As a part of our exciting partnership with Murrieta Hot Springs Resort, we’re sharing the story of how the Southern California wellness oasis inspired Founder Jenefer’s vision for OSEA. As the former Spa Director of Murrieta Hot Springs, Jenefer began formulating products at the spa after experiencing and witnessing the healing benefits of the property. To celebrate this full-circle moment, we sat down with Jenefer to hear the story firsthand.
It was 1982 and I was twenty-eight years old. I walked into an enormous building at Murrieta Hot Springs Resort in Murrieta, California, and it was the very first time in my life that I was in a spa. There were 32 private mineral baths and 18 treatment rooms. I saw a beautiful old Spanish-style building and I remember looking in complete awe at the Olympic sized swimming pool that had been designed by acclaimed architect, Julia Morgan of Hearst Castle fame. It was like a spa temple for me.
As I sat in the space, I immediately started to feel waves of inspiration. My mind was flooded with ideas for new treatments and products. Long before contrast therapy was popularized, I thought of the idea to have guests spend time in the sauna, followed by the cold pools. I thought, what if we mixed salt with soap as a cleansing exfoliant? What if I mixed ayurvedic herbs with the healing mud and painted people? The building and the property really spoke to me. It’s no wonder that’s where the idea for OSEA was born.
When I started designing treatments as the Spa Director, there were no products available to use. The idea to create products just came to me. That’s where OSEA chose me––it just came to me that I needed to create beautiful products in this incredible building with so much history and energy behind it.
I understood the health benefits of essential oils from my time living in Europe and studying them, so it seemed logical to use them in product formulations. Previously I worked as a wellness teacher and bodyworker on the property, before I transitioned to the spa. It was my goal to make the spa successful; in my opinion, the spa is the epicenter of healing. It was the heart of the property, as everything else existed around the spa.
While I was the Spa Director, I naturally began to formulate products and I made four basic essential oil blends that we used in treatments for specific need states: stress, muscle relaxation, energy and sleep. We used the essential oil blends in the private mineral baths as well. I even formulated Essential Hydrating Oil at Murrieta! And I’ve been putting that on my skin since 1983.
After the property changed ownership, I was inspired to create a skincare line based on healing principles and nature’s elements. That is when OSEA was born. I was so inspired by the healing power of the spa experience at Murrieta, and OSEA was a way to give everyone the spa experience at home.
If it wasn’t for my time at Murrieta Hot Springs, I would have never started OSEA. This is a beautiful full-circle moment for that reason. I believe our lives are defined by this type of inexplicable moment, where we make a shift towards our purpose. My time as Spa Director inspired me to create OSEA. And Murrieta is and will always be at the core of that inspiration.