Women In Wellness: Jessica Sheppard & Rhaelyn Gillespie of Taurah on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Don’t second guess yourself. There have been a few times early on when we didn’t think an idea was “good enough”. We are now finding confidence in our ideas and how we execute them. Now we make it an effort to trust our intuition.
As a part of our series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Sheppard & Rhaelyn Gillespie, Founders of Taurah.
Taurah is a Canadian-Made and female-founded brand that locally produces all-natural wellness products. Founded by Jessica and Rhae (your new wellness BFFs!) the brand is super transparent about their ingredients — think vegan, cruelty-free, synthetic-free and alcohol-free.
Taurah is committed to producing products that make you feel good and do good! One of their best-selling products is their natural Yoga Mat Cleanser, a product that washes away your last workout with a few little spritzes. Fact: Untreated yoga mats have 100,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter on your mat, and this multiple every single day you don’t clean your mat! Taurah also curated the perfect multi-use wellness essentials, including a Calming Mist, Cooling Mist, Face Mask Mist and Zinc Sunscreen Stick.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
This is our favorite question! This all started when we met working at a tech start-up in Toronto. It was here when we got to learn from other entrepreneurs who pursued their passions for creating and selling online. Early 2020 when the world shifted to working from home, we also started working out from home and had this crazy idea for a Yoga Mat Cleanser as we (very) quickly came to question why we were cleaning + disinfecting just about everything around us but not our yoga mat. Since we both come from a sales background and knew how to start an ecommerce business, we decided to create Taurah! Since then, we have continued to create beautiful, natural, and carefully curated wellness essentials.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Everyday is a marathon of sorts, but we had a (now) funny story when we first began. Getting your first product just right is near impossible, and we went back-and-forth for hours upon hours on the label, the ingredients, the concept, the branding, the design, and even the brand name. I texted Jess and was like “you are a Taurus, I am a Libra, but it needs an h. Taurah”, and our business was born!
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In full transparency, mistakes happen and it’s a hard pill to swallow when you are putting your all into something. We received our Taurah bottles once that didn’t stand up, as in the bottoms weren’t levelled and they fell over, which obviously was unacceptable.
We kept the bottles for product testing and contacted our manufacturer right away to address the situation. This was already after we tested these specific bottles and were about to launch with them! The next batch we received the sprays didn’t work, so we repeated the formal complaint process, and we were losing hope, but we had never found another bottle with a mist as nice as ours. We gave it another try, and the third batch we received were all perfect, every last one of them. Third time’s the charm as they say!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There are so many people who come to mind but there is one mentor who we recently connected with who continues to give us the confidence to keep moving forward with our ideas and pushes us to think outside the box. Surround yourself with people who lift you up, and who can teach you by challenging you.
Ok perfect. Now let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
When it comes to health and wellness we know that wellness looks different to everyone. Some days it may be a long walk, other days it may be a yoga class or a HIIT workout and some days maybe it’s just a call to a friend — whatever makes YOU feel good mentally and physically, that’s what wellness is all about.
When it comes to Taurah this is what we preach. We intentionally create products that make you feel good and use only natural, premium ingredients that are good for our skin and for the environment.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
Start your day with a morning walk. Listen to a podcast, audio book or just your breath. With repetition, you’ll notice how impactful something as simple as a walk can be for your mental state.
This probably won’t be news to anyone, but drink water! And when you think you’ve had enough — drink more! Our bodies and our minds work better when they are hydrated.
We are big list people. If you’re like us, your list seems to never end and some days it feels like you’ve accomplished nothing even when you’ve been working all day. We started categorizing our list into “daily musts” with our top 3 priorities each. This leaves us feeling satisfied at the end of the day and feeling like we are moving the needle on everything we want to accomplish.
Journal when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Heck, journal when you’re feeling happy, sad, angry and grateful too, but we found that as females who are trying to wear multiple hats, taking a breath and putting pen to paper does give us a fresh perspective.
Never stop learning. Whether you listen to a podcast, audio book or read, make the effort to dedicate time to this every day because you never know where your inspiration will come from next or what you might learn about yourself.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Creating a product line that embodies everything we believe in. Providing the tools to incorporate your own rituals into your day, and celebrating your choice of movement would be the type of wellness community we want to create.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Don’t second guess yourself. There have been a few times early on when we didn’t think an idea was “good enough”. We are now finding confidence in our ideas and how we execute them. Now we make it an effort to trust our intuition.
- Start now, don’t delay. You are going to learn so much once you get started, most of which you really can’t prepare for. As much as you want to nail it on the first try, you honestly just need to execute, learn, iterate, and keep moving.
- Connect with other founders. Don’t be afraid to message anyone and ask for a brainstorming session or to collaborate. Always be respectful of people’s time and more confidential parts of their business, but this is a great way to learn.
- Everything is ‘figure-out-able’. Seriously, we face a curve ball a day and we just figure it out. You’d never know from the outside looking in, but we have panicked moments and we just buckle down, and figure them out.
- If not you, then who? You have the idea, desire, work ethic, passion, so why can’t it be you that makes this business come to life? At the end of the day, we want everyone to win, and we believe in you!
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health. When we say wellness looks different for everybody, we also want to stress that every day looks different as well. No two days are the same and it’s important we establish rituals in our days to bring us to the present moment. We thrive on routine and having wellness essentials like our Yoga Mat Cleanser to remind you to clean your space or our Lavender Calming Mist to spray your pillow before bed immediately puts you into the present moment.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook at @shoptaurah !
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Thank YOU!
Women In Wellness: Jessica Sheppard & Rhaelyn Gillespie of Taurah on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.