Each Monday morning, as the city comes to life, Shani Darden trades her aesthetician tools for a different type of artistry — choosing the freshest blooms at the Los Angeles flower markets and creating arrangements for her home.
“I’m obsessed with peonies,” she said. “When they’re in season, that’s all I buy.”
She keeps it “simple,” she went on. “I do try not to have, like, 17 different flowers throughout the house, because it can just look wild and crazy. It just depends on my mood.”
Flower arranging has been a passion for years, but in the last year it has become a weekly ritual, merging her love for beauty and design. When she’s unable to make the trip herself, she sends her longtime assistant.
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“We FaceTime,” Darden said. “It’s usually about 9 o’clock. When I’m in meetings, he brings them back and then I arrange them while I’m on Zoom.”
Darden’s go-to supplier is a flower wholesaler in West Hollywood, on the corner of Crescent Heights Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. “It’s not some chic experience, by the way,” she said, in her dry sense of humor. “But their flowers aren’t as expensive, and they have good quality.”
Darden’s fascination with floral arrangements flourished after she met Amanda Plott of Moonbloom Flower Club. Plott, who’s become a good friend, creates bouquets weekly for Darden’s skin care studio in Beverly Hills. “I’ve been watching her for years,” said Darden. “I learned everything from her.”
She usually starts arranging leafy branches, Darden said of her own style, then adds in flowers: “I buy a lot of eucalyptus and use filler flowers. I don’t like a lot of color, except for when it’s peonies time. But otherwise, I’m into white and sometimes a lavender.”
She has a bouquet in nearly every room of her home in L.A. “I get really into it. It’s my time that I can relax. I just like everything to be pretty at all times.”
But flower arranging, like skin care, is about more than just aesthetics; they’re both an expression of care and personal attention, which Darden provides to her clients in her studio and with her brand, Shani Darden Skin Care, sold at Sephora and direct-to-consumer. Known for a hyper-personalized, results-driven approach, she’s garnered a following among Hollywood stars like Jessica Alba, Kelly Rowland and Shay Mitchell.
Darden has been an innovator in bringing professional-level quality to consumers at-home. She has introduced heroes like the Retinol Reform, a mild retinol and AHA serum, and tools like the Facial Sculpting Wand and an LED light mask. More recently, she expanded into body with the Body Reform Treatment Serum and unveiled a Sake Nourishing Essence, formulated with antioxidants, amino acids and minerals.
She’s a lover of all beauty — and in the end, being surrounded by floral arrangements brings her joy.
“Flowers make me happy,” she said. “Every time I come home there’s fresh flowers. It just changes the vibe of everything. And you just feel better, to be honest.”
