My Roots

But I should back up. Because this story really starts before my sister’s skin struggle began. It starts with my mother.

I was born in Iceland — a stark, beautiful land of fire and ice. When I was eight, my mother moved our family to the United States, in hopes of opportunity beyond what a small Nordic island could offer. Four years later, she was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer and given six months to live. She fought for two more years. She lost her battle eleven days before my fifteenth birthday.

As the eldest of three, I became the caretaker. And losing my mother changed how our entire family saw the world. We started asking harder questions about what we were putting in and on our bodies. We threw out the toxic cleaning supplies, the processed foods. We rebuilt from scratch.

That shift is why, years later, when my sister’s skin was suffering and nothing worked, I didn’t just accept it. I’d already learned the hard way that you can’t trust what’s on the label. And I’d already made a promise to myself — after losing my mother — that I would never stop asking why.

What Iceland Taught Me

The deeper I went into botanical research, the more I realized that not all natural ingredients are created equal. Many popular “natural” ingredients are actually dermal irritants. Lavender and rose sound beautiful on a label, but they weren’t going to heal my sister’s skin.

What I needed were ingredients with real bioactivity — compounds that could calm inflammation, support the skin barrier, and protect against further damage. That search led me back to where I began: Iceland.

Iceland’s landscape is extreme. Plants that survive there don’t just endure harsh conditions — they develop extraordinarily concentrated protective compounds to do it. Potent antioxidants. Anti-inflammatory actives. Nutrients in densities you simply don’t find in milder climates. This led me to seek out botanicals with extraordinary skin benefits, studying the science behind their properties, and eventually developing formulas that harnessed their potency at the highest possible levels.

That research became the foundation for everything Root Science makes today.

The Moment
It Changed

I still remember the first time my sister put one of my early formulas on her skin and didn’t flinch.

No redness. No burning. No reaction.

Over the following weeks, her blemishes started to calm. The redness faded. Her scars — the ones I know she felt much deeper than their surface — began to soften. For the first time in years, her skin was balanced. Healthy. Quiet.

I made those formulas for her. But then her friends started asking. Then their friends. Then coworkers, then strangers. Word of mouth turned a personal mission into something much bigger than I’d planned.

That was 2008. Root Science had become a company before I’d even decided to start one.

What We
Stand For

More than fifteen years later, every formula we make still follows the same rule I set for myself at the beginning: if it doesn’t visibly work, it doesn’t exist.

We source from some of the most bioactive ecosystems on Earth, with Iceland at the heart of our ingredient philosophy. We choose extraction methods designed to preserve potency, not cut costs. We never formulate around trends, price points, or marketing angles. Every product starts with the same question: will this actually help someone’s skin?

Root Science is my way of honoring my mother, my sister, and the small but mighty Island in the North Atlantic where I was born. It’s a promise that what you put on your skin was made by someone who understands what it feels like when nothing works — and who refused to stop until something did.

With gratitude,

Gígja Valdísardóttir
(pronounced “Ghee-ya”)
Founder, Root Science