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Aromatherapy Makes Good "Scents!"
By Sheila Weidendorf

From room "fresheners" to aromatic candles to personal fragrancing, the use of scent and aroma has long been part and parcel of the natural products industry. Words like "aromatherapy" and "natural" have infiltrated the mainstream market, where everything from shampoo to candles tout the benefits of "herbal essences" or "natural botanicals." With so many products—and even more, often conflicting, information—so readily available, it can be difficult to know where to begin in the search for quality health and personal care.

Aromatherapy—the use of the volatile oils extracted from a variety of plant components for health and healing—is often considered a simple matter of making things smell good. Not so. Volatile oils—essential oils—have both medicinal and aromatic properties. The proper use of essential oils can benefit conditions as varied as headaches, stomach aches, and menstrual cramps to muscle strain, infection, and even anxiety.

Essential oils are commonly found in soaps, bath salts, lotions, hair care products, candles, and toothpaste. Used properly, essential oils are a safe, effective, and affordable means of helping the body and balancing and uplifting the psyche.

Mississippi Market offers many products made with pure essential oils. Nancy Leonard aromatherapy glycerine soaps and bath salts are beautiful, simple, and pure. Aura Cacia, long a bodycare industry staple, makes delightful bath salts, massage and body oils, bath gels, and lotions made with essential blends. Select Aura Cacia Heartsong variety products on sale in February in both stores, as well as essential oil singles, currently available only at the Selby-Dale store.

Wyndmere essential oils, available at both Mississippi Market stores, are the fruits of labor of a local company, Wyndmere Essential Oil Products. Wyndmere offers a wide array of essential oil singles (20% off at both stores for the month of February!) as well as floral waters (a natural byproduct of the steam distillation process used to extract the volatile oils from raw plant material), aromatherapy candles, and other aromatic and healing products. Nature's Acres is a family-owned and operated organic herb farm in Wisconsin. Mississippi Market Randolph carries Nature's Acres bath salts, body oils, and select creams, all on sale for the month of February. Pure essential oils, along with hand-harvested organic herbs, infuse many of Nature's Acres personal care products.

Other well-known and carefully crafted products, popular with our customers, include EO (Essential Oil Products), Dr. Hauschka, California Baby, and Avalon Organics. In fact, it's almost difficult to find products that don't make good use of volatile oils—the purest essence of healing plants.

Care to perform some aromatherapeutic personal care wizardry in your own kitchen? Add 10-20 drops of your favorite essential oils to 2 cups of coarse sea salts (available in the bulk herbs and spices section) and you've got your own "proprietary blend" bath salts. Place 8-10 drops of essential oils in a water-filled atomizer bottle and you've got a made-to-order facial mist, linen fragrance, or room freshener that can calm and soothe, or uplift and energize—depending on the essential oils you've chosen. Add 10-12 drops of essential oils to a 4 oz bottle of "carrier" oil (like sweet almond, apricot kernel, or grapeseed) to make your signature massage and body oil.

Whether purchased ready-made or put together in your own kitchen, the use of aromatherapeutic, essential-oil based products can affordably and effectively enhance your home, your health, and your well-being.

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