Taking great care of her skin was instilled in Romina Takimoto from a young age while growing up in Honolulu, Hawaii. “It’s just a part of Korean culture,” she says. “My grandmother taught my mother and then my mother taught me.”
In the early 2000s, she moved to St. Paul to attend Macalester College and created a career here. Romina practiced occupational therapy for eight years and developed a holistic sense of health and wellness.
During this time, she discovered a passion for Western herbalism, and started experimenting with making her own natural medicines and topicals right in her own kitchen after learning in depth about “all these beautiful medicinals growing right in our backyards.”
“Through apprenticeships and personal exploration, I learned that certain plants are very powerful and can transform the health of skin,” she says. “I started going out in nature and foraging for herbs, drying the herbs, building a relationship with the plants, and incorporating the herbs into formulations.
“In 2016, I had really bad cystic acne with scarring, and since my skin produces more melanin, I also had these dark spots. The first product I ever made was Restore Oil Serum, which is a formula with seven different plant infusions of potent herbs like yarrow, plantain, comfrey and St. John's Wort.”
Romina began using this formula – which she says also smells earthy and grounding – to treat her acne. “My skin regenerated, and if you were to look at me today, although I still have some minor indentations, which are a little bit harder to repair, the dark scars have completely gone away.”
She decided to share her knowledge and products with others, and founded ROMI Apothecary in 2017. “I discovered that there was a yearning for people to connect to their bodies and to their health. There were and are a lot of products out there, but they focus more on treating rather than having a deeper connection with nature and with the plant-based ingredients in the bottle.
“To heal is not one dimensional. It's not about what products are used, but instead, it’s looking at what the bigger picture is of your health, your habits and your routines, and how those products fit into that larger, holistic picture.”
The ingredients used in all her products are grown by farmers in the region. “Through my herbalism community, I've made relationships with small farmers who own their own land and cultivate using permaculture and biodynamic farm principles,” says Romina. “It's all about seeing how plants relate to each other and the entire ecosystem, so there really is a holistic approach there as well. And these farmers truly love their land. These are not big GMO-based farms. These farmers are tilling their own land, hand-harvesting and hand-drying the herbs with utmost care.”
Today, ROMI Apothecary has a small manufacturing studio in St. Paul. Here, they have a production space with a laboratory, a shipping warehouse and multiple workstations.
Consumers can order the products right from the ROMI website, and have them shipped all over the country. They can also be found in retail locations around Minneapolis and beyond.
“I’m really proud of my staff,” she says. “We process everything in-house and our products are all handcrafted with scientific precision. We respect the core integrity of the plants and infuse our positive energy and respect for nature and our community within the products.”
In addition to the Restore Oil Serum, two of her other favorite products are the Reishi Tide Hyaluronic Acid Serum and the Earthly Cleansing Oil. “The cleansing oil is an oil-to-soap product. It washes off and really dissolves makeup, sunscreen, and anything that's collected on your skin throughout the day. The magic of this cleanser is that in the spring, when the spruce tips start to bloom and wake up, we go out and wild harvest these flexible young tips and infuse them into an oil that eventually goes into the cleanser.”
Reishi Tide, she says, is an industry game changer. “It's a hyaluronic acid serum and compared to other hyaluronic acids on the market, we have one of the higher concentrations of the active ingredient at 2.5%. Most are less than 1% or a maximum of 2%. Hyaluronic acid serum is a huge component of optimal skin hydration.”
In the future, Romina hopes that ROMI will become a national household name for natural skincare. “We've been quite local to Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs, which I love, but I would love to see our products in boutiques and spas across the nation. One of my passions is product formulation, so being able to foray into more spa-specific formulations, like exfoliators or masks, is an exciting prospect.”
She adds, “ROMI is reaching an audience that appreciates high-end luxury skincare with very transparent ingredients and ways of processing those ingredients.”
Romina is very happy about what she’s been able to accomplish so far. “I'm proud that I was able to grow and establish a business based on my personal journey of transformation and my passion in life. And, I did it all while working full-time at other jobs.”
