Green Cauldron

Rosewood Story, excerpted from our July, 2006 newsletter

In May, we promised to tell the story of our new Rosewood Body Mist and I like to think it is a good reflection of our values and interests.  The Rosewood tree is a Brazilian tree, whose wood makes beautiful carvings for art or furniture and whose essential oil has been so popular the tree is now extinct in French Guiana.  The fragrance is one I love, earthy and slightly floral, but our research convinced us we shouldn't purchase the essential oil because of the risk of adding to its endangerment.
Enter Hurricane Wilma.  My father has twenty acres of land in Southwest Florida, which has taken a beating from recent hurricanes.  My sister Victoria's favorite climbing tree has always been Luna, as she named their Rosewood tree.  Wilma knocked down most of it and my father and brother have cut up the downed wood and stored it in their garage where we are slowly transporting it to our friend Justin Wilmsmeyer in Toronto.  Justin is the wood turner who produces the beautiful toadstools and bowls we have for sale in our booth.  Wood turning generates lots of shavings and shavings are precisely what you need to extract fragrance from wood.  We haven't yet purchased a proper still, but mocked up a still from pots in our kitchen and made Rosewood hydrosol and infusion from the shavings Justin gave us; we then used that as a base for a refreshing and fragrant body mist.  Our supply is limited by the logistics of getting the shavings when we need them, but we hope to keep the mist in stock for the foreseeable future.