People! While there is a lot of love and peace in this season, it’s also the season of mayhem and chaos as we rush around trying to find just the right gift for each and every person we love. If you’ve got a girl, and she’s got her ears pierced (or wants to in the near future), then tune in!! My dear friend Louisa Serene Schneider recently started a business that is all about gifting girls with much more than just adorable earrings. Louisa is thoughtful and smart, and it’s no surprise she came up with such a super cool idea. The brand offers nurses to do at-home piercings, and once you subscribe, each month you receive a package with earrings (designs that are age appropriate) and some very wise words that are curated by therapist Cristina Young (my favorite featured on the blog here and here). The content is meant to be a conversation starter, so your young lady can delve into some meaningful topics with you or her friends. Get on it and order soon so you can have a box under the tree for your little lady. It’s also a great idea for a grandparent/relative who can’t get to the store, or lives far away. Order online!!
Q&A with Rowan Founder Louisa Serene Schneider:
What is Rowan?
Rowan is a Tween lifestyle brand focused on honoring and celebrating tween milestones. We’ve started with ear piercing and healthy earrings for tweens. We design and make all of our earrings – nickel free and hypoallergenic, and we only hire experienced pediatric nurses who have great experience with kids (and adults!), with all things piercing and health related. We only pierce ears and we use the safest and gentlest piercing materials that exist!
Rowan (county NC) is where my mom and all of my aunts grew up – all of them are doctors or nurses and they all inspired me to start Rowan. At Rowan we are creating new job opportunities for amazing nurses, who also serve as Rowan brand ambassadors.
The Rowan tree stands for protection, wisdom, and guidance. Also called the “traveler’s tree,” the vibrant red berries were long thought to be a magical guidepost for adventurers. Some cultures also believed Rowan trees were a portal into other worlds. The name Rowan perfectly encapsulates our purpose: to be a guiding, empathetic, and empowering resource for tweens and parents in their journeys towards adulthood.
Why did you create this brand?
As a Mom, I knew I didn’t want to take my daughter to Claire’s. I also didn’t want to take her to the pediatrician’s office because then ear piercing wouldn’t feel special, it would just feel like another shot! Dr. Nancy Fazzinga helped me and inspired me by talking to me about her own experience doing house calls and making ear piercing special for girls. She assured me that nurses were experts with needles and wound care and could be expert piercers. They also know how to handle anxiety or fear that girls might experience at the moment of piercing. Dr. Fazzinga is amazing but not every community has access to such a talented and caring pediatrician willing to do house calls! However, every community in the US has talented, fantastic nurses who may not want to take a second shift at the hospital, and who are trained to make your daughter’s ear piercing moment as safe as it is celebratory. With the increase in allergies being able to control the environment and have family and friends attend makes an at home piercing super fun. Another huge part of Rowan is mindfulness.
Cristina Young and I have known each other for years but it was her inspiration to incorporate mindfulness into each month of Rowan that really inspired me to link the experience side of Rowan (Ear piercing) with product (The Rowan Earring Box!). Each month, Rowan designs a surprise earring, and Cristina Young writes mindfulness content for a girl and her grownups (or for a girl and her friends) to share together. Rowan and Cristina then supplement that mindfulness content (which comes on a collectable card in the box) with a longer blog where Cristina includes links to content that she uses to guide her parenting sessions. Overall, Rowan incorporates LOTS of content and product and hopes to come into a girls life when she is learning to take care of herself on the outside AND on the inside.
“We created Rowan to serve as an adventure guide, helping girls feel heard and celebrated as they grow up. Starting with super cute and high-quality accessories, Rowan allows girls to tap into their superpowers through self-expression and conversation. That’s why every box includes not only our special earrings, but also a collectible conversation card with a meaningful symbol and thought-provoking questions.
New to earrings? Rowan is also here to celebrate the piercing milestone; partnering with registered nurses across the country to create piercing experiences as safe as they are special.”
Who is your ideal client?
Our ideal client is a girl/mom/grandparent/dad, who want to create a memorable, wonderful, unique experience for their daughter, and who understand that ear piercing does not stop with the piercing. The year of healing and aftercare that follows is critical for a successful outcome! Almost 30% of piercings result in infection which is why Rowan nurses are empowered with aftercare instructions that they give every girl and her grown ups, and Rowan has a nurse hotline and nurses can come back and check on girls. Rowan piercing earrings also have special backs that are sealed at the end so the back cannot get embedded in the ear (which sadly happens to a lot of girls!)
What are you hooping to instill in girls?
At rowan we want to focus on mindfulness and celebrating the NOW. We want to instill confidence in a girls voice and empower her to celebrate the moment and herself and to think about her own health and wellness. Taking care of ourselves allows us to take care of others. Having information and being educated is very liberating for girls. For so long, the brands that sold to our girls were not focused on health and well being and education. At Rowan, that is our core.
What are the topics you think girls most need to lean into at this age level?
Mindfulness, Health and Wellness, they should be empowered to know how and why their bodies are changing and they should be empowered to understand how the products available to them might affect them. With earrings for example, a girl can develop an allergy to nickel or other metals at any time and therefore proactively choosing to exclusively wear hypoallergenic earrings is a proactive decision that will hopefully prevent irritation and negative outcome in the long run.
Where can people find you?
People can find us at heyrowan.com! or on IG at @heyrowangirl
What’s next for Rowan?
We are DELIGHTED to be pursuing more partnerships with existing brands like Athleta and Ever After and Rockets of Awesome. Stay tuned also for Rowan stores! In terms of next milestones, think ‘healthy skin’ and an amazing skin care regimen manufactured in a facility that has the highest standard for organic/health – and the thought is to begin a regimen that does not tax a girls delicate endocrine system and builds her awareness of what is in her products from a very young age. Our nurses can speak to this from the perspective of a health and wellness expert.
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