By admin
Rachel Lorton was in elementary school when her mom got called in to check on her. Lorton had been to the nurse’s office a few too many times, and the school was getting worried. When Lorton’s mom came in, she asked the girl what she’d eaten for lunch. “Clouds and trees,” Lorton responded cheerfully, meaning she’d eaten cauliflower and broccoli. She didn’t like the rest of the food her cafeteria offered.
This propensity for fruits and vegetables is what led Lorton to become a vegetarian when she was 12 and a vegan in her 20s. It also put her on a path to becoming one of Instagram’s most popular smoothie bowl artists. (And for those of you who were wondering, Lorton’s mom started packing her lunch foods she’d actually eat—like peanut butter sandwiches and carrots. No need to worry.)
When Lorton became a vegan three years ago, she started drinking more smoothies. Then she began posting them on Instagram.
Lorton never dreamt of social media fame. She just wanted to make smoothies that looked and tasted great, and she posted them on Instagram hoping to show her friends that eating healthy foods could be fun. It wasn’t long before Lorton stumbled upon what she calls “the whole smoothie bowl thing” on social media—aka the trend of pouring your smoothie into a bowl, decorating it with toppings, and posting a picture of it on Instagram. She was instantly drawn in.
Lorton had previously worked as a makeup artist, so her aesthetic talent was a given. And she loved the idea of using her passion for food as a way to re-embrace her artistic side. “I think it’s really cool that you can get so creative with it,” she tells SELF. “Honestly, it’s like a therapeutic release for me to make these. It’s something that’s just fun for me to do, and it gives me a creative outlet.”
Plus, making stunning smoothie bowls furthered her initial mission: inspiring people to love healthy foods. “I think eating something pretty is more exciting,” she says.
Last fall, Lorton began to show her followers how smoothie bowl art is done.
As Lorton’s following grew, the requests poured in: People wanted to know how she made such pretty smoothie bowls. (Even though there are smoothie bowls galore on Instagram, Lorton’s creations are particularly intricate—setting them apart from some of the others.) She resisted at first—she only had two hands, and she needed both to make her tasty treats. How was she supposed to record videos of herself, too?
“But I just kept having people ask me, ‘Oh my God—how do you do this?’ ” she says. So she gave in. Lorton created an “at-home video set” in her kitchen, which really just involved strategically propping her phone above her work station.
Starting last fall, Lorton would follow up each of her smoothie bowl pictures with a video tutorial that shows how she did the decorations. And the extra work paid off. Her following grew from 5,000 Instagram users in December to 10,000 in January. (She’s now at 19,400 and counting.) “No one really shows people how to do this stuff,” she explains.
Making Instagram-worthy smoothie bowls isn’t a full-time job, but it’s something Lorton looks forward to every day.
Instagram is fun, but the brand partnerships don’t give Lorton a steady enough income to rely on. So she just enjoys it for what it is—an exciting break from her day-to-day. “My mind is always going, and sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about ideas all the time,” Lorton says. “So this is my daily therapy. It makes me actually relax.” Lorton says that while that might surprise some people—smoothie bowl art requires a fair amount of delicacy and precision—it’s true.
“It’s wild—when I started this, I was just doing it for fun, trying to get people to eat healthy, and hoping to inspire people to have fun with their food,” she says. And while she’s done that, she’s also built a large audience for her posts, and also made some Instagram friends. “I probably talk to about 30 or 40 people from all around the world on Instagram every day,” she says. “It’s really cool—we just connect over food.”
So Lorton just takes each day as it comes, challenging herself to use her smoothie bowl ingredients in new and interesting ways. “I’m always like, ‘I love this [smoothie bowl]—I’m not gonna be able to make another one that’s better,'” she says. But tomorrow, she’ll make another. And she’ll like it even more.
See some of Rachel Lorton’s beautiful smoothie bowls below. And click here to get her $1 DIY smoothie bowl hack.
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