin is as simple as just being dry, you know, like feels like, oh, it's dry skin, put some moisture on it, I'll be fine.
05:34.51
Sarita Valdes
But when our skin is dry, it's personal, its own natural response is to produce more oil, right? It doesn't have any other recourse.
05:40.84
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
05:42.19
Sarita Valdes
That's the only protection our skin has is to just at least get some oil on it, you know? So when we don't take care of our skin and and dryness is maybe what we're starting with. Now we end up with this oily, congested skin because our skin's overproduced oil. It's sitting in the pores.
05:57.32
Sarita Valdes
That dryness is sort of like um causing the oil to oxidize, you know? So then we end up getting like these kind of blackheads and stuff when really our skin is not acneic, you know? It doesn't, it's not acne prone. It doesn't have a congestion issue.
06:13.02
Sarita Valdes
What it has is it dehydrated issue and it's leading to all these other different things, you know? So for me, it was, um, just finding a few key things. Like one of my main products that i sell, one of the ones that I create is a, is just simple rose water. And it's not rose water made from, uh, on the stove with rose petals and water and all that. I used to do it that way.
06:33.02
Sarita Valdes
But the way that I do it now is it's essentially what's called a hydrosol. So people who know about, um, what do you call um distilling, you know, like distilling an essential oil.
06:41.93
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
06:42.58
Sarita Valdes
So you'd put, pounds and pounds of whatever product that you're using. Could be rose petals, pine needles, whatever. And if it's a steam still, you have all the water that goes through with it. And at the end, all that steam is condensed and it's become what's called a hydrosol. So it could be of any plant. And for a rose, it's one of the cleanest, clearest, purest products you could ever use. And roses match the pH of the skin.
07:06.54
Sarita Valdes
So it's kind of like that's always our goal with our skin is to get it to like that place where it matches a rose petal, right? Because roses match our skin already. So there's such a good ally for people who are, who tend to have dry skin, red skin, acne prone. It's like the list is endless.
07:22.87
Sarita Valdes
i always go back to roses. You still, roses are still your answer, you know? And i use that product almost like, um well, it's definitely a toner, but almost like the end of the cleanse, right? So after you've washed your skin, spritz with the rose water,
07:36.00
Sarita Valdes
I would add hyaluronic acid, which is something our body makes already. We just don't make a ton of it. It's like a salty little gel. One of the reasons we need salt in our diet is because we kind of need our skin to hang on to the moisture. Without salt, it just sort of goes right through. you can drink water, feel like you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead and go, you're just as dehydrated as you were before. But if you add a little electrolytes to our diet, right, then our body tends to hang on to the water. Same thing with our skin.
08:00.95
Sarita Valdes
So adding it topically like that with the rose water is essentially giving your skin water with electrolytes. And it's one of the first, easiest, simplest, first things you can do so that no matter what you add from there, your skin's already got this really nice jelly, almost like that texture of like a sea creature, you know? That's kind of what you want on your skin. And then add your moisturizer. Because I have dry skin, I would follow with a facial oil.
08:26.52
Sarita Valdes
It's specifically, there's a lot of them, but the one I love is a Korean facial oil. and it's specifically meant for the face. So, and this is a really big distinction because oils can be hard on the skin. They can congest the skin, they attract dust and dirt and pollutants and stuff, and it can be a hard thing just to slap on some oil. I used to do this a lot. This is actually kind of how I started, was making beeswax, salves, and creams and stuff that all had this oily base, thinking, oh, I have dry skin, this is gonna help, right? It's gonna insulate it, it's gonna protect it.
08:58.35
Sarita Valdes
It's sort of a natural SPF, right? Oils and and um beeswax are. But all it was doing was um sealing in the dryness. So whenever we use something that's like an unocclusive, right? Occlusive, O-C-C-L-U-S-I-V, occlusive, meaning that it occludes or keeps out anything.
09:19.20
Sarita Valdes
So if you already have dry skin, it's almost like putting plastic wrap over your dry skin. You know, it can be really hard for the skin to breathe and to
09:28.88
Krystle Edwards
Thank you.
09:29.05
Sarita Valdes
do the little um processes that our skin needs to do, especially while we're sleeping. It's so good to go to bed with clean skin. That's another big one I always um work with my clients on. If nothing else, least go to bed with clean skin because at night our skin is sort of like brings out all the janitors and the custodians, right? And it pushes everything out.
