Nurturing Roots Healing

09/03/2026

🌙 Moon Cycle Balm —
A warming botanical companion for your monthly rhythm. Arnica-infused oil meets Clary Sage, Ginger, Roman Chamomile & Ylang Ylang for a gentle-hand-on-the-belly kind of comfort.
🌸 New Bloom Balm —
A nourishing skin balm for areas touched by time, stretching, or past healing. Shea Butter, Avocado, Baobab, Tamanu & Marula Oils come together for deep, lasting softness — best loved with consistent daily use.

🌿 Rooted & Still (Calm Legs Balm) —
A grounding evening ritual for legs that feel jumpy or unsettled. Lavender, Roman Chamomile, Marjoram & Lemongrass in pure H**p Seed Oil — massage in before bed and let the stillness settle in.

🔥 Tend & Mend Balm (formerly Pain Away Balm) —
For your body’s hardest-working parts. A therapeutic Arnica, Calendula & St. John’s Wort infusion warmed with Ginger and Black Pepper — restorative relief for tired, overworked muscles.

All four are currently on sale (15% off) ! Link in bio!

09/01/2026

Part 2 of building your home apothecary- essential oils to get you started. The 5 that I started with are perfect for just getting started. This video has the first 3- lavender, tea tree, and peppermint. See video 2 for the next 2. Read the full article with a breakdown on these 5- link in bio !

08/23/2026

Video 1 of the first aid home apothecary series! Witch Hazel! Do you know where it gets its name from? Find out in the video😬

08/22/2026

To kick off the series, I started with a quick article on my Substack!

Where to Begin

08/22/2026

08/07/2026

The soft launch is live for the apothecary! Check it out with link in bio! Ask me how to get 15% off!

07/31/2026

This past few years, I’ve been building a service-based holistic health business. And I’ll be honest with you: it’s been hard.

I’m still working as a nurse, because financially, I have to. Building a client base who’s ready to invest in their health has been slow. I kept losing sight of the why, which was never about building a perfect brand. It was about helping people, doing something I actually loved.

I’m not an influencer. I’m not a social media guru. And somewhere in trying to market a service I believed in, I lost the joy of the craft itself.

But here’s the thing about circles, they bring you back.

I started this whole journey making herbal products in my kitchen because I loved it, not because I had a five-year plan. And that’s exactly where I’ve landed again, creating herbal medicine to support people’s health, the way I did at the very beginning, except now with everything I’ve learned along the way.

This is Nurturing Roots. It took me 15 years, three certifications, a pandemic, and one weekend in the mountains I almost skipped to get here.

The spark that started this? It’s reignited. And this time, I’m not letting it go. 🔥🌱

Welcome to the journey — I’m so glad you’re here!!
Tess DiNicola Petti

07/29/2026

Then the world shut down.

Every market I had planned for 2020 disappeared overnight. I had to pivot. I found health coaching, then fell down the functional nutrition rabbit hole, and became a certified functional nutritionist.

I loved deepening my understanding of holistic health. I loved supporting people willing to look outside the box in supporting their health and wellness. But if I’m honest, something still felt unfinished. I was searching for clarity, not just professionally, but personally. I didn’t know where any of it was leading.

In spring 2022, I was gifted a ticket to the Medicines of the Earth symposium in the Blue Ridge Mountains by the Holistic Nurse Association. I almost didn’t go. life was busy, there were other obligations that weekend. But something told me to show up anyway.

I can’t fully explain what happened there. I just knew, with a kind of certainty I hadn’t felt in years: these were my people. Herbalists. Naturopathic physicians. This was the path.

I came home and started searching for a program. I finished my herbal studies in 2024 — while simultaneously completing my FDN-P certification, because apparently I don’t do things one at a time. 😅

(Part 3 — the hardest part of this story, and how it brought me full circle.)

07/28/2026

Part 1: Where It Started

Before I was a nurse, I was a little girl watching my grandmother reach for black salve instead of a pharmacy, salt water instead of a prescription, Epsom salt instead of an antibiotic ointment. I didn’t know it then, but that was my first education in naturopathic medicine.

Years later, I became an ICU nurse. And somewhere in those long shifts and high-stakes moments, I hit burnout — hard. I started searching. Not just for ways to support my patients differently, but for ways to support myself. I loved what I did and learned a lot, but not how I was doing it.

I was eventually led to hospice care, where holistic practices were more common and my curiosity turned into something more serious. I started studying essential oils, then making my own body care products in my kitchen. My coworkers loved what I was creating; enough that they kept pushing me to sell it.

In 2018, I finally listened. I opened an Etsy shop. I started doing pop-up markets, and I fell in love with something I didn’t expect: standing in front of strangers, talking about plants and the connection with their ailments and watching their faces light up when something finally made sense.

That was the beginning. I just didn’t know yet how long, or how winding, the road ahead would be. 🌿

(Part 2 coming soon — the pivot nobody saw coming, (and the weekend that changed everything.)

07/23/2026

Even as a kid, I was drawn to nature. Whether it was walking with my grandfather in the woods, building forts with my cousins, sitting in a tree for hours or at these very falls. I spent many hours here as a kid and returned during my adult years when I needed comfort until I moved away. I was blessed to get back here on my recent trip back “home”. Don’t get me wrong, at certain times of my life, I went years without connecting to nature. Life, work, family, busy-ness kept from making it a nonnegotiable, but every time I give myself the space to be outdoors, it’s medicine for me. I never really allowed myself to understand that connection until I was much older.
Some people spend time in church to feel connected to God. This is where I feel most connected to our creator and where I seek direction and answers. Everything comes full circle. I believe the more we become disconnected from nature as humans the louder the call to return there will be. I also that everything that was put on this earth has a relationship with everything else. From plant medicine to sunshine, water, minerals in our soil and all living creatures. Everything touches Everything and all have purpose. Me re and more people are recognizing the need to return here. It all comes full circle…