We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Julia Donagrandi-Myers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Julia below.
Julia, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I said yes to growing a plant I didn’t know anything about.
A tiny loofah was gifted to me and with it my purpose was born. The 6 seeds I first grew over 7 years ago now, took my decades of corporate marketing experience and planted them in our 8 acres – growing something far more significant than anything I could create from behind a computer screen.
The natural versatility and sustainability loofah vines can offer humanity in a wide array of ways, set my sense of purpose ablaze. Suddenly I am no longer a Marketing Manager in a cubicle; I am a Loofah Wrangler engaging my community with an option that is healthier for them and for our planet.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Nearly two decades spent swimming upstream in the corporate marketing world ended when Allison, a fellow designer, gifted me some loofah seeds. It only took one growing season for loofah/luffa to redirect my career into creating what is now Loof’n Round Gardens.
As we embark on our seventh year growing 300 loofah vines; my husband and I have brought thousands with us on our adventure of discovering everything the loofah plant has to offer a sustainable eco-friendly lifestyle.
The enchantment begins with the revelation that these all natural loofah scrubs are actually loofah gourds! This incredible vine is actually related to the cucumber, producing young loofah gourd which can be eaten and used for skincare. Now as these young gourds grow, they’ll look like giant zucchini on the vine; when allowed to dry the gourd meat transforms into the scrub fibers we all recognize as loofah/luffa scrubs.
Boom! We have an instant upgrade to synthetic luffa which only compromise your hygiene and pollute our planet.
As our fascination peeked, we dug deep into the rabbit hole of all things loofah and found the entire vine has a multitude of natural upgrades to make available!
Loof’n Round’s product line offers a caffeine-free sweet green tea using dried mature loofah vine leaves, skincare & haircare products using the loofah seed oil we press from the hundreds of seeds inside each loofah scrub, the gourds for consumption and skincare products, loofah vine water for skincare cleansers and toners – and these are all on top of the multitude of ways to utilize natural scrubs beyond cleaning your skin.
Introducing the magnitude of possibilities and insights to our community resulted in opening our garden gates for folks to see first hand what it takes to grow loofah. In 2024 we kicked off our first year of workshop tours with the over-whelming positive reception making it officially part of our regularly scheduled programming for the foreseeable future!
A unique u-pick opportunity that includes taste testing, sample testing, the 4-1-1 on growing loofah, touring the vines to pick a loofah to peel, peeling a loofah (SO FUN), shopping opportunities, and everyone goes home with a sample bag!
To say the least, we are incredibly grateful Allison planted a seed of positive change in our life. It has sprouted into something so grand it keeps her with us as we grow.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Tap into your skillset
2. Sharing is caring
3. Stay curious
1. Tapping into my skillsets have helped create a brand and small business presence in my community. From a tactical level with my marketing and design experience applied to developing our online assets and over all branding – to my organization and management skillsets that help me coordinate and delegate as the business grows and our products are more and more well known.
2. Sharing what we have learned is showing we care more about how our product lives on – beyond our lifetimes. Time and time again, I repeat loofah are worth spreading the word about! Gate-keeping our insights on growing them would falsely put their capabilities as something we created. They are naturally eco-friendly sustainable cleaning tools, all on their own! While we do gain trust in our customers and community by sharing our insights; the more people who know about them is what brings in new customers asking new questions and returning customers eager to continue using and learning about all-natural loofah.
3. Curiosity leads to more open doors and over-looked opportunities. Our eagerness to explore what the entire loofah vine has to offer has lead us to create skincare, haircare, teas, and produce options we didn’t even realize were an option when we first started growing loofah. Simply being curious what one loofah scrub could turn into has created a product line that features over 15 different types of loofah scrub products alone! Even better is when you let your curiosity lead you into new conversations, new lectures, new seminars, new collaborations; because that’s when like-hearted curiosity really blooms!
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
Expecting a loofah farm/small business to survive off of loofah scrubs alone, would require a longer growing season, more land to grow more vines, and a larger team to help manage and produce scrub products.
This is why we have explored what the entire loofah vine can offer and have ventured into skincare, haircare, tea and gourd products in addition to our various scrub options.
While adding these various products to our inventory has helped our bottom line, a new challenge of storage and licensing is presenting itself. Creating storage for loofah scrubs and loofah tea leaves is a manageable task in and of itself, yet when we add in preparing to apply for a manufacturing food license; things get a little more con-diluted.
One of our short-term goals is to be able to sell our loofah leaf tea wholesale to food services or small businesses who sell their product in retail locations and would use our tea as an ingredient. This license requires heavy evaluation and strict environment parameters to meet the criteria needed to be issued a food manufacturer’s license.
We are working to tackle the storage and environment requirements in the same project timeline and by doing so we will be set up for future collaboration opportunities that involve our edible product options.
One of our long-term goals is to get FDA approval to include key ailment terminology on labeling when it comes to our skincare and haircare products using our loofah seed oil and loofah gourd. Currently there are dozens of pharmaceutical and cosmetic research papers/studies on what is naturally found in various parts of the loofah vine; yet that does not permit us as Loof’n Round Gardens to include this on our labeling.
Tackling this up-hill challenge starts with accomplishing our short-term goal of upgrading and increasing our storage and processing areas to obtain additional licensing. All of which will open up more doors of collaboration and education on behalf of loofah.
Contact Info:
- Website: loofnroundgardens.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loofnround/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoofnRound/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@loofnround
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@loofnround
Image Credits
Julia Donagrandi-Myers of Loof’n Round Gardens
