Say hi to Maggie of the Green Beauty Guide! Maggie runs one of my favorite skincare blogs called the Green Beauty Guide where she covers a variety of beauty brands both micro and macro, visits farms, and highlights the local (DC) clean beauty scene. She’s been a darling to bump into around the city over the years and I’m so excited for us all to get to know her better in today’s At Home With feature! Read on about how her professional and personal worlds align, routine at home between those busy lives, and how home has evolved over the last few years.

Who are you, what do you do, and why?

Hello! I’m Maggie Spicer. I’m an in-house counsel for a large tech company, focusing on national security and human rights issues. I’m also a skincare formulator and run a blog called The Green Beauty Guide about sustainability and beauty. It’s a great mix between the left brain and right brain.

They may seem like totally different areas but they have an overlap.

I started my blog when I was working as an associate at a large corporate law firm, working crazy hours and trying to carve out a little space for myself. I realized that my work in international trade and sustainable supply chains was informing my personal interest in beauty - I wasn’t interested in what the products were as much as I wanted to know about how they were made and where they came from. In both of these worlds, I saw how people were connected through the things we surround ourselves with. I also saw the possibilities of making consumption and production a more ethical process. So whether that means ensuring tech products are made without forced labor or ensuring that skincare is formulated using sustainably-sourced ingredients, I’m your girl.

What does home mean to you? Has your relationship with home changed in the last year?

Home has become everything to us, I almost feel like it’s my little lifeboat against the world. My partner and I moved to Capitol Hill just a few weeks before lockdown, and a few months later we brought home our new baby. Things felt so new and so scary, it was really tough.

In a weird way, lockdown was also a blessing. For the first time I felt like we had the time to be fully absorbed into our neighborhood and community, seeing the same people and places day after day. Before the pandemic, I might have felt uninspired by that kind of routine. But now I relish it. The regularity allows me to see the magic of the seasons changing. Especially in a neighborhood like Capitol Hill, where there are so many beautiful gardens, I get a new thrill with each passing week to see what’s in bloom and what’s fading away. So even though technically our home is the four walls of our apartment, I think of Capitol Hill as my home.

How did you find your way to clean living and how has it impacted your life?

Every year for the past few years I’ve read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and I’ll re-visit particular chapters during different seasons. I discovered it during a tough phase in my life, and to say it was a revelation might be an understatement. It opened my eyes to a new relationship with the environment through food. I won’t say I turned into an amazing chef overnight, or that I went vegan and gave up sugar, but I do go to the farmer’s market once (if not twice) a week here in Eastern Market and have a whole new approach to appreciating food. When something is in season, we eat it - a lot. And once it’s gone, it’s gone until next year. With that attitude, a simple peach turns into the height of summer luxury.

Do you have any rituals at home?

As much as having a baby introduces a whole new level of chaos into your life, it also provides a sense of routine. No matter how much work we have, or what we have going on in our personal lives, our son still needs dinner, a bath, and bedtime. Every night. I kind of love that. Sometimes the bath is a little quick, and maybe dinner is the same as the last three nights, but it’s a routine.

Give us a moment of joy.

It’d be way too easy to say any time our baby smiles, or laughs, or does something cute…

Working as an associate at a law firm was an amazing experience, but it didn’t leave me any room to breathe and take time for creative / passion projects. I ended up leaving my job during the pandemic for an in-house position that gave me that extra little bit of time to spend with my son and on myself. Whether that’s cooking a nice meal, formulating skincare, interviewing new brand founder for my blog, it’s my time. And all of those moments bring me joy.

Thanks so much for sharing, Maggie! Be sure to follow the Green Beauty Guide on Instagram and consult the Green Beauty Guide blog for all your burning sustainable skin care questions. (I know I do!)

You can also take 10% off your purchase through the end of March with the code “GREENBEAUTY”