Denise Troy: From TV and Film Choreographer to Founder of Stillnus
Denise Troy is the founder of Stillnus, an Orange County wellness brand making handmade comfort objects for rest, recovery, and hard seasons. Before Stillnus, Denise worked in TV and film choreography. The brand grew from the same place her choreography did: a belief that the body tells the truth before words can catch up.
This founder profile is intentionally told in Denise’s own words, because the story of Stillnus is not only a business story. It is a story about movement, motherhood, impact, survival, stillness, and learning to make space for care.
When did Stillnus begin for you?
I went through a pretty gnarly, tumultuous season that left me needing an extra level of care. I wanted to feel held, but I was busy holding everyone else: my children, my family, my work, the whole unit.
I had to start carving out space that was for me and only me. That is when meditation came into my life, and that is when I realized there are millions of women like me who need the ritual of being held.
That realization became Stillnus: weighted eye pillows, period relief pillows, and kids comfort compresses made for the moments when the body needs warmth, pressure, quiet, or a small reminder that care is allowed.
What did choreography teach you?
Choreography was a guiding light for me. It taught me that movement can be cathartic, and that the body often knows how to release emotion before the mind knows how to explain it.
For Denise, the connection between choreography and Stillnus is not abstract. Both are body-first practices. Both ask what someone is holding. Both make room for release.
Now I use Stillnus and movement together. They help me meet my body in all the different places it needs to be met.
After decades of work rooted in motion, Stillnus became a kind of counterweight.
For decades, choreography had me leaning toward movement, sometimes without the balance of stillness. So it feels poetic to me that this next chapter is rooted in the opposite: the practice of becoming still.
Who were you making this for at first?
I wanted to give my girlfriends, especially the ones moving through particularly hard moments, something they could reach for again and again and feel my love inside it.
That sentence still sits at the center of the brand. Stillnus products are designed to be used repeatedly, not displayed once and forgotten. They are meant to live beside the bed, on the couch, in a drawer, in a tote bag, close enough to reach when the day asks too much.
Why support domestic violence survivors?
I have always been a champion of women in their hardest moments. Supporting domestic violence survivors felt like the clearest extension of that, because these are women who need to feel held and safe more than anyone.
A portion of every Stillnus purchase supports domestic violence survivors through Laura’s House, an Orange County nonprofit providing shelter, counseling, legal advocacy, prevention education, and support services.
The give-back is not separate from the product. It is part of the same belief: that safety, rest, and being held are not luxuries.
What do you hope someone feels when they hold a Stillnus product?
I hope they feel safe. I hope they feel seen. I hope they feel loved.
If Stillnus could say one thing to the person holding it, it would be: this moment is for you.
That is the whole thesis in one sentence.
What has stillness taught you?
I have always been a multi-hyphenate person, with a lot of passions and a fast mind that does not quiet easily.
There have been moments when I neglected stillness, and my body quite literally rejected anything else. I know now that stillness is not something I can afford to leave out of my life.
Stillnus did not come from someone who found quiet easily. It came from someone who had to learn that stillness was not the absence of ambition, care, work, or movement. It was the thing that made continuing possible.
What do you want people to know about you?
I have always cared more about impact than profit, maybe even to a fault. But I have this unshakeable desire to leave the largest fingerprint of impact possible.
That impact shows up in the product, in the give-back model, in the way Stillnus talks about hard things without trying to tidy them into slogans.
What has surprised you about building Stillnus?
I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from total strangers. I have had a few different businesses over the years, but Stillnus is the first one where it feels like people seek us out.
Stores reach out wanting to carry us. Press reaches out wanting to feature us. People seem to recognize the need for something softer.
That response has confirmed what Denise felt at the beginning: the need was already there. Stillnus simply gave it an object, a ritual, and a name.
Shop Stillnus
You can explore the full collection in the Stillnus shop, including weighted lavender eye pillows, the Pebble Moon Period Relief Pillow, and kids comfort compresses.
Every order supports a small woman-owned Orange County wellness brand and helps extend care to domestic violence survivors through Laura’s House.
For a wider view of the brand, products, impact, press, and wholesale story, visit About Stillnus.
