Home Naturals

by barbara-ann

barbara-ann

Natural Solutions for a Healthier, Happier You!

Customer Service e-mail: e-mail barbara-ann

Mission

barbara-ann's mission is to promote the confluence of natural, healthy living with eco-fashion, decor, art and design. To learn more more about the natural ingredients and environmentally safe packaging used in the products below, click here.

If you live in the Tampa Bay Area, and would like to experience these products in person, my entire line is carried at Buffalo Gal Vintage, which is located at 1219 Martin Luther King Jr. St N (1219 9th St N) in St. Petersburg, FL.

Products

Body Fragrance:

Cream Perfumes

Whipped Dream Shea Butter

Decadent Dusting Powder

Apothecary:

Soothing Aftershave Gel

Anti-Bacterial Hand Surface & Hand Spray

Laundry:

Lux Linen Water Spray

Lux Laundry Wash

Other Natural Products:

Sweet Kiss for Dogs (& humans)

About barbara-ann

barbara-ann is a girly girl, passionate about scents and all things that smell good. It is her belief that essential oils from Mother Nature’s plants and flowers not only smell glorious, but also have the ability to enhance our moods.

In a former life as a Information Systems professional, she led a very stressful existence, with days full of back-to-back meetings, disgruntled co-workers, political drama and the dreaded 24/7 duty pager. For stress relief, she ran marathons. This was a 12-year period she refers to as BEO (Before Essential Oils).

About 12 years ago, she came across a magazine article that changed her life for the better. The article was one on the prevalence of animal testing in the household cleaning category. As a lifelong dog-lover, and having recently adopted a beagle, she was mortified by a photo of a beagle with its head in a vice, being injected with chemicals.

Not long after, she started searching for cruelty-free laundry detergents and found one carried by a local health food store. It was expensive, unscented and she really missed the sensory experience.

Thus began the journey to become educated about "fragrances" by reading books. During this process, she was turned on to the concept of pure scents distilled directly from plants called “essential oils”. She located a certified nutritionist, herbologist and aromatherapist with over thirty years in the natural aromatics industry and began taking classes where she could work with the oils and start making her own products using essential oils.

And that is how Home Naturals by barbara-ann came to be! She started making her own laundry detergents, disinfectants, cleaners and environment sprays. From there, she expanded into making custom colognes, lotions, scrubs and perfumes. Family members and friends started requesting products and the rest is history!

Essential Oils

barbara-ann's essential oils are sourced from fields free of chemical additives. Neighboring fields are also tested to ensure they're not treated with potentially toxic pesticides, fertilizers or other additives that could potentially spread onto the plants from which the oils are sourced. And fair trade only!

There is a seemingly endless selection of natural home products and fragrances on the market, but barbara-ann believes her products are truly unique because they are made using pure essential oils without the use of synthetic fragrances.

Stories about essential oils being miraculous mood oils with mystical powers is folklore and should be disregarded. Numerous books and publications documenting the health benefits of essential oils are readily available. Though there are few scientific studies from the FDA, there are some human clinical studies that have been conducted across a variety of health issues. For example, click here to review some studies conducted by the National Cancer Institute using essential oils.

barbara-ann passionately stands behind her belief that essential oils enhance mood and each contains unique properties to assist in natural mood therapy. As a type I diabetic most of her life, she experiences mood swings from shifting blood sugar levels. In addition to wearing an insulin pump, following a healthy diet and regular exercise, she also uses essential oils as an enhancement to help give her energy when she is sluggish, calm her down when she is cranky or lift her mood when she is blue.

Essential oils is no longer a category that falls under the same genre as granola and Birkenstocks! Pure scent is fun, hip and healthy. In fact, barbara-ann believes housekeeping chores should be a gratifying, sensory experience (forget boring and tedious!) and she invites you to join her in living the scent life!

Synthetic Fragrances

In general, the use of synthetic fragrances is a common practice that is generally considered safe. Though not derived from nature, many synthetic fragrances smell quite beautiful.

Popular categories of synthetic fragrances even include dessert smells, like chocolate chip cookies, pound cake or cinnamon rolls (yummy!). While nature generously provides us with vanilla pods, chocolate beans and cinnamon bark, we have not yet heard of cookie dough resin or pound cake bark growing in any rainforests, but we'll be the first to let you know if we sniff some out!

As our noses adjust over time to the purity, intensity and authenticity of mother nature's essential oils, we often become sensitive to the synthetic smells prevalent in the fragrance industry after awhile. Alternatively, our noses may require some adjustment time when switching from synthetic scents to essential oils. This is neither bad nor good - it is just simply an interesting phenomena worth mentioning.

Nutrition, Supplements, Herbs, Loose Teas, et al.

In the last five years, barbara-ann has expanded her education into areas, including organic nutrition, natural / herbal supplements and loose teas. Along with essential oils, these areas have the potential to contribute so much to health, energy and overall well being.

It normal for us to experience mood changes, based on how we feel physically, emotionally, hormonally, spiritually, etc. Technology has improved our lives in countless ways, but the dizzying pace of our multi-tasking lives takes a toll on the health of our mind and body. We can go a long way towards feeling better, and even preventing disease, by following a healthier, nutrition-based lifestyle. And when you consider everything we use to clean our house and put in (or on) our bodies, the phrase, "We are what we eat" becomes quite literal.

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you find our concept appealing and the website easy to use. If you would like to contact barbara-ann directly, click here.