Women put an average of 12 beauty products on their skin every day. Most of those products contain chemicals that are banned in Europe. The European Union has banned or restricted over 1,600 chemicals in cosmetics. The United States has banned fewer than a dozen. Six companies control most of what’s on beauty store shelves in America, creating the illusion of choice while selling the same formulations under different labels—formulations that wouldn’t be legal in dozens of other countries.
Stephanie Eklund didn’t know any of this until she’d already spent years trusting industries that profit from our bodies. Born with a cleft palate, she underwent surgery after surgery on her face, procedures that left her wary of the medical establishment and hyperaware of what gets put in and on our skin. When her son was born with the same defect and faced the same surgeries, that wariness turned into something else entirely.
She found threading during that time, an ancient hair removal technique that uses nothing but cotton thread. No chemicals, no heat, no additives. Just precise, effective results. It was the first beauty treatment she’d encountered that didn’t come with a warning label or a list of side effects.
“It showed us that simple, time-tested practices can outperform modern, chemical-heavy solutions,” Eklund says. “Beauty doesn’t need to be complicated to be effective.”
That realization became the foundation for Deep Rooted Beauty, her Kalispell, Montana-based business that refuses to stock products just because they’re legal in America. What started as a threading salon in 2016 has evolved into a curated collection of international skincare that meets standards far stricter than U.S. regulations allow.
Her mission is straightforward: serve the community by offering healthy, natural beauty options people can trust. As a family-owned business, she’s building an environment where clients feel like part of the family, a place that guides them through an overwhelming industry with genuine care and expertise.
The Path to Montana
Eklund didn’t plan to end up in the beauty business. A Tennessee native with a degree in fashion design, she was studying in Italy and interning at a prestigious fashion house when she met David Eklund on a flight in 2005. He was a Lakeside, Montana native who would become her husband. After years bouncing between eight different states, they chose the Flathead Valley to raise their two children, Victoria and Joseph, trading the fast pace of big cities for mountain quiet.
Her background in Southern debutante pageantry and training in art and fashion had always kept beauty close to her heart. Her personal history with surgeries made her question the industry’s methods. Living overseas exposed her to different beauty standards, perspectives that shaped how she would later approach her own business.
When her son faced the same birth defect and surgeries in 2016, Eklund found solace in learning to thread. She trained for six months under one of the top threaders from New Delhi, India. Her artistic background merged with this ancient practice, and what started as solace became a vision.
The business she would build was rooted in tradition. With support from her cousins in California, who ran successful threading shops in Los Angeles, and her mother-in-law Cindy Eklund, a hairstylist in the valley for over 40 years, Stephanie launched what would become Deep Rooted Beauty. The business started as Layla Threading of Montana, a collaboration between three families bringing the expertise and passion for threading from Southern California to Montana. It served clients who were looking for precision eyebrow shaping without the chemicals found in waxing or other treatments.
Beyond the U.S. Beauty Bubble
Threading was just the entry point. As Eklund built her client base, she started looking harder at what the beauty industry was selling and what it wasn’t telling customers.
“We believe beauty should support health, not compromise it,” Eklund says. “That’s why we look beyond U.S. regulations and align with stricter global guidelines that prioritize long-term skin health.”
She began curating skincare from around the world, products that met the standards she’d come to trust. Not what was stocked on American shelves, but what actually worked without side effects that accumulate over time.
“Building off the purity and effectiveness we saw in threading, we began stepping outside the U.S. beauty bubble to offer real variety and real results,” Eklund says.
Redefining Self-Care
Deep Rooted Beauty’s approach runs counter to how self-care has been marketed in recent years. The concept has been rebranded as indulgence: spa days, luxury creams, expensive treatments that feel good in the moment but don’t necessarily deliver long-term health benefits.
Eklund sees it differently. Real self-care, she argues, is healthy, effective, and intentional. It’s beauty that supports your body, clears your mind, and leaves you feeling better all the way around, not just temporarily pampered.
Her vision extends beyond what Deep Rooted Beauty offers today. She’s working toward
creating a holistic med spa, a sanctuary for “healthy beauty” at accessible prices. Instead of relying on chemical injections, she wants to offer non-invasive treatments that enhance well-being and natural beauty without compromising health.
That means no cutting corners on ingredients. It means refusing to stock products just because they’re legal in the U.S. if they wouldn’t pass muster in countries with tighter regulations. It means educating clients about what they’re putting on their skin and why it matters.
Her own experiences with the medical system and watching her son go through the same surgeries she endured made her question what’s considered acceptable in industries that profit from our bodies. If she wouldn’t trust it on her own skin or her children’s, she won’t sell it.
Building for the Next Generation
Deep Rooted Beauty is still the go-to threading shop in the valley, welcoming new clients daily. Eklund is working toward offering holistic wellness services like red light therapy, touchless hydro-massage, and salt therapy alongside her curated selection of retail products. The goal is to create a comprehensive experience that helps clients feel their best inside and out, without the high prices found elsewhere.
“What began with threading is growing into something bigger, a brand rooted in health of mind, body, and spirit,” Eklund says. “This is for my daughter and the generations behind her: to remove the blinders around beauty, question what we’re sold, and choose practices and products that truly enrich.”
It’s a personal mission shaped by her own journey. She knows what it’s like to feel powerless in the face of medical procedures, to trust systems that don’t always have your best interest at heart, to search for solutions that actually work without compromising your health.
Beauty Industry Sells Us
Threading taught her that the oldest methods are sometimes the best. That simplicity can outperform complexity. That you don’t need chemicals to get results.
Now she’s applying those lessons to an entire business, one that refuses to accept the beauty industry’s standards just because they’re legal, profitable, or popular. She’s building a place where beauty supports health instead of undermining it, where clients can trust what they’re buying, and where the next generation might grow up questioning what they’re sold instead of blindly accepting it.
Deep Rooted Beauty may be a small business, but what Eklund is building matters. In a world where endless beauty options create more confusion than clarity, she aims to be the trusted destination that makes healthy beauty simple and accessible.
For Eklund, that’s worth more than any product on a crowded shelf.
About Deep Rooted Beauty
Deep Rooted Beauty is a family-owned wellness and beauty business in Kalispell, Montana, specializing in threading and curated international skincare products that meet global health standards. Owned and operated by Stephanie Eklund, the mission is to serve the community by offering healthy, natural beauty options people can trust. Deep Rooted Beauty is committed to guiding clients with expertise and genuine care, helping them make choices that align with their wellness and beauty goals while simplifying beauty and focusing on what truly matters: health, confidence, and natural glow. For more information, visit deeprootedbeauty.com
