Kimberly Snyder’s New Wellness Brand Goes *Way* Beyond Smoothies Alone
All of this has led to the launch of Solluna, her new wellness brand that aims to combine her passion for healthy food with a renewed focus on creating wholeness. There are supplements and juices, as would be expected from a nutrition expert, but you can also expect skin care, digital courses, and forthcoming adaptogen blends. In the following Q&A session, the Well+Good Council member breaks down the reasons she's branching out—and why she's saved room for everyone at the table.
What was the genesis of Solluna?
Over the past decade, I’ve been a nutritionist, and I have also had fun with the glamour of being a “celebrity nutritionist.” Then a shift happened. I was working on my third book, The Beauty Detox Power, and I could feel something change inside me. Without knowing it, I was doing some deep inner work, evaluating and reevaluating just what I wanted in life.
I realized I wanted to expand my work [by] also focusing on emotional and spiritual wellness, which I was discovering was often more important than dietary wellness. I started training others to help out with some of my clients and run my juice bar (now at the Four Seasons) so I could focus on helping other to experience fulfillment.
Then, a big life event solidified all of what was going on in my heart and mind. My mother passed away suddenly in March 2017, within three days of my son celebrating his first birthday. That moment was the strongest, clearest glimpse into the fragility of life that I had ever experienced.
I became truly vulnerable for the first time. And while scary at first, it was also liberating.
A shell around my heart that I didn’t even know was there began to chip and crack. I became truly vulnerable for the first time. And while scary at first, it was also liberating. I began to show people the real me. I began to open up about challenges I’ve had in my life, such as having eating disorders in high school, as well as the flaws and insecurities I never wanted to reveal to anyone.
It was from this place that Solluna was born. It was from this place that the Feel Good movement took root. Solluna is about bringing opposites together to form a whole. What do I mean by that? Solluna, a word that means the uniting of the sun and moon, is about getting back to basics, but it’s also about elegance. It’s about treating our bodies well and strengthening our spirit. It’s about living in harmony with the rhythms of Mother Nature while still keeping a day job or being a stay-at-home mom.
How does Solluna build on your previous, eponymous brand?
Solluna is all about embracing all the cycles of life. As such, there are offerings for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being, including supplements; non-toxic, benefit-driven skincare; online sleep and healthy weight loss courses; recipes; our popular podcast on Podcast One (now called the Feel Good Podcast); yoga series; meditation series; and our Feel Good Circle.
Personally, I am very excited about launching the Feel Good Circle. This is our virtual online circle that focuses on emotional, mental, and spiritual support—which I feel is so very needed. Those that are ready to go to a new level of healing and wellness can join me. We made it very low entry—$5.55 per month—and it includes a video, 15-minute weekly audio inspirations, and weekly journal PDF prompts to dive deeply in a monthly theme (embodying the Divine Feminine, Living Courageously and so on).
When you started on the wellness scene, finding green juice took a little effort. Now, that's not the case. How can people decipher labels to understand what they're really getting?
It can be tricky. “Cold-pressed,” for instance, doesn’t automatically mean organic. There is a popular brand of juice shops here in LA that is cold-pressed but not actually organic, and it drives me nuts! I think sticking to simple, whole foods and combinations is key—really digging into the brands you choose and making sure their ethos are in alignment with your values, and taking the time to make more of your own meals, no matter how simple, is always going to be an important part of wellness. Putting your own energy into what you put in your body is a powerful form of self care.
In the run-up to launching Solluna, you've been posting about embracing imperfection and battling the "not good enough" inner monologue that so many of us feel. Has your business helped you make progress with these goals?
I am a recovering perfectionist, and actually, the title of my next book is Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life, so this is a big theme for me. When my mom passed away suddenly, so much of my life started to unravel and became very messy, and I had no choice but to be in it.
At some point I had a meditation where I realized—deeply, for the first time—that none of the outside stuff was so serious as I made it out to be. I started to drop judgment, which was a big deal because I didn’t realize how much I judged myself, and therefore others, and how much negativity it brought into my life. Now I’m so over the pretending and exhausting hustle of running around, trying to look perfect or be the perfect mom or have the perfect life or whatever.
