Photos Provided By Sannae the owner of Dame Body
Can you share how your personal path led you to create Dame Body and step into holistic skincare and wellness?
Dame Body started during one of the busiest times of my life, when I was working 15‑hour days and trying to squeeze my entire self‑care routine into the shower. I struggled with dry skin and body acne, and nothing I used felt truly nourishing. That pushed me to rethink ingredients, study skincare formulation, and explore exfoliation‑first body care.
As I became more intentional about overall wellness, what I put in my body, on my body, and how I cared for myself, I wanted products that exfoliated, moisturized, and left my skin glowing without adding extra steps. When I started making my own formulas, women immediately asked what I was using. That’s how Dame Body was born: a simple ritual that helps busy women get soft, nourished, great‑smelling skin right in the shower.
At its core, Dame Body is about turning something you already do, showering, into an intentional moment of care, confidence, and wellness.
What inspired the beginning of Dame Body, and how has the brand evolved since its early days?
Dame Body started with ocean‑inspired scrubs and butters I made in Santa Monica, where seashells symbolized beauty in imperfection. Customers loved the products early, and their feedback helped the brand grow into oils, washes, facial skincare, and more. Teaching workshops showed me how much women valued learning about ingredients and ritual, which shaped our focus on simple, consistent care through the Dame Glowing Skin Method. Moving to rural Alabama deepened my connection to plants and soil‑to‑skin formulation. Today, Dame Body is about soft, beautifully scented skin, and a community built around education, wellness, and intentional self‑care.
How do you define the connection between skincare, self-love, wellness, and intentional care?
I connect skincare, self‑love, wellness, and intentional care by treating skincare as a daily act of care. What we put on our bodies, how we speak to ourselves, and the time we give our own wellbeing all work together to help us feel radiant and grounded.
For me, self‑love is practical. It’s showing up for my body, paying attention to what it needs, and caring for it consistently so my relationship with myself isn’t built on criticism. I believe, “I love my body, so I show my body love.” That mindset shapes everything, from how I nourish myself to how I rest, move, and create rituals that remind me I’m worthy of care every day.
What is the Dame Glowing Skin Method, and what makes it unique?
The Dame Glowing Skin Method™ is our simple three‑step approach: Cleanse, Exfoliate, Moisturize. We start by cleansing without stripping the skin, then move into exfoliation, the heart of the method, to remove dull buildup and reveal fresher‑looking skin. Our scrubs are unique because they exfoliate and moisturize at the same time using salts, sugars, botanicals, and nourishing oils.
Moisturizing comes next, layering oils on damp skin and butters where extra richness is needed to support the skin barrier. From there, women can personalize their ritual with toners, serums, bath teas, perfume mists, and aromatherapy rollers that move with them throughout the day.
What makes this method special is its simplicity and intention. It’s not about collecting products, it’s about understanding your skin, doing the fundamentals consistently, and creating a ritual that helps you feel soft, glowing, beautifully scented, and connected to yourself wherever you go.
How do you choose and work with botanical ingredients in your skincare formulations?
When I choose ingredients, I always start with purpose, what a fruit, herb, seed, flower, or oil can actually do for the skin. Different parts of a plant offer different benefits, so I decide whether the peel, oil, extract, powder, or infusion is the best fit for the formulation.
I look for what I call “superfoods of beauty”: botanicals rich in vitamins A, C, and E, antioxidant‑packed herbs and fruits, nourishing oils, and proven cosmetic ingredients like kojic acid, niacinamide, and hyaluronic acid. My goal is synergy, ingredients that work together to support a specific skin need, not a long ingredient list.
My ingredient education came from exploring diverse cultural markets in Los Angeles and learning from global beauty traditions. That curiosity guides how I pair botanicals with technical formulation questions: solubility, texture, aroma, stability, and skin feel.
Every oil, butter, extract, and botanical is chosen intentionally. I’m not chasing exotic ingredients, I’m creating formulas where the right plant knowledge and the right cosmetic science come together to nourish the skin beautifully and effectively.
You mentioned your work in wellness education. What does that look like, and why is it important to your brand?
My wellness education work began in 2016 when I taught my first workshop in the DTLA Arts District. I quickly realized women don’t just want products, they want to understand ingredients, tools, and simple rituals that help them care for their bodies with intention. Hands‑on learning became essential, because when women can touch, smell, and create something themselves, the lesson stays with them.
From those early workshops, education expanded into Beauty Bars at pop‑ups, youth programs, retreats, wellness centers, and creative conferences. Working with young girls became especially meaningful, opening conversations about confidence, body positivity, hygiene, and self‑care many of them had never been taught.
Now in the South, my purpose includes bringing accessible botanical education and intentional self‑care experiences to local communities. The products are just the doorway, what matters most is giving women and girls knowledge, rituals, and confidence they can carry long after the jar is empty.
As part of my small-business series, what has your experience been like building Dame Body as a founder?
Building Dame Body has been a beautiful, unpredictable journey with seasons of growth, rebuilding, learning, and steady consistency. Entrepreneurship taught me that not every year looks the same, and that a difficult season doesn’t mean something is wrong. Staying adaptable has been essential.
