Hi, I’m Rachelle.
I’m a Filipina mom of four, home educator, maker, and the founder of Buhay Botanika.
Buhay Botanika began at home, with a desire to be more intentional about the things I brought into our everyday lives. I wanted thoughtfully made products for my home and family, using ingredients I could understand and traditions that felt connected to something deeper.
But as I started creating, it became about much more than soap, oils, candles, or home fragrance.
As a mother raising multicultural children, it became increasingly important to me that their Filipino heritage wasn’t something they simply knew about, but something they experienced. I wanted it woven into everyday life through food, scent, plants, stories, language, and ritual.
I wanted sampaguita, calamansi, pandan, coconut, guava, gugo, and the plants and traditions connected to the Philippines to feel familiar to them. I wanted those things to carry meaning and memory, not feel like pieces of a culture they would have to rediscover from a distance one day.
Somewhere along the way, I realized Buhay Botanika had become part of that effort.
What started as making things for the people I love slowly became a way to preserve connection — to culture, to plants, to tradition, and to the small rituals that make a place feel like home.
Everything I create is made in small batches here in Georgia, inspired by Filipino culture and by the belief that the things we use every day can carry heritage, memory, and meaning.
For me, Buhay Botanika is more than a business. It’s a way to keep learning, to pass something down to my children, and to share a little piece of the Philippines with others.
That’s the heart behind everything I make.