Saoirse Llewellyn

I am Saoirse, and Dew & Moss is the small editorial spa journal I keep alongside the practice I run out of a treatment room above the dispensary on a quiet lane in the old part of Galway. The dispensary is below; the treatment room is above. The journal moves between the two — most of what is written here started as a note pinned to the dispensary corkboard, and most of those notes started in a session.

I trained as an esthetician in Dublin in my early twenties and moved west six years ago to set up the practice. The dispensary started as a way to share the products I was making for the room and grew into the small shop it is now. The journal grew alongside both.

The editorial bent is on purpose. There is, I think, a great deal of writing about spa and skincare that errs in one of two directions — the overpromising kind that turns small practices into miracles, and the dismissive kind that calls everything placebo. The journal is my attempt to write a third kind: the kind that says what the practice actually does, in proportion, without selling or dismissing.

What the practice is

One quiet treatment room above the dispensary. A single facial bed. A window that faces a small back garden. A shelf of professional skincare and a shelf of the small homemade products. A sink with proper hot water. The room is plain on purpose — it is meant to disappear so the work can be the work.

The practice is solo. Four to five facials a day on a normal day. The first session is at ten. The last ends by six. There is a long pause between sessions — twenty to thirty minutes, never less — for the room to settle and the next client to arrive into a fresh space.

What the journal is for

Editorially, the journal is the slow long form to balance the much faster pace of the dispensary. It is where I write the things that need more than a label on a jar. Practically, the journal is for the clients who have asked the same question three times in a month — the journal is where the considered answer ends up.

The pieces on the site are worked on for weeks before they go up. The drafts in the dispensary notebook are several times as long as the finished pieces. The editorial commitment is to honesty about scale: small claims for small practices, larger claims only where the practice deserves them.

What you will not find here

Sales of anything. The dispensary has its own catalogue; the journal does not sell. The products I mention here are not affiliate links and the brands I name are named because I use them.

Wellness shouting. The journal moves at editorial pace; it does not chase whatever is being argued about online this week.

Medical claims. Skincare and spa are not medicine. For anything medical, please see a doctor.

How to write to me

The address is in the dispensary window and on the small printed cards I leave at the welcome desk. I read everything that comes in and answer as much of it as I can, in writing, in the journal voice.

Thank you for reading. I am glad you have found the journal.