The Art of Skincare Ritual with May Lindstrom

Recently we sat down with May Lindstrom to discuss what makes her products a beautiful part of a skincare ritual.

Many of us view skincare as a routine, a series of steps to get through.
Your philosophy champions ritual over routine. How can someone begin
to cultivate this mindset, transforming their daily cleansing into a more
mindful and beautiful experience?

First, can we make it feel good? What’s the most beautiful care ritual you can imagine—can we bring that
to you? And can we do it every day? That’s always my goal.
But then, the invitation is in your hands. You have to ask yourself: What could make this moment more delicious? Listen, and then actually do it. We get to be playful here. Even if you have only three minutes, that’s a song. Turn one on that makes you feel the most you. Add scents, snacks, sensation—light a candle or incense, pop a grape in your mouth, dry brush until you’re buzzing, wiggle your hips, say thank you to every precious inch. Romance yourself as you cleanse and moisturize, mask and mist, scrub and soften.
Start small, and start in the shower. Let the water hold you in sound and sensation. Slow your breath as your hands find their way home, from toes to crown, saying hello, and thank you, on repeat. Notice how quickly you soften with warmth and touch.
This tiny moment of tuning inward activates your parasympathetic nervous system—your body’s “rest and repair” instinct—and literally cues your skin to receive greater benefit from whatever comes next. When you feel this good, and your whole system is on board, you can’t help but glow. Ritual isn’t about adding more steps or products. It’s about welcoming more you.

Your products are renowned for results, yet the sensorial
experience—the scents, textures, moments of pleasure—is equally
celebrated. Is this richness simply a result of pure ingredients, or is there
deliberate choreography involved?

My process always orients around the organ, but we don’t get anywhere I want to stay without beauty. You’ll only predictably repeat what’s enjoyable, and skin needs time and consistency to see real change. So it’s gotta feel great. Results will always come not just from ingredients, but our desire to show up and receive them consistently. That’s where the sensorial component of our experience really shines. It helps that our body loves everything about these materials. They deliver true benefit to the skin, they smell incredible, they invite fun color and lush textures. They’re intentionally designed to support the whole being. The melt-point for The Blue Cocoon is chosen not just for elegance and practicality, but because the warmth of your palms activates key aromatic compounds that cue both skin and nervous system into reset. The exfoliating and masking powders in The Clean Dirt and The Problem Solver are milled to a
precise fineness so the skin’s microtexture is gently awakened, encouraging circulation without overstimulation. The scent profiles of The Pendulum Potion and The Jasmine Garden engage the parts of the brain tied to emotion, relaxation, and memory. And if you’ve met The Honey Mud’s hug, you know both the power and pleasure contained in this acid-boosted, multi-tasking pudding. Our ingredients do the big work here. We just committed to making the delivery systems outrageously
beautiful.

You've shared that conventional products didn’t meet your needs. What
inspired you to create your own formulations using natural elements like
mud and plants?

It’s not as simple as “skincare didn’t meet my needs.” It’s more like: even the most basic soap would cause my reactive skin to erupt in blisters and rashes. I’m genetically sensitive, prone to perioral dermatitis and dyshidrotic eczema. From childhood, my family learned my skin responded best to cleansing with clays, herbs, and honey, and
moisture was fed back in through raw plant butters and oils. There’s never been a time when I could use anything else without upsetting my skin.
My mother would take me to the river that ran through our wild Minnesota land. We’d pull clays from the water and herbs from her gardens. We’d cover our bodies, giggle, and I’d slowly become less afraid of touch. I’ve spent my whole life studying how to love my skin the way our ancestors did—not because it’s trendy, and not because conventional skincare is bad, but because this is the only approach that’s ever helped me
to want to stay in my skin, rather than leave it. My body has held a lot of discomfort. But herbs have cooled the chronic heat. Clays have reduced my itch. Oils will forever be what I choose to cushion and comfort, and they have returned my health and pliability.
Consciously choosing to feed in and find play and connection within my pain changed not just my skin, but what it feels like to live in it.

Your business model stands apart from typical modern beauty. What
challenges and rewards have you encountered by choosing this path?

Small batches enable us to work with ingredients at their absolute peak—plant oils and butters that haven’t oxidized, floral hydrosols and extracts with their full aromatic spectrum, and herbs and spices still retaining their full nutritional power. It also lets us move in sync with the seasons, with harvest cycles,
and with human cycles, too. The challenge? The modern beauty world runs on speed and novelty; there’s a demand for constant new releases, fast scaling, and volume. None of that aligns with the uncompromising way I want to care for skin or people. We’re a high-touch company. Skin is intimate, and our philosophy and manufacturing processes are too.The reward? We know every ingredient in every formula intimately. We know our growers, our distillers, our farms. We know the hands that fill every bottle and jar, and ship every box. And over the last 14+ years, we’ve had the deep honor of truly knowing our community, the individuals who come to us for care. We move slow, but we know where we’re going.

If you could only choose one product for a desert island, what would it
be and why?

My #1 will always be The Blue Cocoon. There have been very few days since I melted the first small batch of its butters in my home crockpot sometime in 2011 that I haven’t had it on my skin. It’s my primary morning and night moisturizer, the only thing I use on my eye area and lips, and it’s the go-to when skin is reactive and nervous systems are overstimulated, those moments when inflammation shows up both on the surface and beneath it. Blue tansy’s chamazulene helps calm visible redness. The rich fatty acids restore barrier lipids. And the spa-invoking scent engages the emotional centers of the brain instantly. The Blue Cocoon smells like exhaling. It’s care for the organ you can see, and for the systems you can’t. If I could give one product to every person on the planet, this would be it, the one I know would make the most immediate and sustainable impact on the skin, and on your relationship to it.

Thank you so much for inviting me into this conversation! It’s an honor to be a part of your world of
care at Wren and Wild. xo May