I was born in Toronto to British parents. I had a rich childhood. My dad was an artist and my mom was an astrologer, herbalist and student of mysticism. We traveled in Mexico before settling in LA, where I grew up around a cast of musicians, artists and weirdos. I live in Echo Park, Los Angeles and I am a practitioner of Bach flower remedies and homeopathy. I have a product line of flower remedies called Alexis Smart Flower Remedies. 

Flower Remedies and homeopathy are vibrational medicine. They treat the whole being, mind, body and emotions. If one of those areas are wounded, we become stuck and the natural self-healing mechanism becomes inhibited. Dr. Edward Bach, who discovered flower essences, believed all illness begins in the emotions/spirit and he found that if you can heal the underlying emotional condition, the body will heal itself. The 38 flower essences he discovered do just that. This is the opposite of how we normally think healing goes. We all think “Oh, if only I didn’t have this physical pain, I could be happy!” With flower remedies, you discover that you can feel free and happy now, before your body is pain free and perfect, before your life is a success. You learn that you can return to joy without all the conditions you place on your own happiness.

Homeopathy is a 200 year old science based on the principle of "like cures like.” This means you give a small amount of a substance which would cause the same symptoms if given in a higher dose. This stimulates the immune system to overcome the imbalance. Homeopathy is truly a miracle medicine. If you doubt how a tiny amount of something could be so powerful, you only need to be given the right remedy when you are very sick to become a believer. That is what happened to me and why I became a homeopath.

How did you get started creating your passion into this career?

I had two major illnesses, once at 4 and one at 27, that were cured with herbs and homeopathy, and I believe those experiences planted the seeds of my future career. The first illness was in Mexico. My parents had wanted to travel as a family before we started school. We stayed in Oaxaca and all around there, living in small villages with Indians. At some point I got sick with a very high fever (over 105). I told my mother I was going to die and not to worry. My mother, of course, freaked out and went looking for a doctor. There were no doctors where we lived and it was a Sunday, everything was closed. She went all around the town square asking for help and was finally led to a man who had a room lined with jars of herbs and a chalkboard with Gurdjieff quotes on it and she knew she was in the right place. He brought me a large jar of pink tea made form plants and within a few hours my fever was gone and I was back to normal…from then on I wanted to help people.

Throughout my childhood, my mom made all her own herbal medicines and taught me so much about healing and I was always interested in it. At 15 I fell into modeling and did commercials. I did this for years, but I was unfulfilled and ashamed of not following my real purpose. I wanted to be a writer and did write, but something else was calling to me. In 1999 I got very sick in Egypt with a mystery illness, which I later learned was likely malaria. For five years I got frequent fevers of 104 and I had become weak and depressed. After the failure of allopathic medicine to diagnosis or cure me, I found a homeopath. He gave me one dose of a remedy and I never got another fever again! Then I found flower remedies, which in one month, not only cured me of panic attacks but brought back my confidence and healed years of grief and shock I had suffered from. This was when I knew I had found my life’s work.

Can you tell us a little more about your line of products and who they are meant for?

The flower remedy formulas developed after years of treating people one on one. I saw such amazing results with my clients, I wanted to offer these benefits to the world. Each formula contains seven different flower essences and they are designed to treat current conditions as well as remove old traumas that may be the cause. They are meant for everyone, men, women and children. I wanted to create a very practical product for real issues like heartbreak, lack of confidence, anger, ADD. I wanted them to be accessible to “normal” people (not just hippies), who may not be open to alternative medicine, so the language I use is very straightforward, so it’s easy to recognize your self in the descriptions and find the right remedy. I wanted the human condition to be represented in these formulas. I do believe the collection is almost complete.

How do you create beauty and stillness in your daily life?

I am a homebody and I love to beautify my house. I put flowers in my room and play music and create a mood. Los Angeles can be quite chaotic and challenging to my nervous system (probably why I stay home a lot), so there is a constant need to consciously maintain the inner stillness and calm. I have been doing yin yoga (holding poses for 3-5 minutes), feldenkrais and go to ballet class a few times a week.

What are 3 Bach Flower remedies that you think every woman should have handy?

Of the 38 essences, cerato, crab apple and holly. Cerato is for connecting to your intuition…when we need it we ask everyone else what we should do, we go against our inner voice, we feel lost and don’t know who we are, compare ourselves to others. Cerato gives you the best advice because it gives you the truth for you, and this is indisputable. It also helps you to feel comfortable with who you are, how to dress, how to love being your self. Crab apple is for feeling unattractive and picking your self apart physically, focusing on small imperfections and magnifying them all out of proportion. This is the disease of our age. Crab apple helps you see the beauty in the whole and not get hung up on insignificant details. Holly because it’s the king of remedies. It is for love. In the presence of love, there can be no jealousy, fear, mistrust, greed, anger, hatred, depression…it’s a cure all!

What has been the most rewarding aspect of learning the energetic properties of plants and flowers?

Being able to help others. For myself, it has taught me not to get too attached to negative traits in myself, because now I know it is just a state I’m in, rather than a fixed thing. When you take remedies for uncomfortable emotions like jealousy or being critical and feel those conditions leave, not only does it feel good, but it teaches you something about your self and you become more brave in facing your shadow side.

What do you see most women are having difficulty with nowadays? Is there a theme?

