About The Brand: Herbas® came from a place and need to heal naturally while living in a city. Herbas creates simple, safe and affordable plant-based rituals + CBD that are sustainably rooted to assist in your plant-powered wellness journey!

Herbas Founder Miriam took a moment to chat with Etain about the brand and their products available at the Etain NYC medical cannabis legal dispensary location near you in Midtown Manhattan.

What’s the meaning behind the Herbas brand name?

Literally, herb as body care “herbas bodycare” that is my trademark. Also I wanted something that sounded the same in English and Spanish, since I am 1st generation Dominican and think & speak both languages daily.

What made you decide to create Herbas?

I always loved marijuana since the moment I tried it in college. I always said I wanted to work in the legal industry as a designer - my actual career/trade was in package/brand/art direction for the beauty industry so when Colorado went legal, where my inlaws happen to live, I started to check dispensaries & buy products & save the packaging during family vacations and was like, “ I can cross over..” that was in 2014 & I lived in NYC…I googled women NYC & cannabis. I might have showed up at my first Women Grow meeting in a loft in SoHo in 2015 with an iPad of my design work. I never stopped attending meetings after that, and attended others meetings and then a class on making butter. All the while I was gardening and had an abundance of anti-inflammatory herbs: calendula, lavender, chamomile. At the same time, my college roommate was diagnosed with spinal arthritis and taking too many pills. Here I am learning and unlearning everything about cannabis, medicinally, politically and we are in an opioid crisis.

I decided to make a salve for my friend and dive deep into herbs, cannabis and natural medicine and I have not stopped. The line grew because she told a friend and friend and so on and I went deeper into the root of pain, inflammation & made other products and here I am today still going deeper into plant healing and my own culture.

What’s your favorite product in the Herbas line?

My salve, my whole family uses it daily for everything. It's simple and works for so many things - hair, itch, rash, moisturizer, and the package designer in me had fun with that one - the jar comes in a tea bag with a compostable label.

Since starting the brand, what’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a women-owned business?

Work hard to build a company you would want to work for.

Don’t do things like work 18 hour days everyday. Pace and balance your life as your business grows. As a mom I have to, I have to juggle many lives in 1 day. Even if you are a solopreneur with subcontractors, working nonstop isn’t as productive as working on the right things at the right time. I avoid burning not trying to do too much and making time to live

How do you Take A Moment?

I take so many moments! In the garden, in the hammock, riding my bike, walking, cooking, in front of a candle talking to my ancestors – I have learned to enjoy every moment I can – most of the time those moments are preceded by a good bong hit!

Shop Herbas at the Etain NYC legal medical cannabis dispensary location near you in Midtown Manhattan, New York