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It seems like you can get a monthly subscription box for just about everything nowadays, but I thought the idea for this monthly essential oil recipe collection was pretty unique:
I gave G one of these last year for Christmas and was so jealous of him every time he used it, this year I asked for my own!
Even though I've been using essential oils for the past several years (especially to make my homemade diaper soap, natural bug spray and fabulous odor eliminator), I don't have a ton and haven't really ventured out in my use of them aside from my tried-and-true recipes.
So I was really excited when the folks at Simply Earth contacted me and asked if I'd give their monthly essential oil recipe box subscription a try!
I waited not-so-patiently for my box to arrive, hoping that I'd have the chance to review March's box instead of February's (which had just been released), not because the February box looked bad, but because I was more excited about creating products for wellness (March's box) than I was for beauty (February's box).
Well, just a few days later, I heard a thunk! at my doorstep and excitedly opened the door to find my box of oily fun.
Gv and I had a blast opening the boxes and discovering all the little treasures inside -- the fun packaging the company uses is a small thing, but it really adds an extra-special touch.
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| Cute little touches with the packaging meant that the fun began the moment the box arrived! |
My March box contained 4 full-sized oils (blood orange, digest, amyris and coriander), dried lavender, magnesium flakes, a metal spray canister, an inhaler container and 6 recipe cards.
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| Recipe cards and stickers to label all the creations |
I also received the Big Bonus Box (you can too, it comes with your subscription, while supplies last) that contained beeswax, both solid and liquid coconut oil, almond oil, 6 empty oil blend bottles and 6 roll-on containers.
Wow, that was a nice little haul of goodies, just from my first month's delivery!
I was anxious to dive in and start making my wellness formulas right away, but had to set everything aside to go make dinner and then it was the very busy weekend.
So, as soon as Monday rolled around, I was itching to get started.
The first few recipes were very simple to make. I started with the Mood Lifting Diffuser Blend, which merely involved adding a specific number of drops of the different oils I'd received into one of my empty blend containers.
As soon as I'd done that, I added some drops of it to my diffuser and immediately felt perkier.
Next, I mixed up my Digest Roll-On. This was equally easy -- I just had to add drops of oil with some coconut carrier oil into one of my new roll-on bottles and I was ready to go.
I didn't necessarily feel nauseous, bloated or gassy (all of which this blend is supposed to help), but I rolled it on anyway and at least smelled much better than I had before.
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| Love this I-just-rolled-out-of-bed shot (literally). Have fun admiring my bed-head! |
Now it was time to prepare my Anxiety Away Inhaler. All I needed to do was add a few drops of different oils to the piece of cotton included in the inhaler and I'd be ready to go, but I couldn't figure out how to get to the cotton.
The directions said to "remove bottom tab of aromatherapy inhaler," which seemed simple enough, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the bottom off.
I tried unscrewing and pulling and nothing seemed to work, so finally I tried wedging a knife along the little line at the bottom and was able to make some progress.
Now that I know how it works, it will be easy to get open the next time, but since I've never encountered one of these little inhaler-thingies before, I was stumped.
So my first suggestion is to add a note on future recipe cards to try the knife trick, if you're a newbie like me and have never used this kind of container before.
From that point on, the process of adding the oil and replacing the cotton was easy, so it wasn't long before I was sniffing away my anxiety and ready to move on to the next project.
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| No anxiety (proven by the fact that I have no problem posting a photo of myself looking like this here for all the world to see!) |
Magnesium Sleep Spray was the next item I was tackling. It was a wee bit more complicated than the other three, but since the extra step was just to boil a little water and mix some flakes into it, it was still crazy-simple to do.
However, even though I used the correct amounts of everything on the recipe card, when I started pouring the mixture into my new cute little spray bottle, I discovered it was about to overflow.
I'm not sure if the amount of distilled water (1/2 cup) given on the card was a typo, or if that's the amount needed to create the proper proportions of all the other ingredients, but be forewarned that you will have about 1/4 cup of the mixture left over when you're done.
It wasn't the end of the world -- I just dumped the rest in a random jar and stuck it in the closet with the rest of my supplies, but it would have been helpful to have either the correct amount of water, or for the card to include a little note that there will be some left over, so that you don't spill it everywhere and can have an extra container handy for storage.
I made a note on my recipe card so that when I make it the next time, I'll remember to have an extra container handy.
Now I was ready to tackle the most complex recipe included in the box: Magnesium Whipped Body Butter. I first had to boil some distilled water, then mix in magnesium flakes and let those sit.
In the meantime, I needed to "melt beeswax and coconut oil together in a double boiler." I didn't have a double boiler and was going to use my bowl-in-a-pot kitchen trick, but the card helpfully included a note about how you could use a jar resting in 2 inches of water in your pan instead.
