Rising Stars: Meet Lori Crane Hess

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lori Crane Hess.

Hi Lori, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Lori Crane Hess is a musician, author, herbalist, and servant to a menagerie of farm critters at Trace Creek Acres. She has traveled the world, performing in nearly every country, and can be found nightly in downtown Nashville playing a dueling piano show. She is an award-winning author of more than a dozen historical fiction novels and the occasional thriller. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. So, why is she growing lavender and making body products?

After busy decades of raising a family, mostly by phone from Europe or the Caribbean or the opposite coast of the U.S., she found herself burnt out, beat up, and struggling with her health. The show-must-go-on lifestyle of someone who eats whatever is available never takes downtime and lacks any self-care routine finally caught up with her. She was chronically exhausted, suffering from constant headaches and sinus issues, popping aspirin like candy, and sinking into depression.

Suffering from sheer burnout, she retired from the road, planted herself on a 10+ acre farm south of Nashville, and started gardening. She had always dabbled in vegetable gardening when time permitted, but she found a new love and admiration for the abundance that nature provides. She began preserving harvests, which included drying and storing culinary herbs. They were brighter green and more flavorful than anything she had ever bought from a store. Being a tea lover, she also planted and harvested her own tea trees. No tea in a box had ever tasted this good. Then came the elderberry, calendula, chamomile, ginger, turmeric, and lavender. The list goes on. Learning about the health benefits of plants and herbs became an obsession. She began creating all-natural body and home products and slowly disposed of the chemical-laden products in her home, replacing them with healthy, organic, natural alternatives.

An amazing thing happened at that point. Her long-standing headaches and sinus issues disappeared. Her chronic exhaustion began to fade. Lethargy and fatigue were a thing of the past.

She began gifting her products to family and friends, and they raved! Lori’s goal shifted from her personal health to the desire to encourage others to utilize natural products to support health and wellness. Trace Creek Herbals was born.

Trace Creek Herbals is a small-batch hand-crafted line of herbal products for the body and home.

We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road to creating a new business is never smooth. One has to learn what their customers want and what they don’t, and with that knowledge comes the task of constantly adjusting.

The most important thing Lori has learned while growing Trace Creek Herbals is life is insanely busy, and people do not have time to start from scratch. Generally, people want to be healthy and use all-natural products, but they don’t have time to read instructions and infuse and strain and wait for results. They want immediate results.

In trying to make that happen, Lori found herself repackaging some of her products in an effort to make them more convenient and user-friendly. While it takes longer to spoon herbs into tea bags instead of bulk packaging them in a jar, if customers will use those tea bags, Lori is happy to spend the extra time.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In the life of a musician and author, there are always goals; a finished product, an award, more gigs, more novels, and more pressure. In the role of creator of Trace Creek Herbals, Lori has found there is no scorecard. There is only the desire to assist others on their health journey, which is an ongoing part of life.

There are no final destinations, just more vibrancy, more winning, more health, and more happiness. Trace Creek Herbals offers Lori and her customers the opportunity to focus on the journey rather than the finish line.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Trace Creek Herbals are available on Etsy at TraceCreekHerbals and available in season at Farmers Market at River Park in Centerville.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tracecreekacres.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracecreekacres
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tracecreekherbals/
• Other: https://tracecreekherbals.etsy.com