Our Story
BLUSHED BY FIVE’S FOUNDER
Our founder Shanali is a qualified bio-chemist who has always had a keen fascination with understanding the active ingredients in beauty products. An avid label reader she has always insisted on understanding what goes into making a good beauty product and why they work.
Shanali isn’t only very scientifically minded, she has a strong spiritual background as well. Born in the UK but with familial ties to Sri Lanka, Shanali grew up learning about her Buddhist roots. Spending childhood summers exploring ancient Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka with her relatives has led Shanali to find comfort and balance in Buddhist teachings and traditions. In particular, Buddhist meditation practices and mindful techniques and philosophies have helped her to rediscover balance and peace in her adult life.
Shanali holds an internationally recognised CIDESCO diploma in beauty therapy, specialising in facial therapies and has worked in clinical settings around the world in roles requiring her to learn, understand and teach the science behind many beauty techniques.
She’s also no stranger to high-intensity, high-stress, corporate work environments; the journey to creating the Blushed By Five brand started in such a place. Disillusioned with the burn-out culture in the corporate world Shanali changed career to work in the beauty industry – one area of business that was definitely more focused on true physical and mental wellbeing. Her desire to help women find space in their days for themselves stems from very real first-hand experience of NOT being able to find that time for herself.
On a personal search to find ways of dealing with stress and negative thought patterns Shanali reached out to Mind charity and back to her Buddhist roots and familiar meditation practices to rediscover a positive frame of mind. The benefits she gained from these resources still resonate strongly and Shanali has made the choice to make sure a portion of all Blushed By Five profits are donated to Mind.
SHANALI’S JOURNEY
“Taking time out for yourself doesn’t mean that you’re being selfish, or not doing enough. We all need that moment – to still our busy mind; to allow ourselves to nurture our minds and freely connect to who we truly are, without judgement or feelings of shame and guilt. Only then will we be able to blossom into happier and more beautiful versions of ourselves."
CREATING BLUSHED BY FIVE
Having invested time into recovering a positive mental state and a balanced lifestyle, Shanali’s next challenge was to maintain it. Not wanting to disrupt the course of daily life unduly she began searching for a way to incorporate moments of mindfulness into her daily routines.
Using her extensive beauty industry experience and wealth of knowledge of eastern massage (Gua Sha) and meditative and practices Shanali began to design the Luma Rose facial massage crystal as a tool to help her build mindfulness into her daily skin routine. Selecting Rose Quartz for its beauty, symbolism and energy potential, Shanali designed the Luma Rose’s floral shape through a process of observation of the effects of various facial massage treatments on clients and her own personal experience of the benefits to her skin and complexion.
Having used it on herself she quickly realised the significant benefits using the tool was providing her both mentally and physically. With this realisation came the knowledge that if this simple addition to her skin routine could help her then perhaps it could help other people as well. Particularly, if it was paired with natural and effective beauty products.
And so Blushed by Five was born…