Meet our Team

Amy is the store manager and a long-time customer at The Apothecary. She has a background in Fine Arts, informal education and customer service, but is also an urban conservation enthusiast and committed to embracing a zero waste lifestyle. At the store she is your go-to for any plastic-free, composting, or gardening questions!

In her time away from the store, Amy is a gardening extraordinaire, growing all things from native Alberta plants, flowers, herbs, and vegetables. She loves bees, moths and all pollinators, which also happen to inspire her botanical illustrations and ceramics. She creates beautiful pottery, which you may even spot at our summer market, The Mercantile.

Ryliegh is a lover of mushrooms and is currently studying herbal medicine through Herbal Academy. She loves spending time outside (especially near water), painting and creating things with her hands. Ryliegh is a talented artist and can often be found reading tarot or spending time with her kitty son, Wendell. Here at the store, she is an expert restocker and is always laughing, smiling and bringing cheer wherever she goes.

Ryliegh eats a mainly plant-based diet and truly believes that that plants have the power to heal all. She is an early riser and loves to start the day with a yoga practice to stay active and maintain a positive mindset.

Katie began working at The Apothecary in Inglewood in 2015 (and vows that she’s a lifer) after finding her home and chosen family within its historic walls. She has worn many different hats over the years and is happy to have had the opportunity to change and grow with the business. She fell in love with learning, making her own bath and body products and crafting essential oil blends, and has since happily applied that knowledge within the classroom as an instructor for our Bodycare and Facial Care classes. When she’s not up in the classroom, you can find her cheerful self on the floor helping customers create recipes and learn all about raw materials and aromatherapy.

Katie majored in Fibre at The Alberta College of Art and Design and still finds ways to be creative in her plant-filled jungle of a home. She loves to weave, make paper and learn all she can about natural dyeing.

We call Desirae (Des) our Ray of Sunshine because she is always laughing or smiling! Des is immersed in a world of plants and natural medicine, enrolled in the herbal program at Wild Rose College and David Winston’s Center For Herbal Studies. It’s no surprise that Des loves learning and expanding her knowledge at The Apothecary with essential oils and aromatherapy.

Des loves hiking, riding her bike around the city and going on herb walks, and her favourite herbal application is creating herbal tinctures. She has a passion for people, helping others and alternative medicine.

When she’s not studying, Des is either listening to a favourite tune on repeat, drawing, looking at interior design, making yarn things, weaving or cooking up a storm.

Fefe can be found outdoors whenever she gets the chance, enjoying the sunshine, walking barefoot and enjoying all the benefits that nature has to offer! Fefe is currently studying at Wild Rose College, enrolled in the Practical Herbalism diploma. She hopes to one day get her Masters in Herbalism to help others heal with the magic of plant medicine.

When she isn’t studying, Fefe enjoys spending her time doing yoga, reading, and listening to podcasts to expand her knowledge on everything holistic wellness! She also enjoys spending time with her incredibly large family.

Calista splits her time between working with us and as a Collection Technician for the Indigenous studies collection at the Glenbow Museum. She holds an MA in Funerary Archaeology from the University of York and is fascinated with death, human bones and repatriation (her first pet was a rooster named Rigor Mortis).

Calista is passionate about reconciliation, sustainability, upcycling and thrifting. You can often find her cooking up custom body oils like a mad scientist. This year, she’s looking forward to learning more about fermentation to satisfy her addiction to pickles and hot sauce.

As someone who recently dove into the world of wellness, zero-waste living and sustainability, you can always find Mehak not-so-secretly listening in on conversations about any and every product, eager to soak up all the new knowledge. On a mission to find the things that light a fire inside her, Mehak is usually jumping around wanting to try 23 things at once.

Outside the doors of The Apothecary, Mehak can be found reading a book (or four), going out for brunch any chance she gets, and dragging anyone who's remotely willing to go on extra long walks by the river, never wanting to miss a second of the blazing sun.

Liam is the latest addition to the team at The Apothecary. In the store, they focus on learning from their coworkers and giving excellent customer service with their big smile and natural "joie de vivre". While they are new to the world of aromatherapy and herbology, they've been practicing zero waste living for years now, from making their own cleaning products to mending clothes and up-cycling thrifted material.

At home they enjoy spending time with their cat Lily while reading a good book, cooking, drawing, sewing, or doing DIY of some sort.

English/Filipina Maria landed in Calgary, May 2013, by sheer accident after being set up with her Japanese Canadian husband in Japan.

Since being told that there was no money in art, she set out to prove naysayers wrong by completing her BA (Hons) in Fine Art, and a BTEC Diploma in Multimedia, and making beautiful photographs, and graphics wherever she goes. Alongside telling everyone how wonderful The Apothecary is, Maria and her three kids revel in the joy of exploring nature, libraries, baking, and art.

When she gets the chance, Maria likes to work on her lizard pose, volunteer at her local community association, buy books she doesn’t have shelf space for, fuel her stationary addiction, and talk about anything Jane Austen.

Rosie is the brains behind our website for both The Apothecary and our sister company All Things Jill. As one of the store’s resident vegans, Rosie is always playing food scientist and finding new ways to make her favourite vegan treats zero waste.

Rosie graduated from the University of Calgary with a BA in Communication and Media Studies. At home you’ll often find her arguing with her cat, making macrame, and trying not to think about space. Rosie is passionate about intersectional environmentalism, living intentionally, and making sure all of her friends have opened RRSPs.

Originally from Erin, Ontario, Jill grew up your typical entrepreneur — she was the kid with the lemonade stand in the driveway, always wanted to play “store” and at one point when she was 7 or 8 was going to build her empire via rug hooking. She also began to dabble in soaps and bath salts at a young age, fascinated by how the ingredients would come together to make a certain product. Fast forward quite a few years and Jill now holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from McMaster University, has taught students of all ages, and also worked in Marketing, Advertising and Corporate training for a large Canadian Insurance company.

Realizing that she was a terrible employee but a savvy entrepreneur, Jill left it all behind when she came out here in November 2004 to launch All Things Jill (our wholesale manufacturing biz and sister company) full time. More than a decade later, her company is thriving and serving customers well. She finally realized her vision of “playing store” in real life with the opening of The Apothecary in Inglewood in 2012. She was thrilled to expand the store into Calgary’s first refillery and zero waste destination shoppe in 2017.

When she's not at the office you can find our #BossLady at the curling rink, on her paddleboard, watching a movie, enjoying a glass of wine, or working with her pups Django & Upton.