so we can hello everyone and welcome to living in this queer body a podcast about barriers to embodiment and how our Collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves I mashup injures and as always it's really nice to have you here. I'm pleased to be offering our 27th episode with a very lovely person and I will tell you about it in just A moment as always I typically have an announcement and I have an announcement today part of my announcement is to let folks know who are not already enrolled in receiving my newsletter, which you can do by just going to living in the square body.com and there will be a pop up and you can just put your email address in there. But for those of you who haven't gotten my newsletter my update is that my practices Personal practice private practice is full and so are my one-on-one spots right now. So I'm really focusing on doing that work and trying to sustainably make the podcast happen every other week. If you're interested in helping me to make that more sustainable. I would love a donation. You can either do that through the link in the Notes, or you can go to living in this queer body.com and there is a button that you can click and it says support so that would be great. But in the meantime, I have an offering that is going to be fully announced probably in about a couple of weeks maybe a month and it is going to be a three-month program intensive that It follows the theme of trying to find he's in are fluctuating bodies are often times disembodied bodies are bodies that require patience and care and that is the teaser. I guess the program itself. The details will be coming out soon and about a month, but the structure Is an intimate group of people who commit to working together over the course of three months with me and if that is something that is potentially interesting for you there is going to be a link in the show notes and also a link on my website to sign up for the wait list to find out about the program. It'll be a relatively intimate group and and I think we'll do some amazing work if my workshops and the feeling I get during and after the workshops is any indication of what working more intensively with all of you who are invested in some of the same questions. I am might be then I think it's going to be a really cool experience. So again that waitlists link will be in the newsletter. It'll be on my website and if you have any questions I'll answer them in about a month, but put your name on the list so you can find out more and I want to let you know that during the recording of this episode 27 a relatively loud rain storm began. So hopefully you can listen to this lovely conversation while you also enjoy the winter rain pelting my office window, and I think it's going to be Hopefully not super noticeable. I have a wonderful editor who can do a lot of amazing things with sound but not with the intensity of the rain that was happening this day. So I hope you enjoy the episode. I was really pleased to be speaking with Gloria Noto she and I talked about the power of incubating yourself and your artistic practice Life as a Are first-generation Sicilian activism as identity growing in power during the Detroit Punk scene as a youth and much more Gloria was a really generous and warm guest and I hope you enjoy the episode and learn more about all the things that she's doing Gloria Noto is the founder of Noto botanics a non-binary. Cyril product line you can connect with all things Noto it Noto underscore botanics on Instagram or no tow botanics.com. And if you're in Allah, they now have a flagship store that just opened in Highland Park. So I hope you continue listening continue sending me your feedback sign up for the waitlist to potentially work more intensively with And the spring and thank you as always for your support. So hi, Gloria, thank you so much for joining me. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you. Yeah, me too. I'm really glad we're able to do this and I just want to mention that you are we're talking kind of right around the time that you are. Seeing a really big project which we will get into later are continuing to launch a big project. And so I definitely appreciate you taking the time to chat to chat during its Duvall that frenzy. So I guess you know the way I typically like to start is by asking folks to reflect on some of their earliest memories of being in a body or learning about being in a body like messages you received or anything anything around embodiment and early memories. Yeah II have I have very early memories of both of these things and I think I could answer something for both of the point. Both of the questions made being in a person's my personal body and then me being aware of bodies. I have a Have a much older sister. She's 16 years older than I am and my so as a kid as a very small kid. I like kind of idolized her. She was my bigger sister and she was so cool. And so beautiful and she was she was very different than she is very different than me even still we've been very different ever since I was born but I just kind of remember seeing basically what I mean by that is that she's she's like the traditional sense of what a woman in like a pretty picture I call or like very feminine or some version of a woman very like well, I'm sure Louis long hair big lips, you know, very curvy and I remember as a child can always looking up to her and seeing her beauty and her the way her