09:47.28
Sarita Valdes
so the cleaner we can go to bed already and you know drink a little water and stuff it sort of gives our skin something to work with you know it's not trying to mop with like makeup ah stuck in the pores you know so um yeah that's a big one is just kind of having sort of like a skincare sandwich that works for your skin and there's a couple things that I recommend for almost everyone, like the rose water and the Hyaluronic. That's kind of universal. But where you go from there, the moisturizer, whether you add a facial oil or not, that's kind of
10:19.34
Sarita Valdes
you know, dependent on your skin. But, um, sorry, coming back to the facial oils, they've essentially been, like the oils themselves have been whipped or fractionated so that they, the molecules are smaller because oil molecules are bigger than skin pores.
10:33.70
Sarita Valdes
And that's why they clog the skin. Not only do they attract stuff, but the skin essentially can't eat it, right? It can't assimilate it. So it sits on top, just blocking everything. But a facial oil is It's been whipped enough that the actual molecules in the oil are smaller than our pores so your skin can eat it but doesn't clog it.
10:52.88
Sarita Valdes
Yeah.
10:54.37
Krystle Edwards
I just learned so much.
10:56.47
Sarita Valdes
Thank you. You know, I feel like when I'm working with my clients, I have to kind of like ah stop myself.
10:57.55
Krystle Edwards
but
11:02.72
Sarita Valdes
but Like often I'll give people like 30 second bits here and there if they're interested because I really do want people to just have the chance to sit and chill and not have to be listening to me yapping in their ear the whole time you know I have some clients that do like to talk but for a lot of them this is one of their few times where no one is asking anything from them and that's really sacred but I'm such an educator so it's nice to have like a podcast like this where I can be like let me tell you why we're doing what we're doing there's a method to the madness yeah
11:28.88
Krystle Edwards
Yeah.
11:32.22
Krystle Edwards
Yeah. ah Yeah. I, you know, I will be a hundred percent honest that I don't do much with my skin and I am pretty illiterate.
11:41.72
Sarita Valdes
We got to get you in.
11:43.33
Krystle Edwards
but Yeah. I am pretty illiterate to all that stuff. So I learned a lot um about what you just said, the moisturizing and also
11:49.18
Sarita Valdes
Oh, good.
11:53.17
Krystle Edwards
I have some rose water spray. I don't know if it's, you know, any good, but I always thought it was because it just smelled nice. Like I didn't realize that it was about the pH in a rose petal or, you know, and is that, I mean, they're pretty soft.
12:09.51
Krystle Edwards
Like rose petals are soft. Does that, is that have something to do with kind of the same texture, like skin, like they're, they're smooth.
12:11.27
Sarita Valdes
yeah
12:15.81
Sarita Valdes
Yeah, because roses, right, they almost have this fleshy, soft feeling to them. Like when I feel roses, it's almost like you're like, if you ever put a rose petal, I know is getting weird, but if you put a rose petal up against your skin, it's like baby, like a baby cheek or whatever, you know, like it has this soft, ah moist, almost kind of like um delicateness to it that is kind of for the skin, what we're always striving for, you know, that it has moisture to it.
12:25.91
Krystle Edwards
Yeah.
12:29.26
Krystle Edwards
yeah
12:43.22
Sarita Valdes
It's dewy, it's fresh, it doesn't feel like It's got these um lines that tend to come from just being dry, you know. And um yeah, roses tend to hold their water. They require a lot of water. If you' ever grown a rose bush, I'm from California. Like I said, they're a little hard to grow in California. One of the things I loved about Oregon, Portland is that everybody grows roses everywhere.
13:05.06
Sarita Valdes
But they take a lot of water. Portland's a great place to grow them because that's like a forest, you know. They, well, maybe cut down all the trees a long time ago, but it still has that very foresty feel to it. There's a lot of moisture, a lot of hydration in the air, and that's partially why roses do so great there.
13:21.78
Sarita Valdes
um And I personally feel that way a lot about our humidity. You know, if that's another thing that if you have any control over that in your house, um we're really lucky and blessed up here in the Northwest that we have a lot of moisture in our air.
13:34.68
Sarita Valdes
But if you live in a new home, even up here, it can be really, really dry. So even though you're drinking water, it's like it's not getting to the skin, you know. So sometimes just having maybe a humidifier that you turn on occasionally when your skin's dry, it doesn't have to be on all the time, you know.
13:48.98
Krystle Edwards
and
13:50.21
Sarita Valdes
um But just allowing that moisture to kind of be a good thing. It's it's really good to take a shower every day, even if you don't It's not that you're dirty, it's not that you need to wash off something from you, it's because your skin itself loves that steam and it loves the moisture. It's just like a like a rose where it it wants to have kind of have a little bit of moisture coming from the air.
