From culinary experts to holistic healers, edible lovers and beyond, the LĒVO Love Club community is what makes our small business so knowledgable and special.
As part of a recurring series, we’re shining a spotlight on infüsiasts to share their tips, tricks & infusion journeys. This month, we talked to Tara V. and Evey C., biochemistry college friends who started a business and use LĒVO to teach others about herbal infusion for their company, Juicy Hemp Co.
"Our mission is to create a space in the Flower industry for women. We are helping women take control of their Flower experience by creating fun, engaging, and educational content."
We spoke with Juicy Hemp Co about how they got started, how LĒVO has impacted their process, and their favorite products for their lifestyle.
Read our interview with Tara and Evey below!
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business.
Hello! We are Tara Velasquez and Evey Casparis and we are two halves of a whole, Juicy Hemp Co. We are best friends from college that met in the Biochemistry program at Texas State University. And when we say best friends, we mean matching wizness outfits every Wednesday (Women’s Owned Business-Casual, of course), matching water bottles, and matching class schedules.
While we love science with all our hearts, our experience in the STEM program was very competitive, stuffy, and rigid. We were far more interested in serving fierce looks, learning about women’s owned businesses, and positively impacting those around us through chatting it up!
We were OBSESSED with finding a way to apply science to real-life situations instead of leaning over a lab bench for 13 hours straight to maybe find a cure to cancer one day. Do we become naturopaths? Do we sell scientific equipment? Do we become cosmetic chemists and get free shampoo for life? All of it seemed to fall through, but the only constant was that we were a package-deal no matter what.
We now run a Flower accessories and lifestyle brand called Juicy Hemp Co., where we are all about creating gorgeous experiences with herbs and steering women in the right direction when it comes to choosing products that are right for them!
"We want to show people how they can creatively add herbs into their every day lives, and creating infusions with our LĒVO is the perfect way to do this."
How did you get started with infusion?
About a year out of college, we were having a hard time finding Flower products that we enjoyed. Since smokable Hemp was legalized in 2018, we started seeing Hemp flower in stores. That was a CRAZY feeling at the time (this was in 2020) since all forms of Flower were so demonized in our state during our entire upbringing.
I came across LĒVO on Instagram, and thought OMG, how cool would it be to make C-D infused massage oil!? Wait, we could also make C-D infused treats! We decided to take the plunge and order our little yellow LĒVO II machine and make our dreams come true.
What was your first experience with LEVO like?
Our first experience with our LĒVO machine was really surreal for a couple of outlaw Texas gals! C-D Flower had just started showing up at local shops and we were so grateful to have a machine that felt totally ahead of its time.
The first infusion we made was a C-D infused coconut oil, and we used this for everything. I’m talking muscle rub, hair mask, body moisturizer, you name it. It was so amazing to be able to take our C-D experience into our own hands and really know exactly where our infusion came from. The machine’s design down to the cute yellow color made the entire experience vibrant, fun, and exciting!
How did your thriving business come about? Shoutout to a sister WBE, Juicy Hemp Co.!
Juicy Hemp Co. was born through our nightly smoke seshes on Evey’s back porch, where we chatted about everything imaginable and designed our dream lives. During this time, Tara was working as a bartender and Evey was on the Research and Development team for a company that designs supplements for expecting and existing mothers (also women-owned!).
We knew there had to be something more to life than showing up every day somewhere we didn’t necessarily want to be, just for a paycheck and hopefully a little weekend fun.
During our seshes (which literally became a lifeline for both of us), we realized the Flower accessories we were using did NOT match our style! And to add even more of a vibe kill, there were really no stores near us that we felt catered to gals like us.
We decided to create the Essentials Collection, which includes everything you need to roll a joint on the go! The Essentials Collection is quite literally our dream collection of smoke accessories that we wished we could find in stores. We also curate vintage collections of rolling trays, ash trays, and stash jars to pair with the Essentials Collection so you can seamlessly and beautifully display your stash in your home.
Through LOTS of trial and error and dedication, we were able to establish Juicy Hemp Co. as a Flower lifestyle and accessories brand for the girlies!
Our mission is to create a space in the Flower industry for women. We are helping women take control of their Flower experience by creating fun, engaging, and educational content like our How to Roll a Joint Youtube video and our podcast, High Tea: The Sesh, where we roll one up and chat about the ins and outs of Flower.
We are essentially creating our own matrix for all things Flower to help women navigate the craziness of the industry to make better choices when it comes to choosing products that fit their lifestyle.
How has your business been impacted since starting to use your LĒVO?
Since we started using our new adorable pink LĒVO C machine, we feel that our business has become exactly what we envisioned. When we first met, Evey was really into baking and invited me over once to smoke and bake healthy desserts.
When we first started Juicy Hemp Co., we knew we eventually wanted to create a cute and fun baking show called “BAKED!”. We had a pretty rocky road in the beginning with finding a bank that would work with us, getting blocked when attempting to run ads, and being denied from receiving funding for our business (we didn’t know people were beefing with Hemp so badly, geez!)
Having the opportunity to use a LĒVO machine in our BAKED! episodes is truly a dream come true. We want to show people how they can creatively add herbs into their every day lives, and creating infusions with our LĒVO is the perfect way to do this. We are incredibly excited to uncover more herbal magic with LĒVO and shout our findings over the mountain tops so everyone has a chance to create similar experiences in their own lives!
How has having a LĒVO made your life easier? Any unexpected benefit you experienced?
Being able to just throw some herb into the pod, add some coconut oil, and push a couple buttons was a LUXURIOUS feeling! Trying to figure out the whole decarboxylation situation was confusing and frustrating even for a couple STEM queens that understand the theory behind the process.
We didn’t want to waste whatever herb we had by burning it up in a conventional oven, so in college we just stayed away from infusions and let the sketchy guys down the street handle it.
Being able to cut the sketchiness out of creating herbal infusions with a fun little yellow machine was really life changing! It has allowed us to become more creative and diverse with our herbal consumption with endless ways to introduce more healing herbs into our lifestyles.
Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Something that we want to emphasize is that while we love the world of Flower, there are so many other herbs that have amazing benefits that we believe can impact people’s well-being in a positive way. It is so important to diversify your herbal consumption in a way that works for the individual.
"Some people’s bodies react horribly to Flower, but might really love an herb like Chamomile! It’s all about figuring out what your body well to and implementing different herbs for different results."
For example, we LOVE to infuse chamomile and lemon balm in some milk to add to a sleepy night time tea or to bake into some before-bed cupcakes.
All herbs are not made the same, which is why the LĒVO is such an important machine to have in your herbal tool kit. With the power to make your own infusions, you are able to customize your herbal experience instead of being forced to use whatever other people are using.
Using a LĒVO is a great way to participate in the world of herbs even if you are not interested or able to consume Flower. Everyone deserves to feel good inside and out, so thank you, LĒVO, for creating the opportunity for people to explore the realm of herbs!
Connect with Juicy Hemp Co:
Website: https://juicyhemp.co/
Instagram: @juicyhempco
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