600 Roses for Valentines Day

Posted on February 6, 2012 by NHR Organic Oils

This month we have a special offer on one of our most popular products: Organic Rose Otto Essential Oil Blend,  (blended with Organic Sunflower oil at 5% strength). 

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>

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A Successful Open Week!

Posted on December 16, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

We had a great open week at the beginning of December to celebrate NHR’s new look shop and met some lovely customers, both old and new. People tried out the oils, tasted the aromatherapy chocolates and sipped herbal teas whilst Deborah relaxed everyone with soothing hand massages.

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.

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Open For Business

Posted on October 10, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

At last our shop in Brighton has been redecorated and is looking lovely! It is no longer part office, part shop, part delivery warehouse and instead, is a bright, nurturing space in which to experience all our wonderful products.There are oils out for you to try and a little table where we can have tea, discuss your needs, smell the oils and create suitable blends.

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.

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NHR Get Growing

Posted on September 25, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

Here at our shop in Brighton we have a small outside car parking area which we decided to make use of this year. We wanted to grow some of the plants we sell as essential oils such as thyme, sage and rose so that we could show our customers and have examples on hand for the product making workshops we run. We believe there is nothing like actually seeing the plants we are using to gain a deeper understanding into their properties, constituents or methods of extraction.

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!

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Organic Lavender Chocolates

Posted on September 15, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

Lavender is a classic flavouring for chocolates and though not quite as fashionable these days as it once was, it is still one of our favourites. The sweet, warm, aromatic quality of lavender mixes perfectly with the bitterness of dark chocolate making a subtly fragrant blend that is quite delicious.

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!

 

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Lovely Lavender

Posted on September 1, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

Like many people, here at NHR we are big fans of lavender. Of all the oils, lavender is probably the best known and most widely used for a whole host of different situations, from first aid, to perfumery to cleaning.

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.

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Welcome To Our New Blog

Posted on June 13, 2011 by NHR Organic Oils

We at NHR Organic Oils are very excited to welcome you to our new blog which we hope you will find both interesting and inspiring. We plan to share lots of ideas about how you can use our oils including recipes and practical guides as well as information on the individual essential oils. We will also be keeping you updated on different projects and workshops that we have under way.

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.

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