What is your name and location?
Half Hippy, a conscious lifestyle brand founded by Marian Miranda & Upahar Rana in Brooklyn, NY
How do you heal (or help heal) people?
Half Hippy began as as a content based brand that focused on green beauty, holistic living, and mindful living tips. We provide practical and holistic recipes to educate our audience on how to find the balance of natural living, which we wholeheartedly believe can be fun as well. We also try to keep things lighthearted and are always looking for silly ways to present our points of view. Laughing is important and we never take ourselves too seriously. Through our social media, we like to give daily reminders that promotes self-love, positive vibes, and holistic living tips. Half Hippy is all about spreading the love everyday through a 360 approach to our whole being.
We will be launching an all natural, vegan, and cruelty free personal care products as well as a upcycled accessories line beginning this spring. We are proud to be able to offer people both content and tangible products that can help them sustain a holistic life.
What type of benefits does your method of healing provide?
Half Hippy promotes holistic living solutions that are also practical in real life. Although we love geeking out on ayurvedic practices and ancient remedies, we also know that modern humans don’t have all the time in the world to drip five different oils on their bodies, dry brush, oil pull, and do yoga all before 6 am. However, we believe we can find ways to practice these methods through simplified solutions and incorporate these natural alternatives into our routines. We believe being healthy and natural can be synonymous even in our busy lifestyles. So we try our best to provide practical tips and even trendy natural beauty alternatives to encourage our audience to make the switches to conscious choices.
Just like our body doesn’t just function based on one part, we believe the approach to healing anything can’t just rely on one aspect of treatment since it takes the entire body to work with other parts to truly function cohesively. We take this approach to healing because every decision we make from our diets to the products we use directly affects our well being. Our personal care products will also provide both 100% natural and easy to use alternatives to other products in the market. Our small batch products are made with love and quality to continue keeping our bodies free of nasty chemicals. We really believe balance is key to a healthy and happy life. It is Half Hippy’s motto and it is our goal to bridge the gap of conscious living while having a good time along the journey.
When did you realize that you wanted to heal people/why did you start?
Half Hippy was created by our individual journey to find the best healing alternatives for our bodies. It began as a simple search to find natural and alternative cures for ourselves, which led to more research and making conscious decisions. In a search to clear up our acne and dietary issues, we began a trial and error process that focused on natural remedies for our well being in general. As a result, we began sharing natural cures, tips, and recipes between the two of us and started our own little resource of knowledge. After a while, our friends and coworkers began approaching us for advice and we realized we had an audience and wanted to share our experiences. Thus, Half Hippy was born as a way to grow our community and reach people all over the world.
Why is what you do so important?
There is a lot of toxic chemicals along with misinformation on our food and products that we are exposed to on a daily basis. In addition, there are still many people that are either unaware or complacent on how conventional medicine and products filled with toxic nasties is the norm. If we can educate people on ways that they can heal and help themselves with simple and all natural ingredients, then we are empowering humans take their health into their own hands. If we can also make it funny and easy, we are hoping that people can view getting green and clean in a new light. There is sometimes a stigma that comes with the wellness community and people can get intimidated or think they can’t do it themselves. We want to squash that negative perspective, empower people and get them interested in taking care of themselves holistically.
What is your inspiration to continue doing what you are doing? What is the fuel that keeps you going?
We are passionate about living naturally and making conscious decisions for not only ourselves, but mama Earth as well. We are only human and have our slip-ups, but being committed to loving our bodies and healing them holistically is what keeps us striving to be better people. The big message we want to spread about balance focuses creating a routine that respects our bodies and the choices we make for them. Often people are torn and are unkind to themselves when they fall off the bandwagon of diet fads or even just healthy living. We are here to remind humans that it is important to keep a realistic approach to being healthy. You can have your pizza slices if you work out and chase them down with green juice shots!
Half Hippy is a passion project and a brand that reflects who we truly are. As a result, it is completely supported by us because we want to have control over our ideals and products. It can be a struggle at times, but creating our own voice and having a platform that promotes healthy living along with positivity fuels our soul. We are proud of our small beginnings because it is an authentic journey we want to share with our community.
How does it make you feel when you are healing people?
As women that come from two very nurturing cultures (Filipino and Nepali), we were both raised with similar values. Our family background always promoted natural healing solutions and highly valued taking care of others. It made healing and helping people second nature to us. In addition, we both happen to have very caring and crafty personalities that extends to us constantly wanting DIY everything in life. As a result, one of us is always giving out tincture remedies for cold while the other is whipping up beauty masks to fix skin ailments. Even when striking up a conversation with a stranger, we are always dishing out tips and advice because we are that passionate about it! Whether we write about eczema, which both our families have struggled with, or some other serious health issue, we know what it feels like to suffer from both pain and insecurities that conditions often inflict upon people. We want to be able to truly help people and find alternatives that heal from inside out. It is a natural inclination we have developed and are proud of. It honestly feels amazing to heal others and guide others to find what can individually work for each one of us. It is the best feeling when we get feedback that a recipe or cure has worked for someone or we get a super sweet email or comment from a stranger saying that we simply made them smile.
What are your visions &/or goals?
As a conscious lifestyle brand, Half Hippy plans to launch a natural personal care product and upcycled accessories line. Our goal is to create both sustainable products and a lifestyle that truly inspires people to reflect a natural and positive life. Our brand is all about conscious practices that include treating our bodies with the utmost quality and wholesome care. We assure quality and a commitment to eco-conscious practices as we envision growing our community to a wider scale.
Our vision is to inspire humans to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle while still making sure they live a fulfilled lives with your own unique flare. We want to promote conscious living that is embedded in practices that is both good for our bodies and our planet. Our natural products can replace trends, but we want to help people to be aware of daily living choices with a 360 approach to mind, body, and living.
As a brand with small batch products, we want work with both small local and global artisans while maintaining ethical practices and highlighting the importance of supporting communities. We aim to continue to make Half Hippy a brand that inspires others to be part of a conscious and growing movement.
Tell us a fun fact about what it is that you do, or something people may not know.
We have actually been friends since the ninth grade. We met in California and became super close really fast! We bonded over our mutual love for eating (snack queens!), taking naps, and cutting class. We have kept in touch over the years until we both separately ended up here in NY.
In one sentence, what is your message to the world?
Half Hippy is all about creating balanced approach to natural and conscious living, which means it is easy to be green and clean while still having a lot of fun.
You can keep up with Half Hippy at: