NEWS

News about changes to oils and other products for sale. For general news, views and opinion - not related to aromatherapy - go to NEWS & VIEWS

08.04.07 Postage changes as Royal Mail put prices up yet again.

08.04.07 Oregano - as of April 2007 I am switching from a Turkish  to a Spanish oil, as existing stocks are used up.

21.08.06 Postage changes as Royal Mail now introduce variable rates according to size of package as well as weight (coming soon? - variable rates according to colour of envelope, whether there is an "r" in the month...). Main effect is that small items cost more, some medium packages may cost a little less.09.02.06 Jojoba oil now organic at same price as previous non-organic stock.

27.12.05 Frankincense & myrrh cream - formula changed from 27.12.05; now contains Boswellia Serrata instead of Boswellia Carteri. See page on FRANKINCENSE & MYRRH CREAM.

08.11.05 Oregano - as of November 2005 I am switching from a Spanish to a Turkish oil, with a higher carvacrol content, as existing stocks are used up. Any feedback from customers on this change is welcome.

31.10.05 New - Frankincense & myrrh cream.

21.10.05 Organic lemongrass and peppermint now available. Some price changes. 

06.07.05 Sandalwood price rocketing - mine up £2 per 5ml bottle! May have to go higher. I have been reluctant to switch to Australian Sandalwood and am considering whether to keep stocking it at all. See below re ecological concerns.

15.02.05 I will soon be sending out the first oils in a new style bottle and dropper. Until stocks of already-bottled oils are sold, there will be a failry long period during which some oils will be in new-style bottles, and some in old.

I am supposed to tell you some garbage about how this is a move to a more attractive bottle and more convenient dropper to satisfy the customer, but in fact the move has been forced on me as no bottle supplier I know any longer stocks a 5ml size of the old bottle - a Stella 14mm neck - and the whole range is becoming rarer. When I started selling oils in 1991, I could get droppers with 4 different hole sizes (I later saw a catalogue with 6!), so sandalwood had a big-hole dropper and grapefruit a tiny-hole dropper. This seemed a good idea to me as I had previously bought oils from suppliers who used the same hole-size for all their oils - so you would turn up the bottle of cedarwood, wait half an hour, and nothing would come out, or turn up the lemon carefully for one drop, and get three, plus another few all over your hands. Many other suppliers used 2 sizes, but this is not enough in my view.

I have already gone through an unwanted redesign of the lids and droppers which saw the number of droppers reduced to 2 or 3, so am still selling some oils with old lids and droppers (I stocked up) and some with new. The bottle suppliers usually have little to say other than "It's nothing to do with me, duck, it's our supplier in Germany that doesn't do them any more". So all this stuff about "the free market supplying what consumers want" is hogwash, as far as this consumer is concerned.

The new bottles still have a range of dropper sizes,  but all are supplied to me ready-fitted to lids, and some come with tamper-evident tops and some don't. I can probably take the less-used size droppers out of one sort of lid and fit them to the other for consistency, but this is tedious to say the least (grrr....see above re free market). Having said all that, the bottles look nice, they have a wider neck so are easier to fill and decant from, and the droppers seem OK on my experiments so far. I will probably have a few left-over lids and droppers for 14mm-neck Stella for sale.

28.01.05 Organic basil, ravensara and ylang ylang extra now available. Some price changes. Oregano now available in 25ml, contact me for prices for larger sizes (on order).

21.10.04 Organic orange and palmarosa now available. The online shop with shopping cart is now working again (with a different payment processing company) for UK and overseas orders.

14.10.04 Credit or debit card payments can now be taken for retail or trade orders via NOCHEX. No shopping cart system for this. Retails shopping cart using 2Checkout almost ready.

18.08.04 Organic lavender price down. Organic lemon and eucalyptus now available. The eucalyptus species is e. globulus; for now I also continue to stock non-organic e. radiata, and will review this later. Except for lavender, all other organic oils will replace the old non-organic stock - e.g. I will not be stocking a separate non-organic lemon

12.05.04 I have now stopped stocking rosewood due to ecological concerns. Ho Wood has a similar aroma and could be used instead. Patricia Davis says it is unsafe in some editions of "Aromatherapy An A-Z" but her cautions seem to apply to the camphor chemotype which is not normally sold for aromatherapy. Tisserand & Balacs only have cautions for the camphor chemotype.

17.04.04 NEW massage blend - Exotic/Relaxing 8, containing ho wood (similar aroma to rosewood), frankincense, petitgrain, bergamot FCF (non-phototoxic), and cardamom. This is not a heavily sedative blend - indeed cardamom is stimulating, though there is little of that, there mainly for the aroma. I considered a different name, as there are all sorts of dubious cultural assumptions behind the word "exotic" - I bet people in Tahiti don't go around all day thinking how wonderful it is to be exotic! - but for now have kept the name I have used since 1992 for this type of blend. I have withdrawn Exotic/Relaxing 1 and 5, at least for the moment, as part of my policy of not promoting the use of sandalwood due to ecological concerns. I have replaced them with Exotic/Relaxing 6 and 7 which use cedarwood Atlas instead of sandalwood, but otherwise have the same formula.

05.04.04 NEW Calendula infused (aka macerated) oil 50ml 4.40, bigger quantities available on order. Use on its own for dry skin and related problems, or can be used (e.g. at 25%) with other carrier oils and added essential oils.

18.03.04 NEW Oregano Oil 5.00 10ml - but see safety note.

20.2.04 I will probably phase out rosewood after current stocks sold - I never used to sell this because of its unsustainable production, but was persuaded otherwise. See Martin Watt's article for some arguments against. I am considering phasing out sandalwood for similar reasons. See "Cropwatch1" at Tony Burfield's site; also "Unethical Use of Rare and Threatened Plant and Animal Products in the Aroma Industry" at the same site for both rosewood and sandalwood; and Conservation Issues at Martin Watt's site. UPDATE 21.04.06 The Aromatherapy Consortium have an article "Update on Sandalwood Essential Oil" in their Summer 2005 Newsletter (pdf file, opens with Adobe Acrobat).

5.12.03 NEW Spike Lavender 4.20 10ml.

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