Skinnyskinny Founder Clara Williams: Aromatherapy Helped Heal My PTSD
Skinnyskinny’s candles offer delicious scents with powerful aromatherapy benefits. Photo: skinnyskinny
When Clara Williams began creating her own skincare products over a decade ago, the goal was to have clearer skin using all natural ingredients. That happened, with her skinnyskinny line of soaps and serums delivering calmer and more even skin. However, another major benefit occurred that Williams didn’t expect at all. Thanks to the power of scent, Williams found healing for her symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. “I wasn’t looking for an alternative therapy for PTSD,” Williams explains. “I was using the essential oils in the products and I realized when I was working with them that I was genuinely felt calmer. I genuinely felt good on a deep level. It opened the psychological space for me to relax and not feel like I was trapped in a psychological pattern where I was expecting more trauma to occur. I had a calm space.”
To become a skincare and product expert, Williams had immersed herself in “understanding what skin really needs.” She got her degree as esthetician, studied Ayurvedic medicine, and also aromatherapy. But Williams never expected the aromatherapy component to be so life changing. “I was incredibly skeptical of it. I had just seen mass market products, where they are banding about words like calming or grounding, and not even using real essential oils,” explains Williams. “It’s been amazing the amount of transformation I’ve been able to experience for myself. Just being able to generally calm me down, alleviating anxiety and stress, and making me feel confident. Those are incredibly powerful things. Aromatherapy should definitely get more credit for the ability to help people.”
The founder of skinnyskinny organics believes that aromatherapy has helped heal her symptoms of PTSD. Photo: skinnyskinny
Williams acknowledges that the link between aromatherapy and healing serious mental traumas is a new one. “ I’ve read many many case studies of people who have claimed to be helped, and as a certified aromatherapist, I’ve formulated products that seemed to have genuinely positive effects. These are compelling but ultimately anecdotal,” Williams states. “So I try to stay informed about experiments that the military has done with aromatherapy and PTSD among combat veterans.”
About 50% of skinnyskinny products talk about the aromatherapy benefits on the packaging including the bath soaks, candles, body scrubs and body oils. She is happy to recommend the products that her clients, family, and she personally have found transformative. “For anxiety, I definitely recommend the Lavender Peppermint Tea Tree Bath Soak or our Mandarin Eucalyptus Cypress Bath Soak,” Williams says. “Our bath soaks are all made from a blend of exceptional sea salts that help the body produce serotonin, which leads to feelings of well-being. Most of our candles have a calming or grounding aspect to them, but my favorite candle to use when I am feeling anxious is the Cardamom & Pink Peppercorn because the scent combination is exotic and complex enough that it always distracts me from whatever it was that was making me anxious, giving me mental space to calm down.”
In addition to the aromatherapy benefits, Williams believes skinnyskinny stands out thanks to ultra concentrated products, organic ingredients, and complex formulas designed to truly heal skin. She believes the standout products are the serums which are focused on treating a variety of skin conditions. Her favorite is the serum for mature and aging skin with chaga mushroom extract and essential oils like rose, lavender ylang-ylang, and geranium. Like all of her products Williams believes the benefits are multiple, “It really targets and treats the skin, but also calms the mind.”
