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What I Learned Hosting Our First Garden & Grow Brunch in Minnesota
It's been a few months since we hosted our first Garden & Grow event in Minnesota, and I wanted to sit with it a little before writing about it. Not because I needed distance to feel good about it. I needed distance to actually understand what it taught me.

Why Minnesota, why a brunch
Our first Garden & Grow, back in 2025, was a picnic in New York. For this one, I wanted to try something different: bring the brand somewhere new, and build the whole afternoon around slowing down instead of showing up. A ritual brunch, not a launch party. The idea was simple — give a room full of women two hours to pour back into themselves, and let them actually experience what scalp-first care and the minty-floral scent are about, in person, instead of through a screen.
The welcome
When guests walked in, they found an envelope with their name on it, hanging from a long mirror. Inside was their seat assignment. At each seat: a test strip and a ritual card. Music was playing. It was intentional from the first thirty seconds — nobody was searching for where to go or what to do. They were just there.
The sensory moment
This was the heart of the day. We passed a tray around the table with three scents — ylang ylang, lavender, geranium — the same florals in the Elixir. As each one went by, I talked through what it meant, both for the ritual and for the person holding it:
Ylang ylang is about softness — not just in your hair, but in how you allow yourself to be cared for.
Lavender soothes, and it reminds us that growth doesn't come from force. It comes from how you care for yourself.
Geranium is balance, because healthy hair doesn't come from extremes. It comes from consistency.
Then I asked the room to sit with it: "Now take a moment to write one word or a phrase — nothing long — just what you're stepping into, or feeling that came up for you." And before they put pen to paper: "The version of you you're becoming isn't created in one moment. It's built through what you continue to return to."
That's the part I keep coming back to, months later. Scent is one of the fastest ways to connect someone to a feeling, and I wanted to use that on purpose — not as a gimmick, but as a real bridge between "this smells nice" and "this is part of who I'm becoming." Ritual doesn't have to be boring. It can be the thing that makes you pause.
Brunch, and the part I didn't plan for
After the sensory station, we moved into brunch, and this is the part I didn't fully plan for: the women started talking to each other. Not making small talk — actually bonding. That wasn't on my agenda, but it became one of the best parts of the day. I did learn that more group activities could have potentially sparked conversations with other groups.
The ritual touch-up station
Later, we opened what we called the vault — a station where guests could experience the Elixir hands-on and massage their own scalp, at their own pace. A few content creators were there capturing the moment. It was quiet, personal, and a little indulgent, which was exactly the point.

The rose
At the end, I gave each woman a rose. Not as a parting gift so much as a reminder: this is the start of you flourishing into whatever you're becoming, and it's okay to slow down long enough to notice that. We built the whole tablescape and florals with Simply Tulips, at the Julia Restaurant in Minnesota, and the room looked exactly as intentional as I wanted the afternoon to feel.
The part I kept to myself
May 24 also happened to be my birthday. I didn't tell most of the room. The people who knew were close friends who came to support me, and that was enough. I didn't want the day to be about me as a person, or even as the founder — I wanted it to be about the brand, and about the women in that room. But privately, hosting that event was its own gift. My biggest goal with Gazing Green has always been to make a real, positive impact on women who look like this room did — and spending my birthday watching that happen, on purpose, felt like exactly the right way to mark it.
What I actually learned
I learned that people don't need a big production to feel cared for. They need a room that was thought through, permission to slow down, and something real to do with their hands and their senses while they do it. I learned that the parts I didn't plan — the conversations at brunch, the quiet at the touch-up station — mattered as much as the parts I did. And I learned that this format, the ritual brunch, said something about Gazing Green that a picnic couldn't: that this brand isn't just about a product, it's about a pace.
We're doing this again. If you weren't in that room in May, this is me trying to bring a little of it to you here instead — a few minutes to slow down, and a reminder that your own ritual, however small, is allowed to matter.
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