body was unlike understanding what sexuality was and like all that sort of thing. Like what a body does specifically what the female body can do, too. Ignite reaction towards from from others. That was something I kind of learned in at a very young age and then for myself, I think I kind of realized. That I had a body. I mean, I'm sure that they were earlier memories that I was aware of that. I had a body obviously but that I you know, I had arms or legs or I had this you know, whatever it is. I had eyes I remember staring at myself in the mirror the kid and just like looking through my eyeballs wondering kind of what those were. I looking at my teeth because I had a had a really big gap when I was a kid. Like I still have a gap but when I was a baby it was easy. Is much bigger just like looking at all these body parts and just wondering what they all were. But particularly when I was in I think Fourth grade, I remember I mean, how old are you in 4th grade? Are you like nine? Yeah, something like that ate something like that. Yeah feel like it was maybe I was eight. I was talking to my teacher and I just remember I was wearing like kind of like, oh the kids I was just ringing. It's like a little tight like spandex you sort of shirt and I just remember kind of looking down and realizing that I had boobs. And being so ashamed of it and I like remembering that second crossing my arms like and and being just kind of traumatized and not knowing what to do about it and not knowing what it meant. Really other than I probably should be wearing a bra or something like that from what I had seen, you know, it was my first time realizing that my body was sort of different than You know that differentiation when you start to develop and there was I just remember being really traumatized by it. And that's actually something that's not totally left me as an adult. I mean they're it's really funny because I'm actually piecing it together as we talk. There's like always I get this like wash of discomfort when sometimes not all the time. Like it's just like this very deep deep deep part of me that comes up once in a while or I kind of have this. weird feeling in my body when I when I realized like when I when I sense my like the way my body is shaped or like the fact that I do have breasts are like those sorts of things. It's kind of like this very strange discomfort at the same time. I'm also very comfortable in my body, but I think it's that sort of acknowledgement as a child that I didn't I like I also developed very early as a child. I'm Cecilia and I have a very curvy body as well and I just sort of developed really really quickly. And so I did Different than all my friends at my forever. Even you can still even now I supposed to prefer one of my friends. But yeah, it was just always something that I kind of felt a little uncomfortable with because I had like so much of these things and it sounds like part of the shocking like the you know, I have a daughter who is 10 and you know, I'm it's very your so your story is really like resonant with Has me in a way because it's really striking to me that you part of the shock and like yeah the shock I guess is just you know, a natural like it happens because we are bodies start changing but I think it's all it also sounds like you didn't really have a context at home or a like a space or a dialogue to kind of understand what was happening exactly or to prepare for it or two. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I didn't I had an older sister like I said or have and I also have three older brothers and the youngest of five. Okay. And yeah, and by the time I kind of came around my parents pretty quickly got divorced after that point and for the most snow. Yeah, I mean my mom my mom was I didn't live with my father. So it was just me and my mom and my parents are from Sicily so they I'm first generation and They my mother didn't come from a background where you talked to your children about anything really especially about sexuality or bodies or anything. I had to figure all of it out. I had to figure out like what to do with my period And I got my period I had to figure out how to like get you know, these sorts of fantasies. Yeah. It just wasn't it wasn't that sort of environment for me. So and and basically around that time my My brothers and my sister they all had moved out. So in a sense, I was like an only child it was just me, you know figuring it out. Right and I didn't really know how to figure it out. So I just kind of like, I don't know piece things together like learning to my friends or maybe my sister would like interject here and there but yeah, it was it was it was a very difficult thing for me because I felt so confused about it all and I didn't know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I mean I'm curious to hear sort of you mentioned that some of these feelings like that kind of part of you that you know, nine-year-old part of you still like I don't know experiences some kind of disorientation or shock just at confronting your body at times but it but I wonder what what stands out to you as some of the things that helped you to fill in the gaps as you have become. Adult, you know and like what what is help support you in kind of like creating a story or a narrative about yourself and your body and your sexuality and all of that like what are the yeah. Yeah, I mean So I think what you're asking is like what how