Aromatic Nostagia

Aromatic Nostalgia

By Christi R. Pugh

Maybe you reminisce about favorite concerts, football games, & extra-special events in your life.  Who doesn’t love a little nostalgia?

At Nature’s Gift we tend to reminisce about legendary & spectacular oils from years past---call it, “aromatic nostalgia.” Being natural products, each essential oil crop slightly varies from year to year, & we’ve learned to treasure the truly most special oils that have come our way.

In my (unscientific) mind, I tend to think of essential oil batches like snowflakes…no two are (exactly) alike. 

One of the oils we all wish we had stocked up on was our amazing Sweet Patchouli from a few years   We talk about it longingly with a tinge of melancholy.  What was it about that particular batch of Patchouli?  The soil, the amount of rain or sun that season…who knows?

ago.

Last weekend I found a bottle of the 10% diluted Sweet Patchouli hidden away in a drawer in my house & the happy dance ensued!  It seemed pretty close to empty, but I turned it upside down & waited & waited & waited, till Thursday evening.  The hardened resin made it tough to budge the top open but I finally succeeded & suddenly the room was flooded with a deep, dark, rich, gorgeous aroma---Sweet Patchouli from India.  I covered myself in it before going to sleep & felt like royalty! (I had been concerned the carrier oil might be getting too old, but it was still good.) 

Around here, other oils we recall fondly include the sparkling 2005 USA Pink Grapefruit crop (we bought every drop this producer distilled), a 2007 Rosewood I never thought would be beaten till the Rosewood we sourced this year (sustainably harvested) from Brazil, & of course the true Santal album, Sandalwood Mysore circa about 12 years ago.  (Raise your hand if you are still aging vintage Sandalwood from Nature’s Gift!)  Ah and how could I neglect to mention High Altitude Lavender from Provence, pretty much any crop.  

Most oils won’t last forever.  There will come a day when they no longer shine or the bottle is empty but you can’t bring yourself to recycle it or toss it away.  Perhaps a few times a year you’ll even unscrew the lid & deeply inhale, secretly smiling.  I know I will.

Do you remember any particularly special oil you’ve experienced from Nature’s Gift?

a BIIIIIIIIIIG Order

One day last week, out of the blue, a shopping cart showed an order from a Hospice in another state for 125 bottles of Lavender Silk Lotion.   OOOOOOOPS. 

And the ladies of Nature's Gift went to work.

Christi printed several pages of of labels.  Michelle carefully attached the full labels, with ingredient list, etc. to the small bags that would be the final packaging. 

Beverly mixed a gallon batch of the lotion and counted out enough one ounce Malibu jars and tops. (Momentary panic, we thought we were out of tops!)

And then started pouring the prepared lotion and capping the jars.  (We have a tray that holds sample vials upright for filling. We've never had to do malibus in large quantity before and need to find a way to stand them upright for filling.)

Part of the finished product  ready to ship.  A good day's work for all of us. Knowing that one of our creations is being used to calm the agitation that can come with Alzheimer's is a gift.

When I think of how many lives we get to touch, I"m in awe. What a gift, to do what we do!

"Continue Shopping"

We're asking for input, please.

On our OLD website, once you added something to the shopping cart and clicked on the "Continue Shopping" button, it took you back to the main page of the website. Very unintuitive and inconvenient.  

On the NEW site, if I am shopping for Spikenard, for example, and bring it up either from the drop down aromatherapy products menu or from the search box, I am here:

 Clicking Add to Cart obviously enough puts that item in the selected size into the shopping cart:

NOW...  because I am not finished shopping, I click "continue shopping"...

As currently designed, the continue shopping button takes you back to the product you just ordered, in this case, to Spikenard.  And you can view the "cookie crumb" trail above to go to the alphabetical section you were on (S-T), to the whole Essential Oils Category, to the overall Products section if you want to buy some bottles, or a carrier oil, or back to the main HOME page to explore other options.

 

Some users have complained that going back and forth requires too many mouse clicks.  We are wondering if you would prefer to have the "Continue Shopping" button take you to the alphabetical section the last item was found in??? (in this case,  S-T, for the Spikenard.)

Would that be more efficient, more intuitive, or would it be confusing?

If you came here because of our query on our Facebook page you may reply there, or here, but please let us know whether you would prefer to have "continue shopping" take you back to the last PRODUCT  or to the last "SubCategory"

Thank you for your input~

Missing the Quick List?

Over and over again our old friends have emailed "I love the new site, but I miss the alphabetical list"

That quick table that didn't tell you much about the oils, except the latin name, the country, and the PRICES.  We miss it too.  Someone will have a quick question about pricing, or "does this oil come in that size" and I need my quick list.

So we went back to the team.  It's not exactly the old table that was on the old site, but it will let you list the oils alphabetically and show the RETAIL sizes and prices.  (We chose not to include bulk sizes and pricing in this list, for reasons of space.  Some day we may do a bulk list. Not right now!)

To access the alphabetical "quick list"  from the home page, click on Aromatherapy Products.  On the drop down menu click Essential Oils and you will see the menu above. Either go the the alphabetical section or group that you want to read about, or click on the Essential Oil Quick List for the full alphabetical listing with retail sizes and pricing.

We are moving right along!