My name, Thando, means love. And love is at the center of everything I do. Cristel Clare Wellness is named after my grandmother, Cristel, a woman who is deeply in love with life and her 13 grandchildren. My grandfather, her late husband, was a traditional healer and lived to be 97. In a sense, healing is and was simply part of my family story. When I was younger, I wanted to become a doctor, and looking back, I think I’ve always been drawn to the same thing: helping people feel better.

I’ve always loved juice and making drinks, and as I became more intentional about what I was consuming, I started thinking about what I wanted a drink to actually be. Something delicious. Something beautiful. Something made with intention. I kept coming back to one simple question: Why can’t a drink be genuinely good for you and genuinely good to drink? So I decided to make one.

I hope you enjoy the art of hydration.