​Alix was born in Provence, Southern France, the land of iconic lavender fields, olive and citrus groves, perfumes, and all sorts of essentials that make you feel at peace and energized. Provence is also legendary for its fragrant wild herbs: rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, and immortelles. Less well-known but so important in Provencal culture is the mimosa tree, with its golden glowing blossoms and distinct honey-like scent with touches of vanilla and almond.

 

Alix’s father was a pharmacist. Old school. The apothecary kind who has a deep connection to the land and its people, knows botany, chemistry, traditional techniques of distillation, extraction and pill-making, and creates his own blends of herbal teas, tinctures, and creams. As a child, the family would go on long walks, playing hide and seek in the hills, collecting herbs, talking about the local bushes and trees they would come across. They would listen to the wind and played guess games with the scents in the air.

 

Many years later, Alix graduated with a PhD in 19th century French cultural history. When you conduct research at that level, you know how to access and maneuver all sorts of libraries and archives. You learn to distinguish between reliable sources and false or misleading claims, weight evidence, and present your readers synthesized, nuanced analyses.

 

With all this, a life of learning and exploring nature and cultural traditions, it’s no surprise that, one day, Alix would turn to something therapeutic with strong curative properties…