14:11.16
Sarita Valdes
as well as from its tissues, right? Roots for us drinking, you know, but also having it in the air, that's so so good for our skin. It kind of is like a sponge where if you leave a sponge, you know, in your cupboard or whatever for a few months, it's like dried and shriveled up, you know? But even if you just left it near your shower, you know, it didn't necessarily get wet every day, but it got a little moisture in the air, you notice how it stays a little puffed up right it kind of keeps it or hangs on to that in the air our skin's the same same way
14:42.72
Krystle Edwards
Interesting. So I did a little internet sleuthing on your website. And I saw that um you you have skincare that's so clean, you can actually eat it.
14:56.22
Sarita Valdes
Yes, that was my original.
14:57.43
Krystle Edwards
Have you eaten it?
14:59.11
Sarita Valdes
ah Have I eaten? Yes, I actually have. That's so funny. Yeah, that was my original tagline, even when I used to do the markets and stuff, which I don't do as much anymore. But years ago, you know, my son would come along with me and we actually had a product that was called the Queen Bee that was all bee related stuff. So it had the entire hive, basically beeswax, honey, propolis, honey.
15:20.61
Sarita Valdes
um, what do you call, um, pollen, you know, and, and of course, um, the actual oil that held everything together.
15:24.29
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
15:27.26
Sarita Valdes
Right. But this product was literally, i mean, it didn't taste great and taste bad. It just didn't taste great. You could literally spread it on toast. I mean, every single thing about it was edible. So we would have like little crackers and just for fun, put a tiny bit on so people could try it.
15:42.31
Sarita Valdes
Um, I had one person who actually really liked it. I'm, I'm kind of sure she bought a jar so that she could put it on her toast or whatever. But you know what? That's fine. Whatever makes you happy.
15:52.84
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, people eat weirder stuff, i would i think.
15:53.67
Sarita Valdes
but
15:56.81
Sarita Valdes
That's true. And worse stuff. So at least that one is healthy.
16:01.35
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, maybe maybe her skin, you know, really supercharged from the inside out.
16:04.84
Sarita Valdes
It's like glowing from within. She's like, it's my new skincare routine. I eat my skincare. And then it just glows. I'm crazy.
16:12.76
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, like to get my calories through my skincare products.
16:19.42
Krystle Edwards
So you built this brand from the ground up with no outside funding.
16:19.49
Sarita Valdes
to
16:24.73
Krystle Edwards
What's your biggest lesson learned without bending to the industry?
16:30.45
Sarita Valdes
Yeah, you know, I think if I could do it all over again, i would love to have had some private funding, you know, I think, and and eventually, I guess I i did, I had a, I have a really good friend who loaned me couple different times, not a ton, maybe, you know, around a few thousand dollars so that I could make different products that I've been trying to make. I could invest in a couple things while I was still a student and wanting to build the business.
16:52.72
Sarita Valdes
So what I didn't do was, you know, for instance, take out a big credit card um loan or, um you know, use whatever, refinance my house or whatever so that I had some capital to start with. A lot of people do stuff like that to start businesses and kudos to them for having that to work with. I just didn't, you know, I didn't have, I've think at the time I had one or two credit cards, each with maybe $1,500 limits. You know, there just wasn't a whole lot of room for me to grow it like that, you know. And I think in a way it helped because it made me scale in a way that was more manageable. You know, if if someone had said, you know, here's 20 grand, you know, to start your business at the very beginning,
17:35.27
Sarita Valdes
I think i wouldn't have known how to spend it properly and I probably would have invested in things I didn't need and not realized till later, oh, what I really should have done was invested so and in a different way, you know? So I think it's great to have business funding if you have access to capital, know,
17:52.16
Sarita Valdes
you know, that's not at a high interest rate that you know is manageable, you can pay down. Great. Go for it. Um, I was always scared of that. I was scared of student loans, which now feels like maybe a good thing, you know? Um, it just made me nervous to feel like I was biting off more than I could chew. Cause starting a business is already hard. It's not for some, but it's not for,
18:12.91
Sarita Valdes
um The faint of heart is not for people who need a lot of external validation and it's not for people who have a hard time with rejection.
18:23.63
Sarita Valdes
You know, and I really want to be upfront and honest. You know, like I think people think, oh, I'm great at making cupcakes. I should start a business. There is that side of it, for sure. Being a creator, of having your passion, of doing something that you love on your own terms. And I love encouraging people to go for it, you know.
18:42.85
Sarita Valdes
But caveat, also remember that a business is not a way to make money the first couple years. You know, you kind of have to pay for it more. It's almost like taking on another rent. and In fact, my business does have a rent, you know, not not every business has its own rent, but it is a lot. And I think being a student through COVID really taught me how to um like, the i already sorry, for instance, going back a little bit, I already had my business, um the skincare part of it before I became a master esthetician, before COVID, before being a student and all of that. I already had that part of the brand.