did I learn about? Yeah. Yeah, and how what yeah, where did you turn like who? Yeah who helped you what helped you? Yeah, I would say I mean kind of in that typical Sense movies music kind of are you know, like magazines. I read a lot of magazines as a kid. And when you're younger and a lot of ways, you kind of you kind of even still your kind of told. By the popular media of what your body is what it's supposed to do what it's supposed to be for and I think it wasn't until I was a little bit so so basically, you know kind of growing up I felt like seeing my sister being super comfortable with her body very comfortable with her body very comfortable with her sexuality my mother and the same way very comfortable. Well, Our goal in the sense of how to decorate it, I guess and and then, you know reading these magazines and watching these movies. I kind of grew up thinking like women are supposed to be really sexy. Yeah, and so I kind of fell into the place of understanding the power behind that and really really kind of embodied that growing up because you know, you get you get the certain you get this like certain type of attention because of that and you're like reading in these magazines and watching these movies that say this is validation and then right get that validation and then you think that you know what you're supposed to be. So I think it didn't really hit me until I was a little bit older I moved out when I was pretty young. I was just barely 16 when I moved out and I think it didn't hit me until I went to art school and it kind of Hit me at that point when I when I graduated high school, I went to even though I moved out I went to a private school. If I kept I kept going to my high school just because I figured it why not but after graduation, I went to an art school. And that's I think what my my world kind of opened up as far as counterculture and understanding what that meant, you know as far as identity goes or what identity could be. As I was starting to get towards graduation and high school. I was starting to flow into these ways, but I didn't have an outlet. I didn't know those kids. I didn't know where those places were. I just knew that the music I was listening to is starting to move into these countercultures or the you know, and so these different different areas that the kids in my high school my very very small Christian High School one aware of and so when I when I graduated I just Then a exploded I just got really into like the goth and punk scene. And you know, I just was sort of like I just went a little I just went I just went free basically I just started stressing crazy and painting masks on my face and you know wearing just wearing the craziest thing that I would make with my friends or unifying or whatever and Funny enough. I think that's kind of when like my experimenting with what being queer Matt kind of kind of came to be because in a lot of you know in a lot of ways what I was what I was playing with there was very queer, but I just didn't quite realize it yet. I thought it was just like just another form of expression, you know and understand what that expression actually Was but you know really changing the way my body look during that time to like altering everything. I mean piercing and tattooing and just like exposing or not exposing certain things that were very taboo in that sense. That was kind of when I think I really started diving into what my body met, you know in an expression way. We're you Do you feel like you were I mean, it sounds like you keep you've used the word play, you know, like you were really playing with possibilities and stuff. But you know, were you also emulating where there's certain people that you're like, I that's that's who I want to be or you know, I want to be just like that or was that part of it for you? I don't think it was this is kind of in like an ongoing theme in my life where and it's always been very difficult. Me to pinpoint like one specific inspiration. I never I never I kind of envied those that had that in a sense that we're like, I know exactly like this is the thing that I want. This is the thing that I love or this is the thing that I want to be great. Um, I think I was just inspired by so many different things that I was kind of I was just sort of like a Melting Pot of pulling from all those Inspirations and like you know you You hang out with your Crews of friends and you kind of inspire one another and you kind of play off of each other's thing and I think I think because even at that time I was also still very like in insulated with what I was I wasn't I wasn't totally I didn't have like a lot of friends. I didn't do a lot of different things. I kind of had like the few little things that they really like to do, but I did those hard like I really window into those things. So no, it wasn't like there wasn't one particular inspiration. There were so many Inspirations and I think a lot of it did come from music and a lot of it came from art because you know, when at that age around 17, I was like really truly decided that I wanted to be an artist and so I just dope into that experimentation of just playing with as much as I could. Yeah, so it just it kind of all pushed around and came around to different areas and just constantly involved in something new and just you have you had that like I had that like freedom and carelessness to be able to allow myself to think into those different feelings