Many women use cannabis to treat a range of symptoms experienced during perimenopause. According to a 2020 North American Menopause Society study, 27% of perimenopausal women reported using some form of cannabis to relieve symptoms such as insomnia, vaginal dryness, mood swings, brain fog, and hot flashes. While smoking is what’s often thought of when it comes to cannabis consumption, there are various ways to consume cannabis for wellness, including edibles, sublinguals, or topicals. Even so, there remains a great deal of stigma regarding the use of cannabis. There’s also a general lack of understanding (and research) on the extent of its medicinal benefits, particularly regarding women’s health and wellness. Katelynn Nguyen, founder and CEO of Willow Kay, is one of the hundreds of BIPOC women founders in the US cannabis space that’s working to change that.
As cannabis becomes legalized for medical and recreational use in states across the US, there’s been a proliferation of cannabis businesses. However, only a small percentage are owned by women, and an even smaller percentage are women of color. When you hear Katelynn’s story of immigrating to the US from Vietnam as a small child, you understand all you need to know about the resilience and resolve required to launch her cannabis wellness brand, Willow Kay.
In pursuit of the American Dream
Now 42, Katelynn recounts the harrowing journey she made with her mother and two of her siblings in the dark and very early hours of what was her eighth birthday.
“We left Vietnam on my eighth birthday — April 11th, 1988. And we basically were just out to sea with other families – maybe 30 or 40 people or so – on what was essentially a fisherman’s boat in the middle of the night during a storm. I remember waves crashing around us as everyone scrambled to pull water from our boat.”
Katelynn remembers being upset at being jostled at 4 am on her birthday “to run into the sea and hop on a boat.” Of course, hindsight comes with time, and wisdom comes with age, and she’s long since understood how significant that day was in shaping her future.
“It’s fascinating to look back at how far we come…to be living the American dream. My parents sacrificed their lives — risked our lives — everything in general, to come to America.”
If at first, you don’t succeed…
More than 30 years later, she’s still bound by those family ties. With four sisters and two brothers, Katelynn falls smack dab in the middle (“Yeah, it makes sense that I’m the middle child…the loudest…the most affected, I guess.”).
Willow Kay is named after her now seven-year-old niece who’s suffered from severe atopic dermatitis and bouts of eczema herpeticum (which can be life-threatening if it gets into the bloodstream) since infancy. After watching her sister struggle unsuccessfully to treat Willow’s debilitating condition with western medicine, she became inspired to explore a solution through traditional eastern medicine and plant-based options.
“At one month old, the doctor prescribed steroids for Willow because that’s all they knew. She’d be on steroids – six weeks on, a couple of weeks off – but it would always flare up again when she’d be off for a couple of weeks.”
Katelynn was living in Hawaii at the time and ultimately decided to return to her home state of California to help her sister (who was also dealing with postpartum depression) manage Willow’s medical treatments and find a permanent solution for her discomfort.
“I wanted to help you know? How do you just watch your sister and this little baby that’s going through pain and wrapped up like a mummy? Still, she was so cute but uncomfortable. Our lives became about finding medications or anything at all to help her…to just ease her pain. And nothing worked. NOTHING. I kid you not. I spent every dime I had trying to figure out what could help.”
She embarked on what would be a years-long journey to find products that would address the itch and inflammation but didn’t aggravate Willow’s condition. Through trial and error she discovered that her niece was highly sensitive to most of the base ingredients found in topical anti-inflammatories, including coconut, beeswax, and essential oils. Katelynn says, in retrospect, those early days of hunting and scouring the consumer marketplace and experimenting in the kitchen were the beginnings of Willow Kay – although it would take several more years for her to launch to the public.
“I started slowly because I felt that there was a lack of quality products for those of us that are more sensitive.”
She says, like Willow, she and many of their family members are allergy-prone and sensitive to most of the skincare products on the market due to their “one size fits all” formulations.
“Everything you see on the market is basically white-labeled and not really tailored for the specific needs of the end user.”
Drawing on her Vietnamese heritage and her belief that “nature is medicine,” she began experimenting with the plants and herbs she remembers her grandmother and mother using in “day-to-day life” to nurture the ailments of loved ones.
Around that same time, she began working with a CBD company after having a positive experience with their products to manage her own back pain. She had a strong intuition that while topical CBD might not cure Willow’s skin condition, it could significantly reduce the chronic itching from which she suffered.
“I believed in the company. So, I went to them and said, ‘Look, this is my goal. Your products have helped me, and I truly believe that the right formulation could help my niece.’ I basically pitched them on why they should hire me.”
As a result, Katelynn got the job. She gained access to quality raw ingredients and formulary scientists who could help her make sense of and refine her experimentations with topical solutions over the previous three-to-four years. While there, she learned about the medicinal benefits of cannabis and worked with the team to develop several products before she left to work for a clean beauty skincare company.