19:19.86
Sarita Valdes
But going through my master aesthetics program, which happened to coincide with COVID, I was a student at the same time. um It really helped me to kind of reevaluate what was important about my company, what products I wanted to offer, how I wanted to like structure um not only the product line, but just the brand itself. What did I want it to portray? You know what I mean? What did I want it to say? How does my skincare stand apart from somebody else's? These are all things that you know, our a lot to take on even just to decide for yourself, what does my brand mean? What do I bring value-wise to the world? What am I trying to accomplish with this? I think these are all great questions to ask yourself before you decide to get a business. And from there, you know, if you can build something that feels like it has a voice, you know, it feels like bigger than just yourself and your interest, it really has
20:13.89
Sarita Valdes
ah value to the broader world, I think it's great at that point to have a little bit of savings. You know, try not to do this with just, you know, $20 left at the end of the week or whatever, because it will bury you so quickly.
20:26.38
Sarita Valdes
You know, i think having...
20:27.47
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
20:28.71
Sarita Valdes
Say, for instance, a um a day job or whatever that pays the majority of your bills, gives you a little bit of leftover, save that little bit for a lot while, you know, a couple years or whatever. It it depends on how much it is.
20:39.57
Sarita Valdes
And then use that that you've built yourself, this little nest egg, to reinvest. Because I think it teaches you, for one, to value this money. You know, it's not just like somebody gave you ah ah credit card with a really high limit or whatever, a credit line, and you can make the most of it or you could completely waste it and owe it all at the end. you know i think just having this thing that you already worked for, you already got this money, you already earned it, now we're going to learn how to invest it and make more.
21:08.45
Sarita Valdes
um It's just such a nice order to it. Personally, I feel like that's great.
21:11.65
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
21:11.75
Sarita Valdes
you know i will i If I get you know to where I have money to invest in people's companies, I will, but I'd love to see people get past that first tier on their own. you know like Really see them...
21:21.01
Krystle Edwards
This is...
21:22.19
Sarita Valdes
get the brand developed, have a voice, have a platform, have your website and everything dialed in, have some money kind of started so that you can make that initial investment. And then when you need to scale up, like for instance, I would love just, this is my next scale up, right? I would really love all my products to be in their own individual boxes.
21:42.40
Sarita Valdes
Seems basic, right? You buy a product at TJ Maxx and it has its own box. It's like $30,000 to even think about having one of my product in boxes.
21:54.84
Sarita Valdes
And then you need all the place to keep all of your boxes. You know, you need a place to assemble them because they come all flat and you got to assemble them yourselves, yourself. So just something as simple as that.
22:06.27
Sarita Valdes
I need that branding to make my product stand out, to send it to the next level. And even just with shipping, the practicality of it being in its own box, it's not going to get, you know, messed up or broken as easily because all my product is in glass.
22:14.74
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
22:19.39
Sarita Valdes
That's a big Part of my ethics as well is I really try to avoid single-use plastic whenever I can. There's sometimes you can't, you know, a little lipstick or lip balm, you know, containers, those I always had to do plastic. But whenever I can, I try to use glass.
22:33.40
Sarita Valdes
But when you're shipping or going to markets or whatever, it's heavy. It can get broken. it can cause a mess, you know, so just something like having a box is a huge deal, but I can't afford it still right now. You know, I would love to. If any investors out there want to help me get boxes, a call me. But um yeah, right now I'm just working on um kind of figuring out how to do it. I have a great space, a brick and mortar space in the stadium district right on 3rd and Yakima where I do all my treatments and
23:06.38
Sarita Valdes
It's such a beautiful, beautiful space. I am so blessed to have it. I've been there for about four or five years now. and it the treatment room connects through with a little cute little Jack and Jill bathroom. And it's very like Victorian. It was built in 1890. It was really, really beautiful, like old Victorian kind of mansion, like a mini mansion.
23:23.90
Sarita Valdes
um And then that Jack and Jill bathroom connects through to my lab where i have all my products. I do all my shipments and everything. But if I were to have a bunch of boxes in there, I wouldn't fit in there anymore.
23:34.08
Krystle Edwards
e
23:34.37
Sarita Valdes
you know, i need to rent a second space or just completely move, which I'm not ready to do yet. So, you know, sometimes these like scale up things are more complicated than just let me get this in boxes.
23:45.68
Sarita Valdes
it Sounds like me, right?
23:45.79
Krystle Edwards
Right, right. Right. Or even if you have enough money for the boxes, now you need money for the real estate and to to store the boxes and still maintain your operations.
23:48.95
Sarita Valdes
Yeah.
23:55.88
Sarita Valdes
Exactly. Mm-hmm.
23:59.89
Krystle Edwards
And now you add another task onto it of packaging the box, unfolding them. They probably come flat. So you you got to have someone put them together.
