Doing It My Way

Doing It My Way is a candid ZORA Q&A series with newsmakers and changemakers in our community who are charting their own paths with conviction and defying convention.

When Yvonne Perez Emerson was a young, single mother making homemade lotions, balms, and tinctures for her family, she had no idea she was laying the foundation for what would one day be a luxury brand carried at Saks Fifth Avenue.

“I was a young, good-looking girl but I didn’t have a lot of money, and I wanted to feel good,” says Emerson, founder of CBD beauty and wellness company Make &…