Photos by TJ Turner
After her daughter was born with a severe skin disorder in 2008, Meg DiMercurio sought out gentle and non-irritating skincare products for her, but struggled to find formulas that worked. So DiMercurio, the daughter of two microbiologists, began developing her own essential oils, soaps, salves, and lotions from scratch. In 2014, she opened her first ModernRoots retail space in Buffalo, Minnesota, and recently debuted a second storefront in Stillwater.
Today, about 60 percent of her product line—spanning natural laundry detergent to tooth care—includes ingredients grown in the large garden behind her Annandale home, where she also raises farm animals such as hogs, pigs, turkeys, and goats. (They provide the milk for her goat’s milk face cream.)
With the addition of her Stillwater shop, she has sourced ingredients to reflect the region, including a moss resin shampoo and conditioner, made from moss and sap resin from the St. Croix region and an exfoliating soap made with sand from the shores of the St. Croix River.
ModernRoots, 126 N. Main St., Stillwater, modernroots.org
