Welcome To
Native Turnings
A California Based Family Company
Soap, Body Butter and Essential Oils
While our son was in college pursuing his degree in botany he took many classes in related fields one of which was organic chemistry.
During that organic chemistry courses he was introduced to techniques of distilling fragrant oils from plants. He left the class with a desire to merge his botany skills with his new knowledge of essential oil distillation, and a few years later decided to make an investment in the equipment needed to start distilling his own oils.
With encouragement from his friends he began producing a variety of soaps and body butters scented with his own distilled essential oils which he obtains from plant species native to California and are not available on the commercial market.
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He has many goals in doing this work, but the ones at the top of the list include:
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1) Increasing overall interest in our native plants.
2) Showing that there is an entire pallette of fragrances and flavors right in our backyards that we're not utilizing.
3) Educatoin, education, education because to most people everything outside has become just a green blurr.
You can find a list of the plant species the EO is produced from below along with educational information on each species.
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The unrefined shea butter we use in our products is purchased directly from a micro business in West Africa where the money goes back to supporting 48 women and their families who harvest the nuts and labor over open fire pits with clay pots to produce the shea butter. This helps this small tribe because it actually generates jobs and reduces their reliance on charities and food donations.
We have plans to produce more products made with our own essential oils, so keep checking our blog for updates!
Species We Currently have In Stock As EO
1) Artemisia californica (California sage brush)
2) Artemisia tridentata (Great Basin Sage Brush)
3) Salvia mellifera
(black sage)
4) Salvia apiana
(white sage)
5) Ericameria parishii
(Parish's golden bush)
6) Umbellularia californica
(California bay leaf)
About How We
Distill Our EO's
The pictures at the top of this page show one of our small stills used for producing small amounts of essential oil (EO).
We have several stills now because we are working with such a wide variety of plant species.
We produce every EO on our list using steam distillation. The patented design of our stills not only makes them more efficient, but also prevents them from exploding like traditional pressure cooker style designs.
If you have hopes of doing your own distillation please be safety minded.
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About Our EO's
The EO's we have in stock are ones that we currently have enough of to produce at least one 45 ounce loaf of soap or two pounds of body butter. A great deal of time and handwork goes into each drop we make.
The EO's that are out of stock are ones which we are capable of producing, but may have depleted our supply for the year and have to wait for the next harvest.
We do NOT dilute our EO's with carrier oils, alcohols, preservatives or fixatives. Each EO is 100% of the species listed.
Many people ask to buy just our straight EO and we would love to do that, but most of our EO species are not yet in large enough amounts to sell straight oil, so that being the case it's more efficacious for us to sell finished products in which we only use a small amount of our EO's.
Species Information
Species We Produce But Are Out of Stock
1) Artemisia ludoviciana (silver wormwood)
2) Artemisia palmeri (San Diego sagewort)
3) Salvia pachyphylla (rose sage)
3) Artemisia douglasiana (mug wort)
The links below for each species will take you to pictures and information about each one. If you wish to conduct your own investigation on your own of each species we recommend you start with these links.
If you still have questions go to our contact page.