April 30, 2021

Customers from Sioux Falls already have discovered Crystal Rock Healing – but soon they won’t have to travel to Fargo or go online to shop there.

“We did a show down here (in Sioux Falls), and we had a lot of people who come to our Fargo store before that, and it’s what drew us to that being our next location,” said owner Cindy Schmitz, who founded the business in 2013.

Sioux Falls will be her fourth and largest store, occupying 5,700 square feet in the Western Mall that used to be Hannah’s Hallmark Shop.

“It’s big,” she said. “And it has an upstairs, which will be a good place for classes and healers and a backroom that’s big that we’ll use for classes and a little bit of storage.”

She and her husband, Ron, are veterinary nurses who practiced in the Twin Cities.

After contracting Lyme disease, Schmitz found holistic medicine helped her more than traditional medications.

“I said enough and started studying (essential) oils and reiki, and got my master’s and went the entire holistic route, and I hardly have any symptoms anymore,” Schmitz said. “With my sales background, I wanted to do something to help others.”

She began creating essential oils and selling them at the downtown Minneapolis farmers market before opening her first store in Bismarck, N.D.

Her husband wasn’t quite sure if the market was there for the products, “but it took off right away,” she said.

They now spend part of their time sourcing rocks from around the world to sell or make into jewelry.

“We have over 12,000 jewelry items on the wall, and over 200 kinds (of rocks) sourced from all over the world,” she said. “If you saw my house, it’s piled full of boxes of rocks, and I’m in the process of cleaning thousands of pounds.”

Schmitz and her husband make most of the jewelry, while stores make chip bracelets and her mother and sister make earrings and charms.

“And there are some specialty items, angel receptors and negativity zappers that we have some of our stores make,” she said, estimating they put in 16-hour days every day of the week.

“We just love it. If you love it, it’s not a job, and that’s us. We love to go find rocks and wash the rocks and make the product.”

Other merchandise includes bath and beauty products, sage, incense, books, candles and pet products.

When they first opened, it was a process of educating customers about the benefits of essential oils and how to use them. Now, they’re educating about rocks.

“Rocks have energy of the Earth, and every rock has a different energy,” Schmitz said. “It sounds crazy to a lot of people, but I’ll be walking through the store, and my stomach will have pain, and I’ll feel inclined to grab a certain rock and put it on my stomach, and the pain goes away.”

Stones that have been especially popular in the past year include lepidolite, which “is really calming,” she said. “For the last year, all the black stones have been really popular – onyx and tourmaline – because they’re really protecting.”

Bloodstone jasper is another popular seller because it’s known to help with viruses and problems of the blood, she said.

“It’s always turning over,” she said of inventory. “If someone sees something at our store, they have to take it because it will be gone.”

The plan is to open the Sioux Falls store by June 1. They have not started hiring but will need a manager and sales associates. Apply by contacting [email protected].