It Started With Her Daughters: The Heart Behind G & E Spa Essentials

When Jessi McLean started making bath bombs at home, opening a business was the furthest thing from her mind. She was a mom trying to find a way to spend more time with her oldest daughter while navigating difficult circumstances with her youngest.

At the time, her family was facing medical challenges that no parent ever wants to experience. Between appointments, treatments, and the uncertainty surrounding her baby's health, Jessi was doing her best to balance the needs of her family. And like so many moms, she was carrying guilt about the things she couldn't always give equal attention to.

What started as a simple activity with her daughter eventually became G & E Spa Essentials, a growing local business that would take Jessi in a direction she never imagined. But long before she was making bath and body products, Jessi had spent years building an entirely different career.

Jessi grew up in the Culdesac area and graduated from high school in 2004 with just 13 students in her graduating class. After taking a year off and working at a daycare, she enrolled at Lewis-Clark State College, where she earned her degree in elementary education with a math endorsement.

She went on to spend 11 years teaching eighth grade math at Jenifer Middle School. She enjoyed education and had even returned to school to earn her master's degree, with hopes of eventually becoming a principal.

Along the way, she met her husband, who also works in education as a special education teacher. Together, they began building their family while balancing their careers.

In 2017, Jessi welcomed her daughter Gracelyn. Three years later, she was expecting again, but this time her family would face challenges they never could have prepared for.

Eliana was born in 2020, during a time when the world was already dealing with the uncertainty of COVID. Jessi had experienced complications during her pregnancy, but it was the weeks following Eliana's birth that would become especially frightening.

At first, Jessi and her husband believed their newborn was struggling with colic and acid reflux. When Eliana was just five weeks old, doctors discovered something far more serious. She was diagnosed with severe pulmonary hypertension and three additional congenital heart defects.

What they had initially believed were common newborn feeding and digestive issues quickly turned into an overwhelming medical journey. Eliana needed tube feedings, daily appointments, and intensive feeding therapy. Eventually, she required a feeding tube placed directly into her stomach.

Then came open heart surgery.

While most families with infants are adjusting to sleepless nights, first milestones, and all the changes that come with a new baby, Jessi and her husband were making difficult medical decisions and trying to understand what the future might look like for their daughter.

All of this was happening during the pandemic, when so much about everyday life was already uncertain. Jessi was trying to keep up with appointments, therapies, and her family's needs while processing everything happening to her little girl. As much as Eliana needed her, Jessi was also thinking about Gracelyn.

With so much attention understandably focused on Eliana's medical needs, Jessi began struggling with guilt that her older daughter wasn't getting enough of her.

Gracelyn was still little, too, and Jessi wanted to make sure she had opportunities to enjoy being a kid and spend time with her mom. She started looking for something they could do together at home, an activity that would be fun, simple, and give them time that wasn't centered around everything else the family was experiencing. That's when bath bombs came into the picture.

Jessi started purchasing them for Gracelyn, thinking they would be a fun little treat. She quickly realized she wasn't particularly happy with what she was buying. They were expensive, she didn't love the fragrances, and some of the ingredients made her uncomfortable, especially when it came to using them with young children. So she started researching how to make her own.

What began as a way to spend time with Gracelyn turned into an activity they could enjoy together. Jessi experimented with different ingredients and learned through trial and error, figuring out what worked and what didn't.

She wasn't thinking about selling anything. She just wanted to make something affordable that she felt comfortable using with her daughter while giving them a little time together.

Jessi described part of that motivation as trying to “heal my mama heart.” As she continued experimenting, she began thinking about ways she could make products for Eliana, too.

After everything her youngest daughter had experienced medically, Jessi was especially mindful of what she used around her. She began exploring ingredients and eventually started developing creams intended to help care for Eliana's surgical scars.

The bath bombs had started with Gracelyn, but before long, both of Jessi's daughters were influencing what she was creating.

As Jessi continued experimenting, her ideas grew beyond bath bombs. She researched ingredients, tried different formulations, and began learning more about the process of creating bath and body products.