24:07.19
Sarita Valdes
Yep.
24:08.77
Krystle Edwards
You got to package them. That might not be you.
24:10.55
Sarita Valdes
And now you need.
24:12.03
Krystle Edwards
Now you might need to hire somebody. So all of those systems and processes, I think it's good advice to, you know, just bring the story to light for people to really understand if they're looking to do a product and what comes with the brand, just what they're looking at and to sort of plan, try to plan the best you can.
24:13.94
Sarita Valdes
Mm hmm. Mm
24:24.50
Sarita Valdes
hmm.
24:31.30
Krystle Edwards
I think we all know with business and entrepreneurship,
24:33.92
Sarita Valdes
Mm hmm.
24:34.28
Krystle Edwards
it ebbs and flows and things change and you have to pivot, but at least just to be aware that if I don't want to go into debt or take out loans to start, I have to have a plan to scale up to reach the brand goals that i that i want and the sales that I want.
24:37.82
Sarita Valdes
Yes.
24:51.88
Sarita Valdes
Absolutely. And i recommend, you know, reaching out to as many resources as you have before you take on that debt, if you can, you know, if you have parents or whatever, who are willing to invest in your dream for a little bit, you know, start off small, you know, i wouldn't ask for a ton, just something that you can,
25:06.90
Sarita Valdes
get started with that you know you can manage paying back, that you won't feel bad if the business doesn't work and you're like, hey, I owe you five grand, no big. you know It's much better than 50 grand and feeling like your whole world is falling apart and you're a failure.
25:15.06
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm.
25:19.77
Sarita Valdes
you know It's okay to try something and maybe like you said, you pivot. It might be you know you start in one business and you realize I love running a business. I just need to do this other one that's like slightly better for my personality or need to do an online business instead of an in-person one. and um And that's fine. I think having a um a company or a business really informs you about yourself and it really makes you kind of like grow up about and be realistic about what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. And and being able to do as much as you can on your own, being self-taught, you know, kind of being...
25:55.30
Sarita Valdes
a self-starter is essential, you know, because not everybody knows how to do everything or can afford to take classes or has the time, but everybody can go on YouTube and figure something basic out really quick.
26:06.66
Sarita Valdes
And then when you find you need more instruction, you know, from there you can figure out if you're going to take a class or whatever, but at least it gives you somewhere to begin, you know, and somewhere to know, um yeah, where where to take your um expertise from there.
26:07.16
Krystle Edwards
yeah.
26:24.22
Krystle Edwards
Yeah, I love that. So you've also done some performing and you hold the title of Miss America Strong. Tell us about that and what that visibility means to you.
26:37.67
Sarita Valdes
Yes, Miss Washington for America Strong.
26:39.40
Krystle Edwards
Miss Washington, sorry, apologize.
26:40.07
Sarita Valdes
Yes. Yes, that's okay. No, they're picky about it, so we'll let them be picky. So, ah yeah, you know, it's so funny. i My personality is so far from a pageant girl that I never considered I would ever, ever do pageants. I didn't grow up doing them. I don't know anybody. Well, now I do, but at the time, I didn't know anyone who competed in them.
26:59.26
Sarita Valdes
I really just... um i I had been a performer, write a ballroom and Latin dancer for about 20 years. And there's a part of me that kind of missed that, um the performance art, you know, element of it and missed kind of having a stage and having um costumes. I know it sounds silly, but it's like the adult version of dress up, you know, and it is really fun. If you've done that majority of your life, it kind of feels like something's missing when that's that whole sparkle world is gone, you know, and I I don't think I want to compete in ballroom and Latin dance probably again. I mean, there's part of me that always kind of entertains, but I feel like that chapter has had its whole life, you know? yeah
27:38.53
Sarita Valdes
And um I've really moved forward to other things and pageantry. came up because I know as a business owner, um it can be really isolating and really um like you're kind of on your own little island, you know, even though I have clients and stuff.
27:52.89
Sarita Valdes
um You know, when I started my business, I didn't have a partner. i My family's all in California. I'm up here kind of by myself. i have my son in Seattle. um I don't go to church. i don't really have a boss or anything. i never have. i've been an entrepreneur pretty much my entire adult life.
28:08.52
Sarita Valdes
So I felt very insular and very kind of like disconnected. And really what I need as a business owner who works with clients in a personal, you know, business, I need to be connected. I need to be plugged in in like a million different ways.
28:22.95
Sarita Valdes
And um I just wasn't exactly sure how to like go about being involved. Like for instance, I love volunteering and there's a lot of organizations that you could volunteer for.
