Heading to the apothecary.

I e-mailed http://www.anandaapothecary.com/ a little while back and got very speedy and interesting responses. Here are the e-mails I received.

Hi,

 

My name is Eric, I'm one of the co-owners, along with Tarah Cech. She's the one with the 3 degrees in natural healing: Naturopathic Doctor, Master Herbologist, Master Iridologist with extensive training in essential oils and reflexology -- though I believe I can answer all your questions for you! I'll just answer these in the order asked...

 

Yes, we're actually dedicated to offering the finest, most therapeutically-potent of every essential oil variety available on the planet. This has been our mission from the start (5 years ago now), and I perhaps if you've read some of our reviews you'll note that our customers feel we've been succeeding in this endeavor.

 

As noted above, you can see our owner's pedigree.

 

Our customers are exceptionally appreciative not only of the consistently-high quality of the oils, but in the knowledgeable staff they encounter when contacting us via phone or email. I believe we've been succeeding in our aim to get the best "medicine" to our clients, with a good deal of helpful support -- and from our feedback, possibly more so than many competitors.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "how big is our business" - we have enough staff that we meet our customers needs in a timely manner, and that we're able to spend the "manpower" on quality control necessary to meet our aims.

 

5 years.

 

We have relationships with distillers and suppliers around the world. It's a feature of the business of essential oils that truly exquisite oils are often produced by small-to-moderate sized distillers and farmers, and yes, it's important to cultivate these relationships to further the mission of consistently supplying oils of the highest grade.

 

The oils undergo a number of quality control steps - Most are examined via GCMS, either by the producer or by a third party. Aromatic sampling occurs of course - and is one of the most important steps. An experienced nose, and a "tuned-in" individual offers us feedback that's as useful, if not more so, than GCMS analysis (the numbers can tell you some things, but the bottom line is they don't distinguish a good oil from a great one). There's also density and optical rotation analysis done on many oils.

 

Given the rest of the questions about testing, I'll summarize - if your decision to purchase is hinged on laboratory results, we likely won't be the company for you. We don't send every lot out for 3rd party testing. When we do have such testing done, the analysis is performed by an operator with a very long history and extensive knowledge of what the results of quality oils should be. Data is available on many oils, but not all. We're working on compiling an electronic database of results, but we've been so pleasantly busy as to not have had the opportunity to complete this project yet. The bottom line is that we spend a lot of energy ensuring quality, though we don't tend to rely on numerical data exclusively, or even primarily. We've found selecting the best oils takes the development of personal relationships with the oils, the medicine, the plants, the distillers and the business environment in general.

 

Oils that are listed on the site as organic are organic, wildcrafted are wildcrafted, and one's noted otherwise may have had plant source raised conventionally, though we do not condone the use of pesticides in any of our products.

 

All the source information you note is on the site and on the bottles.

 

MSDS are available if necessary.

 

Yes, all our oils are therapeutic grade.

 

And yes, all our oils and products are 100% guaranteed.

 

The best way to make a final choice of a source for your oils is of course to order samples and experience them for yourself -- this certainly "seals the deal" for the vast majority of our customers.

 

Please let me know if I can help you further.

 

All the Best,
Eric
____________________

Eric Čech
@ The Ananda Apothecary

Rosewood - we have a Brazilian that comes from its source as 'renewable resource', indicated to us as being from branch and twig trimmings, not taking down whole trees. But even this has us a little wary, and we're moving to an incredible certified organic Indian source without any of the resource issues.

 

Sandalwood - The Vanuatu is from cultivated trees, the only in the world. The Australian is from a distiller that works with their government to take the trees in a controlled manner that does not destroy the forests. The Indian is from a 5 year old source before the ban went into effect - we will not be carrying Indian source again when this lot is gone, and didn't carry it for quite some time until we made this single connection from a broker who had purchased the oil many years ago and just held on to it.

 

Bottom line is we will not knowingly contribute to resource depletion. We're very concerned about the repercussions of the operations of the entire business, not only the source of the oils themselves. We've just partnered with Carbon Fund to contribute to fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as fast as we're releasing it (and hopefully faster!)

Now in response to this e-mail I give them a **** out of 5. They sound very good to me, all I need to do is get a sample and test it and then, depending, I would rate them a **** and a half. The only problem I have here is that each batch is not GCMS tested. Unfortunately, to have a better appearance in the field I think we should show that we are very picky when it comes to our oils. However I personally do trust "the nose knows". I trust my nose and that is why it is the deciding factors in my reviews. So please don't think I'm saying any company that DOESN'T test is bad, its just for the scope of this blog, it does not meet my standards for a PERFECT company. They have a very nice staff and I WILL do some kind of business with them.