“I started off making products for the skin beauty line and while I was there, I worked with two scientists and the owners of the company. I was quite lucky to be able to work with these scientists who were like, ‘Okay, I think you have something here. Let’s see what we can do with it.'”
Cannabis for wellness + clean beauty…a perfect match.
After being exposed to the world of clean beauty, Katelynn became intrigued. She immersed herself in learning about the beauty industry and many toxic chemicals that had been banned in skin care by the EU but not in the US. She realized that the safety standards for many ingredients commonly used in American-based beauty and skincare lines were not as scrutinized as in EU countries.
“I think most people would be surprised to learn that the US doesn’t really regulate skin and personal care products. The quality and the sourcing of ingredients are largely the responsibility of the producer, the manufacturer. Educating the consumer is left to the individual company or brand and too often the education piece of what people are putting in and on, their bodies just isn’t happening. Let alone how the ingredients are sourced or where they’re coming from.”
Over six years, Katelynn gained invaluable knowledge of the cannabis and clean beauty spaces. While researching different cannabinoids derived from cannabis plants, she became focused on leveraging the antibacterial effects of CBG along with the anti-inflammatory effects of CBD, believing this was a turning point in her formulation journey. She integrated her knowledge of responsibly sourced, plant-based ingredients like squalene (a derivative of the sugar cane plant) to solve for the moisturization and absorption factors.
“When you have eczema or a skin flare-up, that’s inflammation. But with skin flare-ups, you also have to be worried about bacteria. I became obsessed with figuring out how to reduce inflammation AND get rid of the bad bacteria – but leave the good bacteria – AND have it absorb into the skin. I had to work through all of these variables and then remove certain ingredients one by one because, oh, my gosh, she’s allergic!”
Katelynn’s perseverance paid off and she ultimately created a topical formulation that provided Willow relief and healing after years of suffering. She started Willow Kay in April 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the hope of “helping as many people as I can” so they don’t have to suffer the way Willow and others in her family have. She also reinforced her values and business commitment to sourcing quality ingredients and packaging her products in ways that respect the environment vs. exploit it.
Her long-term vision is for Willow Kay to be a trusted resource for those who say traditional medication is not for them and want a more holistic approach to what they’re putting in and on their bodies.
Menopause relief… what’s cannabis got to do with it?
At 42 years old, Katelynn hasn’t yet experienced any symptoms related to perimenopause. However, because of her deep experience working with cannabis, she has an atypical understanding of how hormonal changes affect the human endocannabinoid system (ECS), and how different cannabinoids can help manage various symptoms. The ECS interacts with and is critical to the human biological system because of an intricate arrangement of receptors, lipids, and enzymes.
“Naturally, we all have cannabinoid receptors in our system that are a part of every cell in our bodies. What I understand about [menopause] is that symptoms like hot flashes, joint pain, sleep, and skin problems are tied to hormonal changes. All of that has to do with your endocannabinoid receptors.”
Since starting Willow Kay, Katelynn has developed a proprietary line of hemp-based cannabis products – including oral tinctures and topicals – that can be used to address a range of conditions, including pain and inflammation, acne, anxiety, and insomnia. She emphasizes how we consume these products is just as important as what they’re comprised of.
“In my opinion, oral tinctures are one of the best ways to take CBD. The fastest way to process the calming and anti-inflammatory effects of this cannabinoid is by smoking it, but sublingual absorption of oral tinctures is just as effective.”
For maximum efficacy, oral tinctures must be absorbed through our glands and are best consumed under the tongue and held for 1 to 2 minutes before swallowing, allowing them to process through the glands and travel to the receptors in the brain. Just drinking them will not trigger our brain receptors.
Unlike tinctures, edibles, or smoking, topicals are not absorbed into the bloodstream. Instead, they work through the receptors in our skin, sending signals to the brain.
“We formulate our balancing serum with oils that don’t clog pores. We use oils with a very high concentration of different acids and antioxidants. The primary carrier oil is squalene derived from the sugarcane plant. Alone, it does amazing things already but how we formulate it with CBD and CBG delivers anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects faster and better.”
Because the FDA doesn’t regulate cannabis, Katelynn is prohibited from marketing Willow Kay’s products’ health and wellness benefits in addressing specific ailments and conditions. Even so, through her firsthand experience and working with others, she strongly believes in the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and its significant potential to relieve many of the symptoms related to perimenopause (and so do I*).
To learn more about Katelynn and Willow Kay’s products, visit www.willowkay.com. Use code meno25 to receive a 25% discount off of your first purchase. You can also follow Willow Kay on Instagram, @willowkay.co.
*Editor’s Note: I’m an avid consumer of Willow Kay products, specifically the Balancing Serum for skin and the Full Spectrum Body Balancing Drops, formulated with a 1:1 blend of CBD and CBG to promote relaxation and help manage anxiety. Check out my review here.
Create Account or Sign in to post a review