28:33.82
Sarita Valdes
where do you start? You know, how do you find even just who to talk to about it? You go on their website and it's just like a basic info thing, you know, like having a community that is involved in their, um, you know, space and their town and their city which pageant girls completely are, you know, like that's a big part of it. I would say that's probably half of what we're doing is is creating a platform where you have a lot to talk about as far as how you build your community, how you're invested in it. What is it that you give back? So it's not just about my business and come visit my business, but here's what I'm actually doing to invest in my community.
29:11.78
Sarita Valdes
And when I changed my mindset around that, all of a sudden I became plugged in and everywhere that I'd wanted to and just didn't know how, you know, because when you're, when you're willing and able to offer your time and you have some sort of visibility, like, um, cause even before you win your title, you have to have a title to run. Right. So I ran as Miss, Miss Cascadia.
29:32.75
Sarita Valdes
So a lot of people are more specific. Mine was kind of very vague and broad because I'm not a pageant girl and I didn't get it. And it's still, it's beautiful. Miss Cascadia is really great. But most people are like Miss Tacoma or Miss Lake Stevens or Miss Pierce County. You know, they're very specific. So if you represent um Pierce County or whatever, Thurston County, you know, and the um mayor of Thurston County,
29:54.77
Sarita Valdes
is having some event or whatever, it's really great and really easy for you to get right plugged in as Miss Thurston County. You know, even with nothing else behind you, just them knowing that you're there representing as their face, people want you there. And then once you actually have a platform and you are invested in other parts of your community, you volunteer in a lot of different areas, people are used to seeing you around, there's a lot of trust.
30:17.90
Sarita Valdes
um built that is, yeah, it's just hard hard to get as a business owner when it always looks like you're just trying to get clients or you're just trying to make money or you're, and those are all noble goals, you know, as a business owner, that's kind of goal number one, you know, without that, you have no business.
30:29.71
Krystle Edwards
Thank you.
30:33.48
Sarita Valdes
But when people see that you are not just money focused, that you actually care about human beings, that you're a giver, that you're invested, they want to invest back with you. So it was very reciprocal um experience for me to realize that like all the ways that I felt like I was kind of lacking in my community.
30:51.38
Sarita Valdes
Just running, not even winning, just running in a pageant helped connect me in those ways. So I recommend it for people, even if you're not trying to win missed title of any kind. You don't need recognition. You don't need people to see how beautiful you are and clap for you. Because for me, I'd already had so much of that, wearing beautiful dresses, you know, being on stage.
31:11.65
Sarita Valdes
It's like I've had that whole... experience over and over and over and a part of me missed that but a part of me also knew um that i didn't necessarily need it to feel good about myself you know that having that validation is really great but It's not everything. It's beautiful just to be connected. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at was that winning, we might have talked about this through the um our emails or whatever, but I i really, really, i don't know how to express this enough.
31:42.22
Sarita Valdes
I did not expect to win. I always feel like I'm kind of like outside the group, just happy to be invited, you know? um I didn't have my son there because I didn't want to bore him. It's a long time of watching...
31:54.42
Sarita Valdes
people cross the stage that aren't your mom, you know? um i had a couple friends there, but I really didn't invite a lot of people because I was doing this more for, like, a personal thing, and it wasn't necessarily, like, to get this type of validation and recognition as a winner.
32:09.15
Sarita Valdes
So when i won, i was like, are you guys serious? Like, like I don't i don't know not only didn't expect to win, i already knew who was going to win, and i had a whole story about her. She actually won this year. I was able to give my title to her. It was really kind of sweet, um full circle moment, but...
32:23.27
Sarita Valdes
um The girl who I knew was going to win, her sister or twin had won the year before. i In my head, i thought she had been running for a long time, whereas I kind of squeezed in at the end.
32:34.23
Sarita Valdes
And it just felt like her moment. So when I won, I actually felt kind of bad, like kind of really bad. Like I went to the restaurant after to celebrate and she was there like crying and just wanted to give her the crown.
32:44.07
Krystle Edwards
Hmm.
32:44.86
Sarita Valdes
i didn't even... ah expected or needed, you know, and it felt like it was hers. And a a big part of me winning personally was learning how to like take your wins with grace too, you know. Sometimes it can be hard to take a loss to feel like you earned it or you deserved it, but sometimes it can be hard to take a win too when like you didn't come there to win, you know.
33:05.96
Sarita Valdes
um I've always competed, but to be honest, I'm not like a hugely competitive person. Even when I competed in dance, I would have partners, you know, and I'd be like, honestly, I really just want to be the people, the couple that people love to watch.
33:17.61
Sarita Valdes
I want to be the one that you can't take your eyes off of. You know, I really don't care that much about winning a title. And it would honestly turn a lot of partners, potential partners off because they want to win, you know, and i understand that. But my goals have always just been a little bit different. You know, I love...
