THE AIYA Story
The Origin of AIYA Skin
My journey begins in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, where I was born into a lineage of medicine women and herbalists. After our family sort refuge in Kenya as a child, I eventually resettled in Australia in 2015.
It was here, in Australia while completing a Social Science degree in Brisbane, that I began experiencing chronic health challenges. In 2021, I moved to a forested sanctuary of Booloumba Creek, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, where I found healing, plants, greens we ate in Africa grew wild, labelled as weeds here. This remembrance reconnected me with the earth and the interconnected way of life I was raised with.
I had grown up in East Africa, immersed in Indigenous tradition, community healing, and the powerful medicine of nature. The women who raised me, my mother, my grandmother carried a knowing that was felt more than taught. Their hands, their rituals, their stories were my first textbooks.
I watched them blend oils with herbs, prepare salves in clay bowls, whisper prayers into their hands as they massaged love into our skin. Health and skincare wasn’t a commodity it was communion.
Somewhere in the noise of modern life, I lost that, many of us have lost that.
We forgot the rhythms. The slowness. The respect for land and lineage.
My journey to create Aiya Skin, began when I gave birth to my son in 2022. My mother, shared her wisdom, her craft, a tradition passed down through thousands of years.
I gathered the same ingredients she used, slowly crafting the first batch, smelling the scents of the herbs and raw whole ingredients, unlocked childhood memories tucked away, of watching and sitting with my mother as she worked her craft making creams, lotions, incense and other beautiful natural things.
We were a large family, my mother had six kids of her own, and raised 10, she travelled for work and I didn't always get much time alone with my mother. Many of my most precious memories were those moments we shared, creating together, watching, mimicking, laughing, bonding.
AIYA means “Mother” in my native tongue a word that echoes through generations, drenched in care, protection, and profound wisdom.
AIYA Skin is an honouring of both my mother and my ancestors.
AIYA Skin is my return, to slowness, to respect.
It is ancestral knowledge in a jar.
It is a love letter to the land.
It is sacred science, sensory ritual, and handmade reverence.
I combine authentic ancestral wisdom with modern science to create one-of-a-kind, small-batch, artisanal skincare that serves the skin, nourishes the body, and awakens the spirit.
This is not just skincare.
It’s a remembering.
A restoration.
An offering from my lineage to yours.
AIYA Skin holds the resonance of Life, Love & Liberty.
You are invited to be part of our story.
