I'm Aiden Llerena, and I've dealt with severe eczema and sensitive skin my whole life: the dry patches, the scratching, the flare-ups that wouldn't let up no matter what I put on them.
Growing up, that came with more than physical discomfort. Visible skin drew questions and comments from people who treated it like something contagious, or something to be embarrassed about. It wasn't either of those things, but it took me a long time, and a lot of searching for products that actually helped, to believe that myself.
I spent years buying different lotion after different lotion, hoping the next one would finally be the one that stopped the itching. None of them ever really were. At some point I realized that if it didn't exist yet, I needed to be the one to build it.
Balmory comes out of that search. I didn't want something promising to erase my skin completely. I wanted something that smelled good, felt good, and took the edge off a flare-up so I could just get on with my day. I think about someone dealing with that constant, nagging itch, especially a kid still figuring out how to sit with feelings like embarrassment or frustration for the first time, and I build for them. If Balmory can give even a few people, kids and adults, a little relief and a little more ease being in their own skin, that's the whole point.