Step onto my driveway.  Maybe avoid a day when the wind from the west is brining in the cattle smells from the Flannigan farm.  My friend, Maggie, always jokes she can smell my house all the way out to her car when she pulls in.  When I spilled a half of a pound of Spanish Marjoram oil on my floor one day I joked that maybe she could smell it from her house...way across the countryside.  My yoga students often comment that I must be wearing essential oils, they can smell me across the room.  And nobody enters the studio after my class without commenting on how good it smells in there...and I think that's saying a lot when you work in a sweaty gym setting.  My life is filled with powerful aromatherapy, every inch, at every moment.  I'd like to think that's what keeps me content, calm, and steady.  I know it's what keeps me grateful.

We all have gifts we are able to develop over our lives.  Whether we are born with these gifts or gain them through our life experiences, we all have things we are just better at than others.  I love to sing in my car, loud, and with a ton of passion.  This singing would quickly clear a room...well, not would, it has.  I love music to a fault, but I just can't sing in tune.  People who can sing are gifted.  And, yes it can be learned and enhanced through practice and assistance, but it is a gift.  Some people are good at science, art, or public speaking.  I think in this realm of natural product creation, my biggest gift is my nose.

Of our 5 senses I think scent is my absolute favorite.  Nature gifts us so many ways to interpret the world around us, and our ability to smell is so multi-faceted.  Without scent, we can't taste.  So many of the things we encounter we identify by the way they smell.  Around the farm, scent depicts when the season is changing.  Come to the country side as winter turns to spring, the odor of manure is so pungent, and, as spring carries on, it fades, until the season changes once again.   A scent can trigger a memory so powerfully, it can literally bring us back years.  While visiting my parents this past weekend I couldn't help but notice how powerful the smell of their house is, and no matter how many times the people, animals, and activities in the house has changed, the scent of the home stays exactly the same as when I was a child, living there with my family and my grandma's vintage green couch, sit-n-spinning my days away in the basement. 

When I first started making product things were very simple.  Product bases, pre-made recipes, varying ratios of water, oil, and wax.  How can you set your product apart at an art festival when so many people are doing the same thing, and there is only so many ways to stand out?  For us it has always been the smells.  So many people tell me our products are the best they've ever smelled.  Using natural oils is a great start, but I think it's more than that.  I think I have a gift to be able to mix scents in a way that is balanced, yet unexpected.  Just like any art I've created, I like to push the envelope with elements of surprise that lie in a bed of simplicity.  Until I started studying the "science" of blending scents, I didn't even realize I was following the rules...and breaking them exquisitely. 

The science of aromatherapy is based in how scents affect our moods and mindset.  Smells truly can help us focus, make us calmer, or bring us feelings of joyful bliss from one moment to the next.  Having the ability to feel many things at one time is a great gift of being human.  I like being able to create opportunities for people to enjoy the complexity of multiple scents coming together perfectly to bring about an overall emotion that can stay true through all of life's ups-and-downs.  Or just to get those whiffs of the soap they used that morning and question who in their office smells so good...only to realize, it's them.

My great aunt, Audrey, has a magnet on her fridge that reads, "I did what I knew.  When I knew better, I did better", by Maya Angelou.  I love staying at their house in Minneapolis whenever I attend the wholesale trade show at the Minneapolis Mart, and I often spend time on quiet mornings while everyone else sleeps, eating Uncle Don's Cheerios, reading and re-reading this quote.  It reminds me nobody is born knowing anything.  We live, we learn, we read, we experiment, and eventually, we know something.  Sometimes we know what another human tells us, and sometimes we learn through our own experiences.  Ours is a unique perspective, which is beautiful and true to us, but not always right.  I won't even get started on "right", because what's right for one might not be right for all, and what's right today could be all wrong tomorrow.  I will, for the time, just focus on what's better, in this moment.

When I was in college I took part in some really fun activities, some were good for me, and others were, well, questionable.  On one particularly questionable evening, I ended up doing some pretty serious damage to my physical body.  After a touch-and-go situation that I was lucky enough to come through alive to tell this tale, I was scared to use medications, or put anything harmful into my body.  It was at this moment that I started seeking natural alternatives in pain relief and healing. It was in this time of my life, 20 years ago, that I discovered essential oils.  I did a lot of reading, and even gave a presentation in my public speaking class about the benefits and therapeutic qualities of oils like Lavender for both physical and mental health.  These were the things I needed at that time, and essential oils became my go to to just feel better about life.

Over the last 20 years I have continued on this journey to better.  What started with essential oils moved far beyond.  I started thinking much more about all the things we take into our bodies when we eat, apply something to our skin, or inhale what's hanging out in the air we breathe.  I wanted to know not only what I was putting into my body, but how it affected my organs, my blood, my brain.  Where did it come from?  How was it processed?  These are questions I think a lot of people ask, and sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and maybe we are better not opening that can of worms.  I'm almost laughing as I say this, because, holy shit, I have worms everywhere.

When I got into making body products 14 years ago I thought I knew what natural was.  I thought I knew about the world of essential oils, plants, and food.  I knew enough...enough to get started.  When I started my own retail brand in 2013, I had a baseline to start to do research, and enough experience to make some pretty awesome products in the kitchen of my rented farmhouse.  I could find internet suppliers with ingredients I could experiment with, and enough curiosity to start to tiptoe into the world of natural bath, body, and home care.  As I continue to learn I want to know more.  "Where did it come from?" has expanded to "Who did it harm to get here"?  And, "how was it processed?" is now "What will happen when it goes back to the Earth"?   I'm getting answers to these questions everyday, and, with more answers come more questions.  With more questions comes more research.  With more research comes more ideas.  With more ideas comes better.  Better creations, a better company, better lives. 

I love that you're here, reading this.  I love that something brought you to this website, my story.  I hope it's here you can believe that everything offered today is better than what was here yesterday.  When something new comes along it's because it's better than what was here before.  I am on a journey, a journey of learning, growing, and changing.  When things are good, I will keep them good...until I can do better.