33:32.03
Sarita Valdes
Honestly, I don't care what some old man with a clipboard thinks about my dancing. Like, I know my dancing is beautiful and I want to be the one that people talk about when they leave, you know? do you remember that girl with the whatever dress, you know?
33:40.09
Krystle Edwards
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
33:42.63
Sarita Valdes
She stood out and she should have won. That's the one that I want to be, you know? And to actually have, like, a real legitimate win, I definitely struggled with a little bit of... um um What is that? i Like, imposter syndrome? Like, it felt to me like if I could win on my first night, either the win doesn't mean anything or I didn't deserve it.
34:03.79
Sarita Valdes
You know, because there's no way in a dance competition you'd come in and win on your first day. You know, you just started dancing, you come in and win for these people from these people who've been dancing their whole lives. It just wouldn't happen. um But pageantry is different, you know, and there were a lot of transferable skills to just being a ballroom and Latin dancer, knowing how to walk, knowing how to carry yourself, having great posture, knowing how to command a room to look at you without words.
34:25.56
Sarita Valdes
You know, these are all skills that really helped. And the beauty pageant stage that um I definitely snagged from my ballroom and Latin dancing days. um Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, that's my story.
34:38.73
Krystle Edwards
Yeah. It does. And I think you hit on a point that I've seen and I've talked about quite a bit is you know, to gracefully take your wins, like you mentioned, and take your awards and put them on your wall, put them on your, you know, display them on your, I have mine kind of back there, you know, um,
34:54.05
Sarita Valdes
I
35:05.89
Sarita Valdes
love it.
35:06.94
Krystle Edwards
have them somewhere because I think oftentimes we do get that thought in our head of we didn't deserve it or yeah, but X, Y, Z, I didn't do this good enough or this wasn't good enough or I messed up on this um or I should have got it five years ago and now it's like,
35:18.42
Sarita Valdes
yeah
35:25.92
Krystle Edwards
do they really care? Or is it just sort of a pity trophy now? You know, like you have this kind of thought process.
35:31.00
Sarita Valdes
um
35:32.52
Krystle Edwards
And i think a lot of women struggle with that. And so I, I have my stuff, anything mounted on my walls. And i i feel sometimes I feel weird about it.
35:41.73
Sarita Valdes
I love that.
35:46.42
Krystle Edwards
Like sometimes I'm like, is this is this vain of me? Is this like, and you know, am I being like full of myself?
35:51.05
Sarita Valdes
yeah
35:55.10
Krystle Edwards
But at the end of the day, it really is there for me to remember when I'm having those intrusive thoughts of I'm not good enough, or I don't know if I can do this or X, Y, z I can look at these things and be like, okay, like you have been recognized and you need to be able to
36:04.01
Sarita Valdes
Yes.
36:19.02
Krystle Edwards
accept that energy and that vibration into your life and to be able to level up essentially. i remember my dad, he, you know, in his job, he had so many awards that his entire office, every wall was covered with awards.
36:27.38
Sarita Valdes
yeah
36:39.37
Sarita Valdes
Wow.
36:39.44
Krystle Edwards
And I remember as a little girl, yeah, I would walk in there. He was number one salesman in the nation for many years in his job. And And i remember walking in there and just seeing all the awards and reading them and just being like, this is like insane.
36:48.68
Sarita Valdes
Wow.
36:57.36
Krystle Edwards
This is crazy.
36:57.60
Sarita Valdes
Yeah. You're like, my dad's kind of the boss.
36:59.95
Krystle Edwards
ah Yeah. I was like, okay But you know, just seeing that makes me want, like, I'm also like, okay, I'm going to do that.
37:02.09
Sarita Valdes
Yeah.
37:06.95
Krystle Edwards
Like if, if my dad's going to do it and if other men are going to do that, have their stuff up in their office, I bring my trophies into work that I get outside of work.
37:10.06
Sarita Valdes
I love
37:15.59
Krystle Edwards
I'm like, I'm putting this in my,
37:15.96
Sarita Valdes
that. Mm-hmm.
37:17.29
Krystle Edwards
you know, in my desk, in my cubicle when I worked, um when I had one, now I work from home, so I have them here, but you know, I i brought them into work and I was like, I wanted people to come when they come and people that work for me um when they come into my area and we have a chat, I want them to see kind of what I'm about and what what I do, not just in that, you know, office space and in that industry, but outside in you know, the community and the other things that I work on.
37:20.01
Sarita Valdes
i mean
37:23.95
Sarita Valdes
and rob that
37:36.07
Sarita Valdes
and
37:46.28
Krystle Edwards
um because I think that's important, especially for women and where I came from in a male-dominated industry. So I love that you brought that up and shared that with us.
37:53.92
Sarita Valdes
I love that.