I happened to have a clean jar sitting in my drying rack, so I decided to try that out.
Ugh, I wish I'd stuck with my bowl method, because once I'd melted everything down (that part was easy) and let it cool for the recommended 15 minutes, it would no longer easily pour out and I had to use my smallest one of these to do the whole get-the-last-bit-of-peanut-butter-out-of-the-jar dance and I still felt like there was tons inside that I couldn't get out.
Plus, that whole process made a big, greasy mess.
I'd grabbed a spare jar to store the concoction in that luckily had a fairly wide mouth -- I would definitely add "wide-mouthed" to the "small jar" part of the ingredient list in the future, if I could give another suggestion to make getting the mixture out more easily.
By this time, my hands were covered with slime, but I was pretty happy with the consistency of the body butter itself. My back had been hurting from a weekend of holding up little first-time-on-the-icers, so I rubbed my paws all over my back to both try out the stuff and clean off my hands.
Wow. I didn't expect it to actually help my back feel better, but it did -- and right away. I think G will have a new job to do every Monday: slathering this stuff all over my back to help it feel better!
I now had just one final recipe left: Sickness Support Bath Soak. Even though this one seemed super-simple to make (just combing the ingredients in a jar), I'd saved it for last because I'm not a bath or soak kind of gal. But I was still a little excited to try this out, because not only did I figure a good soak would do wonders for my back, but I was also currently getting over being sick, as well.
However, I went to add everything to the jar and realized that this also took magnesium, and the magnesium that had been included in my box had been all used up by two of the previous recipes.
Not being able to accomplish the final activity was a little disappointing, but at least I didn't have to go through the ordeal of taking a bath (I really hate taking a bath) after all.
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| I'm such a weirdo. I had to mark a line through the typo on this card. |
So, what did I think of the overall experience? I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed at the end. It took me about two hours to make what I was able to and created more of a mess than I'd anticipated (largely because of that whole jar-melting thing).
However, I think that with just a few tweaks in the directions, this company could hit the ball right out of the park!
There is really so much about Simply Earth that I love:
- They seem like a fairly small company that really strives to go that extra step to make their customers happy and I love having the opportunity to support a small business.
- While they've never shared or promoted it, I noticed a sign in the background of one of the fun little gifs they included in an email that has Matthew 17:20 on it. I personally also love being able to support the kind of company that has a Bible verse up on one of their walls.
- Simply Earth seems to really care about the quality of their products. In reading about how (& where!) they get their oils, it seems like they're being very intentional about doing everything safely and fairly.
- They include a 365-day guarantee for their products. I love that they're willing to stand behind what they're promoting in that way.
- 13% of the company's profits goes toward the fight against human trafficking. Why 13%? Because that's the average age of an individual forced into human trafficking. Whoa. Sobering thought. But how great is it that Simply Earth is doing their part to help end this awfulness?!
- The company is oozing with personal touches. Whether it's the quirky "welcome to the team" emails or the colorful stickers to apply to your project containers or the fun packaging of it all, these little touches make the company stand apart from the impersonal rest.
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| The designs on the labels are simple, but engaging. |
Plus, I still love the idea of a fun box like this arriving on my doorstep each month. And I don't think I would have ever explored mixing up recipes using oils like these if it hadn't been for my experience with this box.
After creating these projects, I now want to try making even more things with oils in the future.
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| My new oil products, ready to go! |
I loved all of the projects included in the March box and am pretty excited about April's projects as well -- which is supposed to include recipes for all sorts of cleaning items.
I also feel like this particular monthly subscription is priced well. I don't know how they're doing it, but when you take into account everything you're getting in the box, it's a really great deal. I even think that it probably costs about the same or more to buy four (lesser-quality) oils from anywhere as it does to get this entire subscription box!
So, despite my disappointment and small list of suggestions for improvement, I encourage you to check out Simply Earth on your own and get started creating a natural home for yourself!
You can click on over to Simply Earth here to explore everything they offer on your own, but before you go, be sure to make a note of my special coupon code: SYNCOMAMAFREE
Using this code means that you get a $20 gift card and Big Bonus Box when you order your first subscription box! That's like getting an already great deal plus extras for half price!
Remember, the code is SYNCOMAMAFREE to get your bonus gift card. Now go have some oily fun!
Remember, the code is SYNCOMAMAFREE to get your bonus gift card. Now go have some oily fun!
Have you had a lot of experience using essential oils? If so, have you ever created recipes like these before? And have you ever tried out a subscription box for yourself? I'd love to hear! Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.
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