Teresa Sabankaya, a farmer-florist, Slow Flowers© pioneer, author and presenter founded FlorioSPA in 2013, while running her retail flower shop in Santa Cruz. Teresa's 30+ year passion for all things language of flowers spawned her idea of further engaging the language of flowers and enhancing her offerings of beautiful posies and other language of flowers commodities at her retail flower shop. She put that idea into motion with the introduction of a 'Posy Soap', which would carry a story in the language of flowers with it's botanical oils and fragrances. And those little soaps sold so well that she then went on to create an extraordinary hand and body cream.
The product line continued to grow, and a few years later Teresa separated the FlorioSPA products from her day to day operations in the flower shop, and FlorioSPA became an independent, thriving business. In 2025, Teresa was joined in the business by her daughter, Antalia. Antalia's interest and studies were in essential oils and their copious uses on our well-being. With her wealth of experience and expertise, she is the primary maker of our fabulous products in our Bonny Doon Studio. Together as a dynamic collaborative team, they are able to create and lead a very thoughtful, creative, and 'blossoming' business together.
Today at FlorioSPA, we bring the timeless language and symbolism of flowers and plants into everyday rituals, thoughtfully creating beautiful products for the home and body inspired by their beautiful and heartfelt language. Each scent--or fragrance story as we like to call it- botanicals, color, and detail is chosen not only for its beauty, but for the story it has to tell.
You can find our products at the many art and craft shows throughout the Bay Area, New Leaf Community Markets, and of course, our own studio has several open days throughout the year.