and moods and Inspirations and Lang whims. Basically, you know, where were you doing this? Where was this happening? Like what was the scene? Yeah, I was in Detroit. Yeah, I'm from Detroit originally. So it was a very I don't know if you know too much about that like downtown Detroit, but it's kind of an ideal place for that because especially around the early 90s. I'm sorry the early 2000s around the time when I was hanging out down there. It was it was awesome. I mean it was very experimental very very raw very fun still like very underground still like you didn't, you know, you didn't really know where to go unless you know, you were kind of in the thing, you know in whatever it was that you were in so it was just really dangerous at times but also, Just just kind of just real it was like just actually happening, you know, but in front of your eyes it was free. Obviously pre Instagram free SmartPhone the internet was just sort of, you know, becoming like a bigger thing and you maybe had friends stirs figure livejournal totally, right? Yeah, but like otherwise, you know you were in it you weren't trying to just like create something to post them on on the computer, but we were like living it. Yeah, you feel Nostalgia for that time. I do I ever a lot a lot almost every day really for sure. I mean I had said, you know, I'm going to I'm an adult now and I love you know, I love the things that I do and I'm so grateful that I have the freedom to support my life and support my bigger picture goals for sure, but You know, there's a time there was a time when my my biggest goal was pining to be an artist and what I was going to you know, where I was going to go out to and like what music was it was just too you know, so that's definitely a special time and I do try to incorporate some of those feelings into my life. So I don't feel too detached from it but a time when you didn't care about You know building a business on social media or like yeah, you know, not even that wasn't even a thought in your mind. Like that wasn't even a possibility or you know, just like social media in general or like having to check emails or any of that stuff just being in reality the three-dimensional world. It more. Yeah for sure Atlee. I definitely miss that a little bit but hmm. Okay can't go back. Yeah, I can't go back and also it seems like you know, I mean, I'm curious to hear about maybe how you do feel like you're incorporating some of the really I don't know ask from an aesthetic point of view or whatever like what you are taking from that time and What you learned about yourself and how that is is kind of still present in some ways in your life and business. Wow, for sure. I think you know, there's something really special about incubating yourself in your things that you love, you know, like like your music or your art or whatever like having that silence around you to not be distracted to like easy, but lazy to fraction of moving to check your email or whatever the case is not you know not having that break of flow. So I feel like at that age. I really developed what being in a flow statement because I was really submerged in my art and I you know and like figuring out what my art was for myself or figuring out what I was into in a really submerged myself and so much music. And so much so much so many experiences and so much art and those sorts of things that a lot of what I know now is because of that time I definitely learned, you know, I definitely learn things. I'm very I'm as most people are I'm very curious person. I'm still very interested in learning but the things that really make me make me who I am currently are. Hugely inspired by what I submerged myself into as a kid. I mean my company the Aesthetics of it are spawned because of like my discovering Helmut Lang or discovering ck1 or like, you know what I mean, like kind of discovering these like androgynous ideas of the early 90s and and like so that's something that really has bled through with me or Like the the type of feeling that I try to produce through through a lot of my work has has Beginnings in that sort of time for me as well. But you know, it's just it's just kind of like the thread of what makes you you I'm sure that like there's a lot for yourself to that. You still are very connected to during those times when you were in your, you know, mid-teens or two into your 20s. Because it's just like when you discover your own taste when you discover, you're right what turns you on and you know, yeah what turns your head in a real way and I'm not just kind of what you've been told. You know, what you've been told ya it sounds like a specially powerful for you because of because there's there was some kind of like constriction of emotions and exposure to different things, you know, and Early childhood and so I can imagine and can relate to also actually growing up very religious and myself and in in Missouri and like really kind of going through that period of exposure to whoa the world is way bigger than I thought it was and like I have preferences and tastes and all of this nothing's of and they can see how you know, just kind of like witnessing from afar witnessing your your your business, you know, developing. And I can see the ways that. You know those influences that you're referring to, you know, kind of like that androgynous, you know aesthetic and like the the power of that really does visually connect to a time that