What is your favorite part of your job?

The ability to feel like I can be creative when putting formulas together. I love being able to link the research with the chemistry and story behind the ingredients to create what our client is looking for in their product. When someone has a specific vision I love trying to make it into a reality, putting everything I have into it, knowing that’s how they feel about the products they are wanting to create. I’ve also always really appreciated personal care and cosmetics themselves, with all the new innovations and textures and trends. It’s exciting to be a part of an industry that’s always changing and improving, with new raw materials to work with every day. Most of my formulas are naturally-based, so it’s really interesting to see how many innovative ingredients are becoming more natural with people starting to pay closer attention to the roots behind the finished products.

What has been your most recent professional accomplishment?

I was presented the opportunity to formulate a baby line called Zoey Naturals. This is a very personal project in our company, Absolutely Natural, as Zoey is the owners granddaughter. With this being a family-owned and ran company, we are all very close here so we have been able to watch baby Zoey grow up using these products, which has been an honor. Now I have a child of my own that I can bring this line home for and I can watch her enjoying them too.

Q: How has membership in the SCC been of value to you?

It has so many helpful resources linking this industry together that seems to be very specialized when really it has such an impact on the everyday life. All the conferences and webinars have been so hopeful to really get to learn about all the new innovations and stay in-tuned with everything going on. It has such an amazing array of cosmetic scientists to look up to and learn from.

What is a fun fact about yourself, outside of the SCC and your professional life?

I really enjoy spending time with family. No matter what is happening in life they are always there and supporting me and it really just makes anything possible. It’s the small easy moments I love the best, being outside spending time with my husband and 2-year old daughter is all I need to enjoy the day.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Although the specifics have somewhat evolved over the years, I enjoy being part of an industry that strives to find solutions for unmet consumer needs, the solutions which tend to make lives just a little bit more joyful. This has always been my fuel. Our industry has bread many great scientists, and whenever I see a real gamechanger hit the market, whether it’s one of ours, or someone else’s, I say to myself “my industry did that!”

What has been your most recent professional accomplishment?

Last year I received the inaugural Edgewell Fellow Award. I received this award in appreciation and recognition of my contributions to technology, innovation, product commercialization and leadership within my company (Edgewell Personal Care).

How has membership in the SCC been of value to you?

Membership in the SCC has enabled me to develop a deep and wide network of colleagues with whom I share common interests – both in the workplace as well as outside of it. Whether it be during the early session of our Sunscreen Symposium, the afternoon on the golf course which follows, or the beer by the pool debates about MEDs on unprotected skin later in the day, I genuinely enjoy the company of my SCC colleagues and value the Society for the relationships I’ve developed over the years.

What is a fun fact about yourself, outside of the SCC and your professional life?

This past Fall I had the pleasure of sending my oldest son off to the University of Florida, where he is studying engineering. I went to college in the northeast and then in the southwest, but with my son a student in Gainesville I now feel more like a Floridian then I’ve ever felt in the past and I’m all in as part of the Gator Nation. I have run around the campus, up and down the stairs in The Swamp, watched the thousands of bats leave the bat houses, ate pizza at Satchel’s and in two weeks we will visit the physics museum. I still have not had the pleasure of attending a live football game, but right now it’s looking good for this Fall. Go Gators!!

If you would like to nominate a member to be featured by the Florida chapter please e-mail flsccchair@gmail.com