Community has also been a huge part of my longevity. Collaborations, mentorship, and simply being around other founders and creatives have carried me through different chapters. Dame Body has taken me into spaces I never could have planned, retail, workshops, media, community programs, wellness education, and long‑lasting relationships with women and families, all because I kept saying yes to aligned opportunities.
There have been challenges, but time teaches you not to panic when the path shifts. You learn to evolve, to hold onto what matters, and to let the business grow in new directions. And after all these years, I still love it, formulating, teaching, creating, and serving women.
My founder journey has been resilient, community‑supported, and constantly evolving. I didn’t know where Dame Body would take me, but I’m grateful I kept going long enough to find out.
What challenges have shaped your journey, and what milestones are you most proud of?
Some of my biggest challenges have shaped why I built Dame Body. In the early years, I was traveling constantly as a corporate trainer, using that income to fund my learning, ingredients, and early R&D. Leaving corporate in 2014 pushed me to grow the brand without that safety net, and working in spaces like Sage Vegan Bistro showed me how powerful it is to create beauty, education, and experience all in one place.
The hardest moment came in 2017 when my cousin, who was supposed to build House of Dames with me, passed away just days after we launched our campaign. That loss changed me. Dame Body became more than a business; it became a calling. I had to learn how to keep going through grief, commitments, and seasons that looked nothing like the plan.
The milestones that followed, my Hollywood retail space, BUST Magazine, media features, and Goddess Gift Studios, meant even more because of what it took to reach them. COVID brought new challenges, but even then, the studio became a safe haven and opened doors to press and community impact.
What I’m proudest of is that I kept going. Through career shifts, loss, COVID, relocation, and reinvention, Dame Body is still here, and so am I, still creating, still evolving, still answering the call.
How has your community influenced Dame Body’s direction and offerings?
My community has shaped Dame Body from the very beginning. As my Dames moved through different seasons of life, the brand evolved with them. Early on, they wanted products that made their skin incredibly soft and helped them smell unforgettable. Then life shifted, marriage, motherhood, changing routines, and their needs shifted too. That’s how mommy butters, body oils, bath teas, and more nurturing self‑care products were born.
As women began traveling, hiking, gardening, and spending more time outdoors, I created travel‑friendly oils, outdoor blends, bug oils, and minis that let them carry their glow anywhere. When many became mothers, that opened the door to baby care and gentle, age‑appropriate products for younger girls.
And I always knew Dame Body should include the men in our lives. Women often influence what their partners and families use, so I added unisex blends and men’s products like beard care, washes, scrubs, oils, and butters, allowing Dame Body to live across a whole household.
My community shows me what season they’re in, what they love, and what they need next. Because I’ve grown with many of these women for years, I get to see those transitions in real time. Dame Body has never been built in a vacuum, my Dames live full lives, and the brand pays attention.
As their lives evolve, from dating and self‑expression to marriage, motherhood, travel, outdoor living, children, and partners, Dame Body evolves with them. I want the brand to be there through all of it.
What exciting developments or expansions are you working on next for Dame Body?
Dame Body is entering an exciting new chapter where the brand, my family’s agricultural roots, and my life in rural Alabama all connect. I’m learning farming through Alabama Extension so we can move toward true farm‑to‑formulation, growing and sourcing botanicals locally and eventually letting women experience the full cycle from planting to product.
I’m expanding our Botanical Bar workshops into schools, women’s programs, senior communities, mental‑health spaces, and retreats, with a special focus on education for women and girls. We’re also growing our professional and wholesale partnerships so spas and boutiques can bring Dame Body into their own services, while building more guided, intentional ways to shop online.
What excites me most is that everything now aligns, plants, farms, workshops, education, community, and the women we serve. I can finally see the full circle: planting, harvesting, formulating, teaching, and putting that knowledge back into women’s hands.
REVIEW: As I sat and talked with Sannae, the owner of Dame Body, you could immediately feel her passion. When a business owner truly loves what they do, the products become more than something to sell, they become an extension of care, intention, and the desire to give customers the very best. That’s exactly the energy she brings to her brand.
The presentation of the package was beautiful, and the moment I opened it, the scents coming from the products were incredible. With the weather changing, I’ve had the chance to try the Peach Nectar Scrub, Body Butter, Citrus Soap Bar, and Citrus Oils. Let me tell you, I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing how these work even more as the colder months roll in.
If you’re someone who wants to take care of your skin but doesn’t always have the time, willpower, or budget for regular spa visits, these products are absolutely worth treating yourself to. They give that spa‑like experience right at home.
Ladies, I also love that Dame Body isn’t just for us, you can grab products for your significant other or husband too. Men enjoy self‑care just as much, and this brand makes it easy to shop for both. It’s a great vendor to consider for holiday gifts for men and women.
One of my favorite things about Dame Body is that everything is plant‑based and freshly made to order using botanical oils, rich butters, herbs, fruit powders, clays, salts, aroma blends, and other thoughtfully selected ingredients. There’s nothing more reassuring than knowing exactly what’s going onto your skin, 0and with this brand, transparency and quality are front and center.