To characterize Melissa Farris as a zealous herbal practitioner is like calling Prince a pretty good guitarist. Farris, 34, is a certified herbalist and aromatherapist who started her own international business—distributing high quality essential oils and bulk herbal extracts—at 24. The company was called Simplers Botanicals LLC and idealism was its driving force.

Farris, a Bloomington native, was so passionate about her work, and so driven to educate people on the benefits of medicinal aromatherapy and herbalism, that her 20s vanished in a sweet-smelling haze. While many of her peers were in college dorms experimenting with cannabis sativa, Farris was meeting with organic lavender farmers in the French countryside, building relationships that would distinguish her from competitors in the botanicals market.

“In France, medical herbalism and aroma- therapy are offered in pharmacies and are regulated for quality control,” she explains. Upon her return to the states, she studied herbalism, taking classes in chemistry, anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and botany.

In 1996 Farris founded Simplers and began supplying organic, therapeutic-grade essential oils and bulk tinctures (concentrated herbal extracts made with alcohol) to markets in northern California. The company was an immediate success. “I was the 1st person to offer bulk herbal extracts and pharmaceutical-grade organic essential oils to the health food stores, and was the 1st to offer consumers a guide to using these oils medicinally. The idea was to make pharmaceutical-grade tinctures using organic herbs—but not endangered species— and to provide usage information and contraindications,”she says.“At the time, nobody was doing it, and the bulk tinctures just took off. Within one month I had 10 stores and was teaching every day.”