that resonates for me too. I'm and so maybe we could talk a little bit about you know, kind of how you got to where you are with your business. And yeah tell folks. Yeah about that and what it's like to be I don't know business owner and a la la It were hey. Yeah, I mean it's it's pretty crazy because when I moved to LA I wanted so I dropped out of art school. I thought I was going to be like a conceptual Furniture designer and I decided I found these leg these books that famous makeup artist coming a Quant he had put these like beautiful makeup looks at where he completely transformed his models. And I was working at a thrift store and that they came up to the register and I was like, my mind was blown. I was like, wait a minute. I can I could do this for a job. Hmm, and I kind of decided like at that moment. I'm dropping at our school. I don't want to be I don't want people to tell me how to make my art I want to but I but I can do this as a job and I know I could do do well at it. So I dropped I didn't drop out are so I just didn't. No, yeah, technically I bet I didn't go back and finish that year and then I didn't I didn't go back but I'm I just started diving into doing makeup. And like I said, I had been doing quite a bit on my own self and my friends and just I was just developing the skill that I knew I actually had and then I decided to go full force. I was doing photo shoots and just really putting all of my energies into creating. This skill. I mean as a kid I should have I should have figured it would go into some Direction like this as a kid. I would run home to watch Twilight Zone and passion TV. This is two things. I watch back-to-back and I so I knew that I had like anything that was a huge influence for me, you know kids living in Michigan watching this shows fashion TV show or was just like Runway after Runway after Runway, and I was just mesmerised by The like imagination behind it all and I and then I became a makeup artist. I was really trying to kind of recreate that feeling for myself. But I knew I had to move out of Detroit to actually make a true career out of it because there really wasn't and isn't a True Market in Detroit for that. So I was like I gotta go and it was in between a few different places. I was broke. I was like Now maybe 21 or 22. I think. Yeah, I think I moved to LA when I was 22 and I almost moved to New York, but I didn't know anyone in New York and you had to like pay a broker fee and and like all these things that I had to move to New York with lots of money, which I didn't have but at the time to move to LA you needed nothing it was time and I was like, you know what? Let me get some sunshine to so you get out of here. And so I moved to LA and I I was working for a Makeup Company time and eventually I left there to go freelance inside with an agency and just started diving into being a true makeup artist in LA and then started going back and forth to New York. So doing the shows and just doing all that cut too many many many years later like 10 years down the line. I was just sort of I was in between that time I was working with some of the best people in the industry and making lots of money as a makeup artist. I couldn't believe that you could make that much, you know that kind of money and really building a name for myself and a technique that people knew and like they knew the hired me that they would get very clean very, you know, whatever aesthetic and I just I just kept getting more and more. Your clients and looking more and more jobs and I just started to become a robot. I should again to autopilot and a few, you know, a few years down the line. I was just like wait what the hell am I doing? Because I'm not doing what I thought I would be doing. You know, like I didn't move to New York. I stayed in LA and it's a very different industry here and I just was like working six days a week and I had the art magazine because I needed to cream. Outlet for myself that was created, but that was also a lot of work. So I was just just a second workaholic basically and even after that point I was like wait, what am I doing? You know even with the magazine I was like losing sight of I think I was just out putting so much for everyone out everyone else. I've been sort of thinking about my own. Yeah creativity, you know my own Inspirations. Yeah, you really doing the opposite of the incubation and the flow stuff like yeah. Yeah exactly. I was very much like just kind of lost. So I just I started to ask myself lots of questions. You know, what was it that I wanted what does inspire me? You know all these are the things I kind of is going through a lot of personal internal changes spiritually like physically health-wise just a lot of different things that I was discovering for myself and it was kind of around the time and I was getting clients that were asking me more and more more like especially specifically celebrity client that were like, I only want a natural I only want organic makeup on me only what vegan makeup on me everyone. But you know, I had one client that went to the extreme of I had to boiled beets to use as a lip stain for them. He's on her like wow, so it was just sort of like what's going on here, you know, and and so I started to develop I sort of just mixing and making my own products to use on models and onset and with and with my clients and and I also love using them on myself because I was I had this crazy crazy. Bowl