There is a theme, or two…one is not trusting their intuition and the other is blaming themselves for everything. I talk about it in the paragraph above. As women, we are so intuitive and sensitive, psychic even. To me, it is a crime to make someone doubt their intuition, but it can happen so easily. Once we ignore our intuition a few times, we can lose our connection to it. I see many women who do not trust their own wisdom and intuition. They go against their inner knowing and get into terrible situations, usually romantic partnerships, that take years of their lives and vitality and take them away from their real purpose in life. I prescribe Pine a lot, for guilt and self blame…often after a Cerato imbalance, we make a bad decision, then we blame ourselves for why we are being treated badly. We have endless compassion for the suffering of others but never for ourselves. We go around and around thinking of how we could have done things better. Compassion and empathy are wonderful, but not at our own expense.

What woman epitomizes beauty and grace for you?

I love Lauren Hutton

What do you draw inspiration from?

Ballet, nature, brilliant people, funny people, travel, great books, food, Greece. I think food is beautiful and that cooking is such an amazing art form. What other form of art can you actually ingest and make part of your own cells? I go to the farmers market the way others go to museums. An heirloom tomato or a bunch of fresh herbs can inspire me.

What’s your favorite self-care ritual?

I love going to the Korean hot springs. Sometimes I just soak and sometimes get a body scrub.

How have flowers shaped your life?

They have become my life…they are markers in time. Rather than remembering a season or a year, I will think back to when I took a flower remedy. "Oh, that’s when I was taking Agrimony and started speaking my mind” or “That’s when I took Wild Oat and changed my career."

What is most inspiring you at the moment in the beauty and wellness movement?

First of all it’s inspiring that there is even a big green beauty and wellness movement and it’s not just for a few health nuts. And that people are finally seeing the connection between beauty and wellness. I love that people want to learn how to heal themselves on all levels and that beauty is being seen as more of a reflection of all this deeper healing that is going on. People are so open to new information right now.

What is your definition of beauty?

When someone is truly themselves and not trying. I am so turned off by self consciousness. The forgetting of the self, not in a self-denial way, but in a way where you are so inspired and full of life that you don’t care how you look. I find that incredibly attractive.

Do you have any go-to foods or supplements you love to take? And why these?

Greener grasses alkalizer. We all need more greens and alkalizing. Gives me great energy. Good for skin. Probiotics are the most important supplement for overall health. I like Garden of Life. Digestion and the health of the gut is the key to everything, nutrient absorption, immune system, mood and good skin. Olive Leaf extract is the best anti viral I’ve found. Whenever I feel I am getting sick this nips it in the bud. Milk Thistle herb: Cleanses and regenerates liver tissue. A good liver improves mood, energy and skin
Burdock: blood cleanser also great for skin.

How about go-to beauty product that you love to use?

I love to spray my face..maybe it’s the dry desert air in L.A.
I use Evan Healy Rose Geranium hydrosol and May Lindstrom Jasmine Garden
Dr. Alkaitis night cream and eye cream.

How would you like our culture to embrace beauty differently?

I am sick of sameness and conformity, porn-informed aesthetic, ageist beauty and the loss of mystery in our culture. I would like women to feel like they can be noticed without bearing it all. I want to bring back refinement. (Maybe I have just been in L.A. too long).
I would like to see more personal expression in dress. I see conformity, even in the counter culture look. I was recently in London and I went to the Groucho club one night. They were doing some reunion of a club from the 80’s/90’s and there were all these great older people, eccentric misfits, hungover from Vivienne Westwood era, but they all looked different and beautiful, old and young were hanging together. It was inspiring.

BEAUTY TALK! WHAT’S YOUR…

Beauty and skin routine look like:

Most of my beauty routine is based on what I eat (or don’t eat). My face is a giveaway when I eat badly, so I avoid gluten, corn, soy and iodized table salt (removing those things make a huge difference in skin tone, puffiness etc.) and I am a big believer in eating right for your blood type. I never wash my face in the morning. I spray w Evan Healy rose geranium hydrosol, put on a vitamin C serum (currently using Ole Henriksen Truth Serum), then Dr. Alkaitis Day Cream and eye cream. At night, if I wear makeup I take it off w coconut oil and a warm cloth, and use witch hazel on cotton pad, more sprays of hydrosol, and if dry, Dr. Alkaitis Night Cream or Evan Healy Rose serum.

Favorite morning ritual:

I am very into dreams, so I usually lay there quietly and recall as much of my dreams as I can. If I have my journal nearby I write them down. Then I make a cup of tea (English w half and half and honey) and make my list of things to do for the day and check my emails. I love this quiet time. Then a hot shower followed by cold shower.

Favorite bedtime ritual:

I take baths. Sometimes I read in the bath and can spend a good hour in there. I love movies too. A good movie in bed is heaven.

Very favorite beauty product:

Evan Healy Hydrosol

Favorite hair care tip:

Don’t wash it. I wash mine about every four or five days and use products without the foaming agent sodium laurel sulfate. Air dry. If I had time I would use my mom’s old fashioned tips of using a vinegar or chamomile tea rinse (very nice for brightening blonde hair).

And what inspires me most in life at the moment is…

I just retuned from Greece where I studied homeopathy with George Vithoulkas. I am inspired by what I learned there about medicine and about myself. I am excited to see what new tests life brings me, so I can exercise this new strength I feel in making choices consciously.

contact:
Alexis Smart / Flower Remedies
alexissmart.com

Instagram: alexissmartflowerremedies