One place has become available for the 4th of May 2012 course, and a place on our minibus if needed, which departs from London to the Mill Retreat Centre, so all travel can be taken care of, as the course starts in only 3 weeks.

The NEW

“NHR Organic Essential Oil Diploma Course”

at the Mill Retreat Centre.

The course will be run over a weekend at the beautiful Mill Retreat Centre. It will take place on the weekend of the

Friday 4th to Monday 7th of May 2012

(1 place has become available in May)

or

Friday 31ST August to Monday 3rd of September 2012 (STILL A FEW PLACES LEFT IN SEPTEMBER COURSE)

Click here for more details

Please find details below of the courses running at Mill Retreat Centre this year. If you are interested in booking a place or would like more details, then please contact the organisers directly.

APRIL 2012

ANUSARA YOGA, 20th ~ 22nd April 2012
With Neesha Zollinger & Anne Vandawalle, whose retreats create a cozy nurturing environment for creating and deepending connections with each other, as teachers, students and friends.
Yoga ~all weekend 150€
Accomodation/day/full organic catering 93€
Weekend 335€ all-inclusive
Contact Valentine: +33 6.70.85.40.24
For more information click here>

MAY 2012

The NEW “NHR Organic Essential Oil Diploma Course”

Friday 4th ~ Monday 7th of May 2012 (Previously full, but 2 places have just become available)

also from Friday 31st August ~ Monday 3rd September 2012.

This is an exciting and practical Advanced Diploma Course, set in the peaceful and beautiful surroundings of lakes, rivers and woods. It will deepen your knowledge and give you hands on experience of working with and distilling your own organic essential oils.

Click here to pay and book online: or telephone 08453108066.
For more information click here>
________________________________________

Omtropy invite you to Create Space VII Retreat 10th ~ 13th May 2012
Yoga, Argentine Tango, Meditation and Guided Walks
With Heather George, Tony Davis, David Thomas & Marion Greenwood
Fees per person include daily Yoga classes, Argentine Tango workshops, morning & evening meditation, walking meditation, accommodation, all meals and guided walks:
To reserve your space please go to: http://www.omtropy.com/RetreatMay2012.php
For more information click here>

JUNE 2012
Yoga retreat 14th ~ 18th June 2012
With Claire Weatherley at Simplybeinglotus Yoga, a senior yoga teacher registered with the yoga alliance UK.
Price £450 inclusive of all yoga, yoga nidra, meditation, accommodation and food. simplybeing@hotmail.co.uk
For more information click here>

JULY 2012
Summer Yoga Retreat, Sunday 22nd ~ Saturday 28th July 2012
The retreat is a General level course and is suitable for students who have some experience of yoga. There will be two classes/day in the morning and evening.
Teacher: Karen Watson
Fees £650/£100 deposit to book includes accommodation/meals & tuition
357 City Rd. London EC1V 1LR
www.islingtonyoga.com
0208 533 5553
For more information click here>

AUGUST 2012
Yoga Holiday 12th ~ 17th August 2012
Open to all, we are aiming for this holiday to be an opportunity to relax and refresh yourself with a mix of Yoga, being looked after and good company (if you want it) all taking place in the beautiful surroundings of the Mill Retreat Centre.
The teachers, Sue Peggs and Sarah Waterfield have over twenty years of teaching experience between them and will teach all aspects of yoga to suit the needs and wishes of those who join the holiday.
For more information contact: sue@inneryoga.org.uk tel: 0117 377 9638 or get a leaflet from http://www.inneryoga.org.uk/listings/index.html
For more information click here>
________________________________________
Ratu Bagus Bio–Energy Meditation Friday Aug 24th at 17:00 to Monday Aug 27th at 16:00
To some it’s known as Shaking, a truly life changing practice, made possible by the transmission that comes from the energy master Ratu Bagus. This energy transmission ignites the sacred fire that lies dormant within each of us and calls upon our own energy system, to remember and ‘wake up’ the natural capacity our bodies have for healing, on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Contribution: 190 Euros per person
Contact: france@ratubagus.com
Tel: Vanessa or Dominique
00 336 64 83 63 87 / 00 336 73 13 77 68
00 332 51 06 31 44 / 00 332 51 37 82 26
For more information click here>
________________________________________
The NEW “NHR Organic Essential Oil Diploma Course” 31st August ~ 3rd September 2012

This is an exciting and practical Advanced Diploma Course, set in the peaceful and beautiful surroundings of lakes, rivers and woods. It will deepen your knowledge and give you hands on experience of working with and distilling your own organic essential oils.