terrible terrible skin throughout my entire 20s and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was eating, you know, I cleaned up my diet. I was really physically active. I was like doing all the things that my skin was just not not budging and and then kind of almost around 30 years old when I was trimming like, I think it's like 29 I started to really make my own products and I really art of looking at the wellness clean Beauty if you will industry at that time specifically, it's like kind of like the more popularization of it and I was just kind of really bored with it and a little of fun than you know, a little offended by it too because it was extremely prestigious. It was extremely expensive. It was terribly designed and it was catered to you know how chic white women that lived in like Canyon, you know that sort of thing, right and very obviously cisgendered straight and are you know, I was I was I wasn't a lot of those things my friends that also cared about what they were putting on their body weren't those things a lot of people that I knew weren't those things and so that was kind of around the time when I was like, what am I doing with my life? What's my output? What am I working on I care about what's this like Gap in the industry that I feel like maybe I could have you know shift and create a bit of a different platform for and all these sorts of things came together and and I kind of was like, alright. I almost I almost quit this industry and I almost like walked away and just started something totally new and I would maybe I maybe I can put these like ten plus years of Serious experience and to developing a new thing for myself, huh? So a lot of different holes came into play as to why I started my my line and and then I started it and it was it was I was so far. I was I was very fortunate. I obviously came from a background of the industry of those that would want to write about it or want to use it more want to promote it, you know, so I had a lot lot of Leverage in that space and I was using all of that because I really believed that there were no voices for queer identified or you know people of color just so many different places that the queen beauty industry was ignoring, you know, creating a design that felt minimal and clean and didn't need to look like like it was growing out of the ground and that's it. Early with but still having the ingredients that grew out of the ground. So it's just was really well received. I was really and I was I just started it. Honestly like it was just a couple hundred bucks made what I could how I could when I could depending on who's ordering just started out really really really small. I was like making the my kitchen hmm. I mean, I remember flipping a tray over of just made like like like these highlighter pots that I make and I just like highlighter flying everywhere and this I'm sure you could probably still find it on my kitchen if you look deep enough, but like just it was very Grassroots very bootstrap and it just slowly picked up more and more and more and I was slowly been able to like hire a team and slowly able to update my packaging and and then now at this point, you know, we have systems and we have Certifications and we have it's just like it kind of blows my mind to where we're at right now because it's been almost to the day for years and that's kind of flown by a bit quite quite quickly and considering what we've achieved honestly probably the last two years because for the first two years I was still doing makeup full-time and didn't really have much of a team. Team. So in the last like two years we've really turned this company to a serious real functioning company and crazy and now we're opening a store and less than a week. That's amazing. It's yeah quite a story. I mean, it's really it's really cool. And I think part of the reason that I wanted to talk to you and hear your story has to do with the in which you are positioned at the crossroads of this like something that I work or you know around which is the the kind of clean clean / Wellness industry that is very offensive and alienating and creates all sorts of problems and yet there are a lot of people and yet it's also, you know, some of the principles are things that that you know our have like a lot of integrity and really matter and I guess, you know, you're at the crossroads of that and also being queer promoting, you know, like a line of you know, beauty products adornments like for all people. It's like a unisexual kind of thing, you know, and yeah that that just feels like a very interesting intervention for me and clearly to a lot of other people who are Really into your into your line, but has it been hard to kind of I don't know like continually assert or stay stay kind of focused on I don't know like the weirdness or the strangeness or the the kind of like intervention that you're you're doing or engaging in. Well, I mean to be honest. I feel like we could get so much weirder when you get so much finger and we can get so much real with it so much more real with it. I think I don't think it's too difficult for me to do that. I'm I want to do that. I want to push the boundaries even more. I mean, I think that in the beginning I wasn't pushing the boundary enough and I was trying to truly appeal to like everyone than make it feel very like Neutron that sense but I wasn't pushing the boundary where it should be it felt it still felt very