Meet Jana

I've been the “all things natural and hand made”  in my family for as long as I can remember. Not because it was trendy. Because it's how I'm wired. I was making salves and balms long before I ever thought of it as a business. Brewing kombucha and fire cider on the counter. Drying herbs from the garden. Googling questions at 1 a.m. that make my husband slowly close the laptop and say, "maybe come to bed?"

It started as a way to take care of my people. My kids, my husband, my neighbors. I wanted to know exactly what was going on my family's skin, and I wanted it simple, real, and rooted in the way God designed things to work. Not a label full of words I couldn't pronounce.

So I went looking. And the more I learned, the pickier I got.

Why tallow — and not just any tallow

Tallow is where it all clicked for me. Our skin is mostly fat, and tallow is too — the kind of fat so close to what our skin already makes that it just recognizes it. It carries the fat-soluble vitamins my skin actually wants — A, D, E, and K — in a form the body knows how to use. I tried every plant butter out there first. Shea, mango, cocoa. They sat on top of my skin. Tallow sinks in.

But not just any tallow. I use suet, the firm fat from around the kidneys and organs — the cleanest and most nutrient-dense part of the animal. It's the fat our great-grandmothers prized, and it makes a balm that's stable, silky, and richer than anything you can get from general trim. It's harder to source and slower to render. It's worth every bit of the trouble.

And the animal matters as much as the fat. I only use tallow from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle raised on small family farms — the kind of farm where someone still knows the cows by sight. Fat is only ever as good as the animal it came from. An animal raised on green pasture in the sun makes fat that's richer in the very things I'm after. Sourcing this way costs more and takes more phone calls, and it keeps my dollars with families farming the way I believe food and medicine were always meant to be grown.

The oils — earned, not borrowed

Then come the oils, and this is where the researcher in me really takes over. I've spent years reading, comparing, second-guessing, and reading some more about what botanical and essential oils actually do once they hit your skin. Not the marketing version. The real version.

Most "natural" skincare leans on olive oil because it's cheap and easy. I won't touch it. The research keeps pointing the same direction: olive oil can actually weaken the skin's barrier instead of building it — and a worn-down barrier is the root of so much of what we're all trying to fix in the first place.

So I only reach for oils that earn their place. Jojoba, which mimics our own sebum so closely the skin barely knows the difference. Squalane, a lipid our skin already makes and quietly loses as we age. Tamanu, which I fell down a months-long rabbit hole over for the way it supports the skin's own repair. Rosehip, rich in the natural precursors to vitamin A that help skin renew itself.

Every oil in my formulas is there because it does something real — feed, repair, calm, restore — not because it makes the jar smell nice.

Healer first. Researcher beside her.

That's really the heart of it. I'm not making vanity products. I'm not chasing trends or trying to bottle a pretty scent. I think of myself as a healer first, with a researcher sitting right beside her — someone who reads the studies, tests everything on her own family, and won't put a thing in a jar she wouldn't rub straight into her own kids' skin.

When there's scent, it comes from essential oils chosen for what they bring, not just how they smell. Every single ingredient has to earn its way in.

All of that, slowly, became Radiant Roots Wellness.

Today I handcraft nourishing tallow balms and botanical serums — and yes, still small-batch sourdough — right here in my community. Every batch is mixed slowly, by hand, in a kitchen, with nothing unnecessary and nothing fake. This isn't just a business to me. It's the thing all those years of mothering and making and praying and late-night research were quietly building toward. My calling, it turns out, is making things with my hands for your home and your family.

Whether you came for the skincare or you're just learning to care for your people a little more naturally, I'm so glad you're here. And if you're local, I'd be honored to bake you a fresh loaf for your table.