Petaluma Profile: ‘I’m really more like a chef’

“I thought Petaluma was quaint, a cute little town,” said Julia Faller, describing her initial attraction to the home she found here decades ago, “but looking closer, it was about the community.”

Faller, founder and president of Benedetta, a locally-owned skin care company, was reminiscing last week about her first impressions of Petaluma. Having been raised in the sprawling population center of Southern California, Sonoma County had a bucolic appearance to anyone arriving in the early 1990s.

“I had been a licensed esthetician and clinician since the 1980s, and I’d developed my first Hydrating Elixir by 1986,” she said. “I knew there was a void that needed to be filled in the skin care field.”

Faller observed that within that field, there was an overwhelming use of chemicals and plastics that ran contrary to the health of the body.

“It was an uphill battle all the way,” she said. “People I worked with said it was too difficult to do, suppliers, laboratories, even state regulations were hard to navigate.”

By the early ‘90s, Faller knew what direction she was heading in, but was unsure where to look for a base of operations.

“It took years,” she acknowledged. “I searched all over for the right location to begin. At first, I thought Marin would be a place, but still, something wasn’t right.”

A chance opportunity led Faller to come to Petaluma. It didn’t take long for her to decide the town was perfect for her budding business and family.

“It was a terribly difficult in every sense,” she allowed. “There I was, a mother to three children, trying to save for the ingredients and bottles for my very first batch of products. Trying to source family-owned local farm raw materials, start a company and raise three kids was not easy.”

Eventually, Faller’s efforts paid off, and in 1996 she began supplying and distributing completely organic, ethically obtained botanical skincare products.

“I began distribution with Whole Foods, the old ‘Food for Thought,’” she said. “That was tremendously successful, and eventually I opened a storefront in the San Francisco Ferry Building in 2009.”

At the same time, Faller’s children formed an interest in local theater.

“Two of my kids got very involved with the Youth Corps at Cinnabar Theater, the little theater on the Hill,” she said.

With the children becoming skilled performers, Faller became a “Theater Mom,” adding Cinnabar fundraising to her repertoire.

“I’ll bet you didn’t know I won twice at the Cinnabar Chili Cook Off with my vegetarian chili,” she said, with a twinkle of pride in her voice. In fact, theater staff and actors routinely got gift baskets from her Benedetta line as a token of appreciation for their gifted teaching and nurturing of her kids in local theater.

“I don’t consider myself ‘in cosmetics,’” she said. “I’m really more like a chef, blending natural, sustainable ‘farm to table’ ingredients into effective regimens to give you healthy skin.”

Faller’s products and treatments have become so popular through her exposure at the San Francisco Ferry Building they’ve grown into a world-wide following. Faller knew that at some point she wanted a local store, closer to home, but a proper space was hard to find.

“I spent years trying to find something perfect for the Benedetta brand,” she said. In August of 2023, she finally opened a Petaluma store, in a Boulevard-facing space within the Great Petaluma Mill. “There are some really interesting developments coming for the Petaluma store,” she said. “I’ll leave it at that for now.”

Benedetta’s popularity has reached international shores with customers coming worldwide to Petaluma for treatments and products.

“It used to be that people from all over the world went to Mill Valley as a destination, but now Petaluma has evolved and grown into the destination where tourists want to come to,” she said. “But my first thoughts are always about my lovely neighbors, our tight knit community who really care about out town’s well-being.”