like it didn't feel like my true messaging and funny enough. It was like around the time when she come started running for presidency. I was like what the fuck's going on like I gotta I gotta quit doing everything and run an email wrong bra - something. I don't know but that's around that and then I was like, okay, let's relax. What can I actually do and that was when we launched our agenda oil and this is an oil that I made that specifically for like any hair that you decide to grow pubic hair underarm hair like hair. Her head hair face hair whatever hair and it is also our it's a product that we make that we donate a percentage of profits from our direct sales towards rotating organizations and generally a lot having to do with the queer community and I that was a wake-up call for me where I was like stop trying to make everyone happy and push your message even harder, you know. And I think that's like around the time we started using a lot of the models that we use our friends of mine or people that have now become friends of mine. But like it's really started using more trans models or or non-binary models like that specifically for me. I thought it was something we were celebrating enough. And so now that's definitely like a focal point for me and every single photo shoot. I want to include everybody, you know, non-binary trans individuals like cisgender people, whatever you Whatever feels right for the shoe. I want to include everybody and I do so that's kind of that's I feel like there's a lot of Brands out there that are trying to play the gender-fluid rural right now and it's just it's cool that you that you want to include everyone. But like when you come to the top of understanding where that's coming from like who's behind the brand is a you know, is it a person is a corporation? And whatever the case is like what is their belief like where they actually spending their money where they taking money from are they trying to just like kind of pimp out this concept or is this actually something that they truly are embodied in where you know for us that's obviously and I do believe that there are also Brands out there that do embody that for sure but like in addition to us and that's something that we live and breathe. I mean my whole, you know, I would say 90% of my team is queer identified and or very inclusive not only you know in the inventory that we create but also my actual team, you know, and it has to be for me when you claim these things. It's great to be holistic and it works kind of system Noona systematically like streaming into everything that it touches to the so there's like a true authenticity and a real personal message behind it, you know writing great. Yeah, you're I mean you use the word embodiment like you're you're implicated in this and the people that work for you or kind of implicated in these communities part of its, you know part of what you're doing is kind of as you said like Sort of bringing visual awareness to all kinds of bodies and all kinds of ways of adorning those bodies and caring for those bodies but specifically queer trans non-binary people of color that but that is not something that you're kind of like leveraging because that's the new thing in the wellness field or Wellness space home boy. And you know, I mean, it's also like the way I try to do it as also not screaming at you. So there's like there's so many ways of doing it. You know, there's to be extremely like loud about it, which is also cool and fun and exciting to do and that was another thing that I also wasn't really seeing where it was like, Can you can you all can you also swing the other way and have a brand that doesn't need to necessarily scream that how about identifies. Basically, you know what I mean Can it can it also be natural and minimal and we can in that way and also still be very queer, you know, something like I wasn't really seeing a lot of that either because You know the I like I said to you earlier, like I identify in so many different ways even still like I my mood and my my my Inspirations and the way I visually identify myself into the world changes pretty frequently and I kind of wanted to create a brand that felt like it could be a chameleon as well in that sense. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I mean not to be reductive about it, but it's like the difference between slapping like a pride flag on a product or a store window and really like having some of the nuances I think that's what is so interesting to me about in some ways about your kind of your whole project is that it feels very nuanced. I think that it's bringing attention to You have a nuanced ways in which queer all kinds of queer people sir, present themselves or have needs you know, I love it like this oil is for like every kind of hair, you know, wherever it's growing and for whomever it's growing for. Yeah, like yeah, there's just there's a kind of real consideration of the complexity. And as you said the kind of chameleon like nature Of being queer like being queer to me does not is not about a pride flag. That's like so it just feels like the very reductive narrative. Whereas I think what you're you're sort of talking about is this like really? Yeah, like a more expansive and complex Narrative of queerness. Totally. Yeah. I mean and it's like we like we like to say as well like there's a way of kind of creating activism. your identity and we want people to feel like they can do that with with our product because when your when you're buying into my product, it's not necessarily. Yes, it can be you're buying it because it's good and works really well and you like how it smells and feels but you're also supporting the message, you know what I mean? And it's it's like you're supporting the message or supporting you're connecting with what we support as far as like what the agenda soil supports. You know, let's see if it's Planned Parenthood or if it's like lgbtq Center. You know, whatever the cases and you're you're you know, you're supporting a bigger picture and and when you you know, pull the product out and you put it on you may connect with somebody that might be standing nearby and they you know also connect with that message or they know what that product is, you know what I mean? Right and and I want people to feel like empowered because of that and I want them to feel connected to something that they're buying. Not only for practical reasons, but for personal reasons and maybe even political reasons or you know, whatever whatever that kind of resonates with for them on a real level. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So, you know, we're about out of time. I want to ask you one more question and then we'll get to kind of how people can find out about you and your products and all that. But I guess if we could go back to that like nine eight or nine year old version of you. Is there something that you would want to say to that kiddo now looking back knowing all the things that you know now like when there's so many things about you think you'd want to I would I would probably try to tell myself to learn. how to love love that body and and feel good in that body and and not be embarrassed to that body, you know as soon as I could because there is definitely like many many years where I was pretty abusive to my body and if I could somehow You know open up my eyes to let myself know that it doesn't matter, you know, like the things that when your kid these little nuances that you like. Oh my God, my butt's big if he end of the world or whatever the cases, you know, because the world is telling you if you have a big butt that you don't literally quite literally don't fit in but it doesn't actually matter. It's not that big of a deal and if I could If I Could Teach myself pain that I feel like it's a big of a deal as I made it out to be I probably could have saved myself many many years of stress as a child and like connect to my body in a spiritual loving way, you know, like if I could have taught myself how to Care for my body and love it and treat it truly like a temple as some may say I would like to do that for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that and now we get to talk about how people who are listening can find out about you and everything you do. What's what's new. Yeah, like I kind of hinted that we're opening a store in Highland Park in Los Angeles enough. Days, and that's going to be really fun. It's going to be obviously a no toast or but then I have a selection of personally curated other items that I really love and a lot of makers are POC or queer identified and excited about sharing space for events and community and those sorts of things. So definitely inspired your ears open for that. Yeah, and then there's obviously You can find Noto botanics online all over the place on Instagram Facebook and all those things. Yeah, so those would be think the main things keep your eyes out looking for great. Well, I'm really excited for the people listening who don't already know about all your what you're doing to check it out. And and yeah, yeah again just really appreciate you being here and kind of sharing your story and gets especially poignant for you know people who can relate to this sort of like professional jerk professional creative Journey that you've taken I think it's really helpful to hear stories about people who ask themselves questions. Like what do I really want to be doing now? And I just became robot and now I'm like this reflecting on that and how those kinds of Reflections can actually lead to more clarity about things that you want. Yeah. Yeah, so it just I'm really struck by that and I really appreciate you sharing that so thank you always gotta do is get a check in with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Maybe maybe maybe.
Gloria and I talk about the power of incubating yourself in your artistic practice, life as a queer first generation Sicilian, activism as identity, growing in power during in the Detroit punk scene and much more. Gloria was a generous and warm guest and I hope you enjoy this episode. Gloria Noto is the Founder of NOTO botanics - a non binary natural product line. You can connect with all things Noto at noto_botanics or notobotantics.com. If you are in LA, Noto now has a flagship store in Highland Park. Enter promo code for a discount on your Noto botanics order: queerbody10  LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com  @livinginthisqueerbody  The Host:  Asher Pandjiris Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator  WAITLIST for LITQB Program Intensive  SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody  Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris  ---   Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/asher-pandjiris/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/asher-pandjiris/support 