A neuroscientist quit her job to create jewellery - from breast milk, ashes and hair. Rachel Heinze, 29, struggled with breastfeeding after her first child, Lucas, two, was born six weeks prematurely in October 2020.
The mum-of-two wanted to celebrate her "exhausting" breastfeeding journey and decided to make a ring from her leftover milk - after seeing adverts for breast milk jewellery on Facebook. Rachel fell in love with the process of making the unique designs and decided to turn her hobby into a career when she launched a business in November 2021.
She turns client's breast milk into powder before making it into the item - and can combine locks of hair and ashes into designs too. Each piece is sold for up to $200 and Rachel made $30k in 2022 - her first full year of business.
Rachel, from Lakeland, Florida, US, said: "I’m not going to lie, when I first saw breastfeeding jewellery before I had kids, I thought it was weird. But having that journey myself, I can definitely see why people want to carry that little part of the journey with them.
“When I hit that one year of breastfeeding mark I wanted to celebrate. I thought: 'I can do this. I can make these.'
"Then I fell in love with making them. Then friends wanted some, and since then it's become a business.” Rachel struggled with breastfeeding when her first child, Lucas, wouldn't latch.
She had to pump milk to feed him and couldn't use formula milk as her son didn't like the taste. She said: "He was born prematurely, so he couldn’t latch for the first six months of his life and I was pumping milk. It was so hard.
“When he finally could latch, I was low on milk. We tried formula milk, as he is allergic to dairy and soy, but he didn’t like the taste. I did everything to continue breastfeeding for a year. It was exhausting.”
To celebrate her "long and painful" breastfeeding journey she made herself a ring using her breastmilk and decided to do it for others as a business in November 2021. Rachel quit her job as a neuroscientist after becoming a mum but couldn't help but jump on the opportunity to launch a new venture.
Rachel said: "I didn’t know it would be such a big thing - I just thought it would be a little here and there to make a sale. I had one video on social media, it kicked off, and that’s when it started becoming a big thing.
"I was getting breast milk given to me from all over the world. I thought: 'I can actually make this into something big'." Rachel spends eight weeks making her designs, while juggling her family life.
She said: “I was working as a neuroscience specialist in a concussion treatment centre but always wanted to be a stay-at-home mum and was glad about it. My neuroscience background helped with the preservation process for the breast milk.
“I found a way to turn it to powder before it goes into the jewellery, so it won’t go bad over time. It takes 30 minutes to preserve, however it has to dry out for two to three days before I can grind the powder.
"It takes about three to four days to make one.” Now she has expanded her business to make jewellery out of ashes and incorporates locks of hair and birth stone into her pieces.
Rachel said: “My mum lost her mother, and she had lots of hair in her hairbrush still. For Christmas I wanted to make a necklace with pieces of hair for my mum.
"Then I started adding that to my business. I do locks of hair, baby hair. I add stones, even cremation ashes.
"It is very difficult to manage hair, it is fine and small, so difficult. It is my favourite though as you can be more creative with it.”
Rachel loves being able to be at home with her children - Lucas, two, and Michael, six months - and works on her jewellery when they have been put to bed - sometimes staying up until 10pm to complete orders. She said: “I think every stay-at-home mum can vouch for how difficult it is to both work and look after your kids. But it is so worth it to me.
"My business is just a nice thing on top. Mother first, business second. If that means staying up later with a little less sleep, I am OK with that." Rachel loves reading the positive reviews and loves supporting other women going through their breastfeeding journey.
She said: “80 per cent of my responses online are positive. I always get cute little letters or reviews from customers. I get super excited about those.
But she still has to deal with trolls who think her jewellery is "gross". She said: “There are always the people out there that think it is gross. They ask me to preserve totally indecent things just to kind of troll with me
"You learn to shrug this off because normally they are men who don’t understand breastfeeding and that’s totally fine. It has surprised me. I am very grateful and blessed with the amount of success I’ve had.”
