But while the business markets itself as a safe space for queer shoppers, its owner, Chloe Bee, sees the shop as a way to help the LGBTQ+ community rectify what she sees as a problem: reliance on Western medicine.
Bee, who’s pansexual, sees herbal medicine as a way to break from what she says are addictive substances and harmful pharmaceuticals.
She sells blends like Cockstar and Multiple Orgasm Mocha — made with substances such as ashwagandha root, damiana leaf powder, maca root and more — that function as sexual aids and mood boosters. Herbs for aches, pains and other ailments are also available.
“It’s fun to educate people on all the potential of plant medicine and how they can alter your mood and lift your spirits,” Bee says.
A ‘soothing and healing’ space
Bee started with a tiny shop called Happy Healthy Horny High Herbs off Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe in 2012. It moved to a roomier, 1,500-square-foot location in a strip mall at Southern Avenue and McClintock Drive in December 2024 and was renamed to Rainbow Bliss Botanicals.Even if you have no interest in natural healing, the space is worth a visit.
The store hosts events ranging from open mic nights and dance parties to classes on ancestral beading, reflexology, yoga and more.
In June, spiritual healer Lucas Morales of Tempe began holding Queer Roots Circle in the shop. It’s a group “for queer people looking to meet other queer people who are interested in spirituality,” he explains.
Morales says it was important to him to find a place where the products were ethically sourced and where he and others felt loved and welcomed.
“(Bee) just puts all this intention and care into her space, and her patrons — a lot of them are queer as well — can sense that,” Morales says.
Rainbow Bliss Botanicals also offers a wide range of food and drinks, which Bee describes as “anti-inflammatory and soothing and healing.” Thanks to a spacious commercial kitchen, it also houses Desert Roots Kitchen, a vegan restaurant that relocated in June after operating in downtown Tempe for 13 years.
Leslie Robin owns and runs Desert Roots Kitchen, a vegan restaurant inside Rainbow Bliss Botanicals.
Geri Koeppel
Rainbow Bliss Botanicals also offers food — including Lion’s Mane mushroom tacos and a chicken salad sandwich — and a long list of drinks, including pour-over Peixoto coffee, matcha, chai, mocktails and “potions” that can be jazzed up with kava or kratom. Prices range from $6 to $15.
It provides an alternative to a bar where people can unwind and “have great conversations where you won’t say shit you’ll regret,” Bee says.
Herbs for health, joy — and sex
Rainbow Bliss Botanicals is not just for hardcore herbal medicine aficionados. Bee says she’s not against Western medicine, but adds, “I do truly believe that herbal medicine can eradicate the necessity to prescribe so many of these potentially harmful drugs.”Bee and her staff — all of whom are trained herbalists — get a lot of questions about improving male sexual performance over age 50. They also have transgender clients who want to “feel more embodied through their transition” and get help with balance and healing.
It’s not a new trade for Bee. She grew up in conservative Fountain Hills. But her mom, a “flower child” as she put it, was an aromatherapist who used herbal remedies for things like sore muscles, respiratory support and the flu, and raised her daughter around “healthy, sober people.”
But Bee said her high school was “ravaged” by opiates and methamphetamines.
“I watched some of my beautiful, bright, happy friends get hooked on horrible pharmaceuticals that stole their light,” she says.
In her early 20s, Bee discovered that herbs could provide a high without the negative effects. She has a degree in sustainable ecosystems and soil science, but also studies Chinese medicine.
For the past seven years, Bee has split her time between homes in Tempe and Oahu in Hawaii where she shares land in a co-op with other farmers and grows many of the herbs used in her products.
Her customers come in for a variety of health issues, but Rainbow Bliss Botanicals is known for 100 percent organic herbs that act as mood enhancers and aphrodisiacs. For instance, kanna can produce euphoria, kava can reduce anxiety and maca root is said to offer energy and clarity (and possibly a stronger libido).
The cost ranges from $5 for a pack of “giggly, fun” herbal cigs to $35 for a container of herbal aphrodisiacs.
“People love to get high and sparkly and have the energy to dance all night and flirt and all the things,” Bee says.