Click here to pay and book online: or telephone 08453108066.
For more information click here>

SEPTEMBER 2012
Sacred Gardens Workshop September 7th ~ 12th September 2012
A week-end residential introductory workshop on the universal philosophy
And geometry underlying the sacred gardens of the world and how
they might be interpreted when designing gardens today.
Cost: £500 to include full board and lodging for 3 nights beginning with a
welcoming tea on Friday Sep 7th.
All fresh, organic produce prepared by excellent cooks daily in The Mill’s
kitchen.
For more information, and booking, please contact info@emma-clark.com
For more information click here>
Photos of the Mill Retreat Centre

For more information about the Mill Retreat Centre Please click here
For more Information about other Events and Courses and Calendar of Availability please click here.
Thank you
All best Wishes
Kolinka, Laura and Pawel from the Mill Retreat Centre

We do hope you are happy to receive information from us.

With love,

All at NHR Organic Oils & the Mill Retreat Centre

NHR ORGANIC OILS
24 Chatham Place, Brighton BN1 3TN (UK)
TEL.(UK) 0845 310 8066 FAX.(UK) 0845 310 8068
Tel Toll Free USA: 1866 816 0195
International Tel. +44 1273 746 505 Int. Fax. +44 1273 202 729
www.millretreatcentre.com email: info@millretreatcentre.com

SPECIAL PRICE £13.98, 10ml, (usually £16.95) until 14th February.

There are around 600 rose flowers used in this product, which is made by steam distillation using the petals that are hand-picked at dawn when the fragrance is at its best.  You only need to use a few drops on your skin to feel that you are seriously nourishing yourself.

One of our favourite ways to use this product is to massage a couple of drops just under the collar bones (both sides), usually there is a hollow area here, it is an area where many of us close in or contract ourselves around the heart -our shoulders hunch or become rounded). This technique supports us to open up the heart area, to become aware of when our bodies are contracting, and to be open to love!

Since it is already diluted in Organic Sunflower oil, it is very easy to use.   With a sensual, rosy, honey floral scent, it is incredibly decadent dotted onto your skin as a perfume; exquisitely luxurious added to a bath ~make sure you run the bath first and add the drops just as you get in to appreciate the scent; it is delicious applied to the face as a night oil ~you can mix a drop into your night cream to enrich it.

A perfectly divine Valentine’s Day gift!

Click here to buy this product from our website>

Our evening party was lots of fun as we got to chat to people about their interest in essential oils and share ideas about how to work with them. We made an array of tasty treats using our own organic, food grade oils including lavender and lemon biscuits and rose and cardamom chocolates.

Perhaps the most popular were Heather’s delicious nut balls so we convinced her to share her secret recipe here, just in time for you to make some of your own for Christmas.

Heather’s Delicious Nut Balls:

Ingredients:
1 large cup of ground cashew nuts (grind thoroughly until the mix starts to stick together)
1 good tbsp of hazelnut butter
Agave to taste
1/4 tsp of  vanilla essence (or ground cinnamon)
A little olive oil
4 drops of peppermint essential oil (or tangerine essential oil)

Method:
Add the hazelnut butter, agave and vanilla essence to the ground cashew nuts. In a separate container add 4 drops of the peppermint oil to a little olive oil and mix well, then pour over nut mix. Begin mixing all of the ingredients together using a fork. The essential oil needs to be evenly distributed through the mixture which will gradually form a dough. When you feel that everything has been evenly mixed, begin making the nut balls by taking a small portion of the mixture and rolling it gently in the palm of your hands. They sit nicely in small sweet cases and can be dusted lightly with ground cinnamon (optional).

Alternatively ground cinnamon and tangerine essential oil work well together.