Her family and friends started noticing what she was making and encouraged her to consider turning it into something more.

Her husband was especially supportive from the beginning. He used his 3D printer to create items Jessi needed as she developed her products and even built her a beautiful workspace downstairs in their home, giving her a dedicated place to experiment and bring her ideas to life.

Her mom has also become part of the business, lending a hand after retirement and making G & E even more of a family effort.

At the time, becoming a business owner wasn't something Jessi had ever planned for herself.

She spent years working toward a career in education. She knew how to manage a classroom, teach middle school students, and handle the responsibilities that came with being a teacher. She had even gone back to school with the intention of eventually becoming a principal. Running a manufacturing business was an entirely different world.

There were ingredients to source, products to develop, costs to calculate, and countless decisions to make. Jessi was learning an industry she had no previous experience in, and she admits there were moments when she questioned whether she knew what she was doing.

Her husband, family, and friends continued encouraging her, even when she wasn't entirely confident in herself. Eventually, the possibility of turning her hobby into a career became something she was ready to take seriously.

In 2022, Jessi made the decision to leave teaching and focus on G & E Spa Essentials full-time.

It was a major change for someone who had dedicated so much time and effort to her education and teaching career. Instead of continuing down the path she'd originally planned, she was stepping into something completely unfamiliar, with no guarantee of where it would lead.

The little project that began at home was growing, and Jessi wanted to see what she could make of it.

By early 2023, Jessi had grown the business enough to open a small storefront inside the movie theater.

A few months later, she moved into her first manufacturing warehouse, with support from 100+ Women Who Care at the Confluence. It was another big step for a business that had started with homemade bath bombs and a mom looking for something fun to do with her daughter.

As demand increased, so did the work involved in keeping everything running. In September 2024, Jessi hired her first employee. By August 2025, G & E Spa Essentials had expanded into a larger manufacturing space, giving her more room to produce products and continue growing the business.

What began with bath bombs has since expanded into a variety of handmade bath and body products, including scrubs, shower steamers, shower gel, beard products, dog shampoo, and more.

For Jessi, the growth has meant learning how to manage far more than just making products. She's had to figure out production, inventory, manufacturing, employees, and all the behind the scenes responsibilities that come with running a growing small business.

While the business has changed considerably since those early days at home, the things that mattered to her when she started are still important.

Jessi wants to create products using ingredients she feels comfortable with while keeping them affordable for the people buying them. That's not always an easy balance.

One of the biggest challenges she's faced has been the rising cost of ingredients, packaging, and supplies. Some of the materials she uses aren't grown or produced in the United States, which can make them more expensive and difficult to source.

For a business that began partly because Jessi was frustrated with the cost of bath products, raising her own prices isn't something she takes lightly.

She's had to learn how to balance the cost of making products with what customers can reasonably afford, all while continuing to grow and support the business she's built.

There have been plenty of adjustments along the way, and Jessi is still learning. But she's come a long way from the teacher who first started researching how to make bath bombs in her own home.

When Jessi looks at G & E Spa Essentials today, there's a lot that has changed since she first started making products with Gracelyn.

Jessi's career looks very different from the one she originally imagined for herself. She spent more than a decade teaching eighth-grade math and had plans to become a principal. At the time, she had no reason to believe that making bath products at home would eventually lead her away from the classroom.

There are so many local businesses we see every day without knowing what inspired someone to start them. G & E Spa Essentials is one of those businesses with a story that goes far beyond what's on the shelves.

And while Jessi has accomplished a great deal since opening G & E, I love knowing that Gracelyn and Eliana are such an important part of how it all began.

She never imagined that one of the hardest chapters of her life would lead her to a career she hadn't even considered. She was just trying to be the mom both of her daughters needed.

Today, G & E Spa Essentials is proof that something meaningful can grow from even the most difficult circumstances. And no matter how big the business becomes, its beginning will always belong to two little girls and a mom who loved them enough to try something new.