Guest Profile
Barbara Quintero
A New York State Licensed Massage Therapist and Aromatherapist, Barbara Quintero has a great passion for the healing arts and healthy living that she incorporates into her skin and body care line Q Gardens. Upon her graduation from the Swedish Institute College of Health and Sciences, Barbara set off on a trip to the Amazon Rainforest with her sister and business partner to work with an indigenous healer. What started out as a seemingly wonderful journey ended up being a life-altering experience for Barbara. She left Peru knowing unquestionably that there was a huge potential for the use of healing botanicals. Upon her return to the United States she set off to build a Massage practice renting a small studio in New Yorks Greenwich Village. Knowing that she wanted to find a test group of people who had physically and emotionally challenging jobs and prove how regular massage can dramatically improve quality of life for this type of group, Barbara found the connection she was seeking. Her connection was a NYC Firefighter. What she asked for was 6 firefighters 2 per week for 6 months; she would work on them free of charge but wanted their feedback. What she got was 13 firefighters twice a week for 3 years. This allowed no time for paying clients, so late in 2007 Barbara had to figure out a way to support her family while trying to keep this program for the firefighters going as it was extremely beneficial for them. This is how Q Gardens was born. Barbara re-connected with the Shaman from the Amazon Rainforest that she had worked with and started to import healing botanicals from the rainforest using these oils clays and resins as the base of all Q Gardens products. Each of the products contains nourishing and healing plant properties for the skin and are all natural. Q Gardens is more than just a line of skin and body care, Q Gardens only uses only sustainable resources and is committed to giving 10 % of profits back for land preservation. Our companys goal, says Quintero, is to become a leading business example in educating the population on how each of us can preserve and give back to our planet and its resources; if everyone gave just one drop in the bucket, the bucket would overflow.
The long term goal for our company is to continue to offer additional healing products and nutritional supplements and ultimately open Q Gardens restorative resorts to incorporate the healing products and the healing arts in which both Barbara and her partner Jean are trained.