We have a delightful selection of essential oils, base oils, aromatherapy chocolates, teas, healing eye pillows and other goodies for you to sample and experienced staff who will be more than happy to share their enthusiasm for the oils and help you choose the right ones for your specific purposes. We also offer a bespoke blending service so can help you make up the most suitable mixtures of oils after a short consultation.

The shop is already open for business but we have a grand opening planned for the first week of December when you can sample all of our beautiful oils whilst nibbling on chocolate and sipping tea. The perfect antidote to hectic Christmas shopping.

Do come by and visit us and experience all the lovely products for yourself and stay tuned as we’ll be posting more information about the open week here in the coming few weeks. We hope to see you then.

With our new garden underway we decided it would be fun to enter this year’s Grow It competition, run by the wonderful Harvest scheme, which offers businesses in Brighton and Hove the opportunity to transform their windowsills, patios or gardens into a productive space that grows food and other useful plants.

We wanted to incorporate recycled materials into our garden so have been planting most things in old base oil containers that have had one side cut away and holes drilled in the bottom like these blue ones above.

We wanted to have a mixture of food crops and other plants that we use a lot in the business like rose and marigold. Being tea addicts we made sure we had plenty of mint, lemon balm, lavender and other delicious herbs dotted around.

My colleague pointed out that we have had less bees coming into the shop this year as they used to be attracted by all the wonderful essential oil smells but had no plants to feast on when they arrived. Luckily now they can enjoy all the lovely lavender, roses and other flowers outside.

We were very happy to hear we were finalists in the competition and hope to cultivate our garden further next year by training some plants up trellises and increasing the number of food crops we grow. The winner was the Phoenix Community Centre who planted a lovely garden in an alleyway.

All the entries reminded us how easy it is to make the smallest space into something productive, beautiful and supportive to the environment and wildlife. And equally important, it’s great fun too!

At NHR we believe in using all organic products but when using essential oils to flavour foods it is especially important that they are both organic and food grade.

These amounts are enough for 3 to 4 chocolate moulds depending on their size and depth.

Ingredients:
120g raw cacao powder
100g raw cacao butter
20g virgin coconut butter
80g agave nectar
Tiny pinch of crystal or sea salt

2 drops organic lavender essential oil

Melt the butters gently in a bain marie/ double boiler and when they are completely liquid stir in the sieved chocolate powder and agave syrup until well mixed and the consistency of melted chocolate – be careful not to overheat or the consistency will begin to turn a little grainy and ‘cooked’.  Add a tiny pinch of salt and 2 drops of organic food grade lavender essential oil, then stir well. Using a spoon, fill your moulds and pop in the fridge for an hour before tucking in. It really couldn’t be simpler!

So it was with great excitement that myself, Laura and Amy went to visit Mayfield Lavender Farm in Surrey earlier in the summer. Mayfield Lavender is an organic farm certified by the Soil Association which produces a range of delightful gifts and distills its own essential oils.

Laura- happy amongst the lavender.

There are as many as 30 different types of lavender used around the world for producing essential oils but Mayfield focuses on three of the best known and most useful. Two varieties of Lavandula angustifolia- Folgate and Maillette- are grown along with Spike Lavender, Lavandula spica, which is known to have the highest yield of oil. Spike Lavender has a higher camphor content than true lavender, making it particularly useful for respiratory issues, though unlike true lavender which is mostly very safe, it should be avoided for use with small children, epileptics and in pregnancy.

Mayfield also houses several beehives and it was a pleasure to see the bees enjoying the plants as much as we were. Lavender is an important plant for bees and insects as well as for humans so it’s a lovely addition to the wildlife friendly garden.

We all bought a couple of plants for our own gardens at home and for planting outside our shop in Brighton. We were particularly taken with this lovely pink variety!

The main producers of lavender essential oil are Bulgaria and France but there is a long tradition of lavender fields in England too, especially around this area where the original Yardley fields were situated.

if you are also a lavender fan, check back here in a few days when we’ll be posting a delicious raw chocolate recipe using organic lavender essential oil.

We hope you enjoy connecting with us and experimenting with the oils and if you have any ideas or questions, do let us know in the comments.