37:56.50
Sarita Valdes
Thank you.
37:56.91
Krystle Edwards
So, yeah.
37:56.98
Sarita Valdes
yeah I love that.
37:59.43
Krystle Edwards
What's your biggest piece of advice for Grit City women?
38:03.22
Sarita Valdes
Oh, that's so great. um I would say biggest piece of advice is to i love I love what you just said. To be honest, I think owning your wins and really sitting in recognition of them is something that most of us don't do enough. You know, honestly, we all get on to ourselves about this we could have done or that we could have said. and And maybe that's true. You know, we always have room for improvement. It's great to have self-awareness.
38:32.40
Sarita Valdes
But I think just owning and embodying your wins is one of the best ways to build confidence. And confidence is like... a social lubricant like no other.
38:44.53
Sarita Valdes
You know, when you have confidence and you believe in what you say and you know who you are and you can't be dissuaded, you know, from the person you are at your core, right? It's, people trust you. It wins you friends and allies and um clients and business, right? People want to associate with someone who is confident.
39:07.17
Sarita Valdes
And it's really hard to be confident if you don't own your wins, you know? Like, I didn't feel like a queen for... It took me probably several months of being an actual beauty queen before I could really, like, own up. This is a title I get to have forever, you know? It's a small title that's not, like...
39:24.94
Sarita Valdes
Miss whatever Queen of England, obviously, you know? um But it's beautiful to represent your state and to be recognized as a beauty queen no matter where I go, no matter what I do, that title will stay with me, you know? And there'll be other beauty queens who follow and have my title after.
39:43.13
Sarita Valdes
but no one can take that Miss Washington 2024. That will always be mine. You know, that's always my little, um, slice of the rainbow, you know? And, um, I think it's beautiful to,
39:56.19
Sarita Valdes
to recognize the parts of our lives that are wins and to just bask in it for a little bit and to recognize that sure, I have ways I could be better, I always have improvements to make, but I'm really an amazing person I've accomplished so much and I really want to honor myself the way I would honor someone else if they had these same things that they've accomplished. you know And some of these wins are not even big wins that you got a trophy for. you know might be you finally learned how to forgive somebody you know that you couldn't forgive for a really long time. Or um you know you finally had that thing that used to always set you off that doesn't even phase you anymore. you know These are wins that no one gives you an award for, but you know what a big deal it is for you in your life. And I think it's really good to celebrate those as well.
40:45.25
Krystle Edwards
Thank you. Thank you for such great advice and sharing your story with us.
40:48.73
Sarita Valdes
Thank
40:50.09
Krystle Edwards
And um how can, yeah, how can people find you?
40:51.43
Sarita Valdes
I so appreciate you.
40:55.87
Sarita Valdes
Great question. So you can go on to my Instagram. um It's Sarita Enigma is my personal one. And then I also have my business one that's Herbology Skin. um You can also go on to my website, herbologyskin.com. If you want to book an appointment, there's a little link that is like book now or whatever, and it takes you directly to my platform. And I love for people to book with me. I offer a lot of different services. It's not just facials. um I do microneedling, waxing, chemical peels,
41:22.71
Sarita Valdes
eyebrow tinting, eyelash, um, like a couple different things, tinting as well as the, um, why am I not remembering? Lamination, sorry. I do brows as well as eyelash lamination, so those are bringing our natural lashes up to a higher place and giving them a nice curve so that even if you don't want to get lash extensions or whatever, your natural lashes have a nice fullness to them.
41:43.97
Sarita Valdes
um Yeah, waxing, there's a lot of different things that we do. I do a lot of different types of um body massage, not like a full body massage, but for instance, I do like prenatal massage, I do breast massage, which I know can sound odd to some people, but it's one of the most important lymphatic um massages that we can do as women because our breasts tend to store store toxins and we have a lot of fat in that area. We also have our lymph nodes right here, so it's just sort of a prime area for things like cancer cells to want to sit. So doing ah breast massage, i also do breast facials. These are really great for giving that um area just a little bit of extra love, movement,
42:21.51
Sarita Valdes
um restoring our cells. I have a couple different oils and stuff that I use that are specifically for lymphatic movement. um So yeah, anytime you want to come see me. I also have, let's see, my trying to think what is the easiest way to get a hold of me. I would say probably the easiest is to go to my website or you can also reach out to me on Instagram. um I do have a business phone number, but with the majority of the time, ah all of the appointments and everything are booked online. i don't have a secretary or yeah any of that booking appointments for me.
42:52.85
Krystle Edwards
Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
42:56.16
Sarita Valdes
Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and opening a platform for people like me. It's really important work.
43:03.43
Krystle Edwards
Anytime.
43:04.76
Sarita Valdes
ah right.