Why I make products shaped by healthcare

People often assume that apothecary work begins with inspiration. A plant. A scent. Or even a mood. For me, it usually begins somewhere much less romantic: chart notes, medication lists, side effects, contraindications, and the quiet ways bodies communicate distress long before they are taken seriously.

I’ve spent years working alongside healthcare systems; 16 to be exact. I’ve seen how people move through them carrying fear, hope, confusion, and exhaustion. I’ve also seen how often comfort is treated as secondary, optional, or cosmetic like it’s something to address later, if at all. This daily experience changes how I think about care.

In clinical settings, everything is measured. Doses have to be precise. Timing matters. Interactions matter. What you don’t give someone can be just as important as what you do. Bodies are never abstract. They are so specific and reactive. When I began formulating products, I brough that mindset with me.

I think about hormones, our nervous systems, inflammation, sensitivity, and the fact that many people using topical care are doing so while navigating chronic illness, cancer treatment, pain, trauma, or long-term medication use. I think about the people who are never told they’re “The ideal candidate” for wellness products, yet need gentleness the most. That’s why many of my formulations are intentionally hormone-neutral. Why I pay attention to essential oil load. Why some products are entirely scent-free. Why I care about how something absorbs, how it feels on compromised skin, and whether it asks too much of a body that’s already doing a lot of work.

Healthcare also taught me something else that deeply informs this work: bodies are not predictable.

Two people can receive the same treatment and respond in wildly different ways. Relief is not universal, unfortunately. Side effects are not moral failures. When something doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean the person did it wrong or their body is failing them. That understanding is why I resist promises. I don’t believe care should come with guarantees. I believe it should come with honesty, options, and respect for the body’s autonomy.

There’s also a quieter influence healthcare had on me and one that is harder to quantify. When you work around illness long enough, you learn how much of healing happenings in the in-between spaces. The moments when someone feels listened to. When they’re given something that doesn’t demand anything from them. When comfort is offered without expectation. This is precisely the energy I build into this work.

My products are not meant to replace medical care and they’re not meant to “fix” anyone. They are meant to support and coexist alongside the realities of modern bodies and modern medicine.

So, as the inaugural post of Babylon Therapeutics, Field Notes exists because I believe this kind of care deserves explanation. Not marketing language, but context. Here, I’ll share what I notice about formulation, about bodies, about ethics, and about the quiet intelligence that emergences when we stop trying to override ourselves.

Blessings and all,

-DeAnna