I’m starting to really get the idea of unity consciousness, which came from that one meditation. We’re all in it together. We all have this love inside us that is what is real. It was a big breakthrough for me—so freeing. Solluna was born of that energy.
You're about to launch small-batch skin care. What does small-batch mean to you, what kind of ingredients are you using, and what makes this skin care unique?
Like supplements, I believe we don’t need to use a million different products to look and feel good, but the ones we do use should be highly effective. Not only should the products be non-toxic, they most certainly need to provide results like firmer, more glowing, resilient skin [while] helping to smooth out unwanted lines and wrinkles.
My frustration is that many “natural” products don’t really improve your skin, and of course many products out there contain toxins and chemicals that we don’t want going onto our skin, which in turn means it ends up in our bodies.
With great love—and research and testing—I am so happy to present our Solluna skincare line. We found the best ingredients, like Vigna aconitifolia, a non-toxic, botanical alternative to retinol, that actually work amazing well to support beautiful, healthy skin.
I'm working with a small lab and with a formulator I love and trust. She and I created everything together, and “small batch” means nothing is mass produced. No marketing gimmicks, as in advertising the presence of an ingredient, when in reality there is a minuscule drop in an enormous vat of product. Each of our skincare products are carefully made by hand, and the ingredients are properly combined and in amounts for maximum effectiveness.
You're encouraging people to start embracing our messy lives. Why do you think this is so important, especially for women?
The myth of holding it all together in a mask of perfection is a huge energy drain. We end up spending an enormous amount of energy wasted in comparisons, over-analyzing, self-doubt, and pretending.
Feeling good is not about a number on a scale or having things look neat and tidy on the outside. It’s about tapping into our inner compass that can guide us in making decisions and living from our truth. I think embracing where we are, instead of resisting it and pretending it’s different that how it is, is the only portal in to true peace and happiness. So it’s vital for women and everyone, really.
No one has a picture-perfect life. Not only is that okay, it’s beautiful and real. In the Feel Good circle, we take this subject on head-on, and members will learn to embrace the ups and downs, the beauty and blemishes—which will allow them to access the power of love and true inner peace.
The myth of holding it all together in a mask of perfection is a huge energy drain.
You've said that the #FeelGoodMovement is about tending to the emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of our lives. For many women, the current political moment is making that hard to do. How do you think women can find balance between self-care and engaging in the bigger political picture?
Eating whole foods, meditating, proper sleep, healthy guts, and positive relationships are part of feeling good. So is embracing our weaknesses and imperfections that we are used to hiding. It’s like how whole foods are always going to be more nourishing than processed foods, which are denatured and artificial. When we embrace the parts of us we try to hide, those hidden parts come back into our lives and we become more ourselves.
The Feel Good Movement is a natural outgrowth from the Solluna philosophy. Feeling good is not about having a picture-perfect life with a flawless body, job, family and so on. That’s all outside stuff, which of course serves a purpose. But, we can have those things and still feel deeply unhappy. So it’s not about what we have, but rather finding a level of inner peace in our perfectly imperfect lives.
And when we share that peace with others within a community, we meet each other where we are in life. The Feel Good Movement is dedicated to helping each other to overcome self-doubt, access true inner peace, embrace the power of love, and feel good in our unique wholeness.
Finally, what are your hopes for Solluna with regard to building community?
Solluna is all about community! I wanted to create a space where women can really come together to rediscover and celebrate their unique wholeness. We are here to meet people wherever they are in life. If someone wants to learn about food, and get great recipes and try our SBO+ Probiotic, we are here. If someone wants to join the Feel Good Circle and go deep into healing self-doubt and body shame and embracing courage, we are there as well. There are many portals in, and we are here to welcome you, no matter what pathway and which parts feels right for you.
Kimberly shares her thoughts on those "tea-toxes" you keep seeing on Instagram—and shares how she grows her hair out long and strong.
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