Interview with Jolene Antle
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Before moving to Hamilton, my husband and I would visit, enjoying weekends exploring the city as if we lived here. We’d get up early, make our way along the 403/QEW from Toronto, park our car and spend hours wandering around. We’d try new coffee shops and restaurants, shop along James Street and Ottawa Street, tour the AGH and visit friends who were already living here. On one such weekend, we stumbled into the Beehive Winter Craft Fair at Mills Hardware on King St. East. I’m so thankful that we did, as that’s where I met Jolene Antle, a certified Nutritional Practitioner (CNP) and entrepreneur.
Jolene started researching and formulating natural skincare products while she was still working as a costumer in the theatre and film industry. What started as a way to lead a healthier lifestyle quickly grew into a passion – she was happiest in the kitchen experimenting. After seeing the positive impact self-care and nutrition had on her health, Jolene was inspired to study at The Institute of Holistic Nutrition, further igniting her passion for holistic health.
Her small batch skincare line, Garden City Essentials, is curated using all natural (and organic whenever possible) botanicals, oils and clays. I can’t praise her deodorant enough; where others have left my pits feeling raw and irritated hers doesn’t. Not to mention how effective it is – even through the most intense yoga classes I still wouldn’t smell. I’ve followed along over the years as she’s grown and expanded her business to where it is today: a full skincare line and shop that’s beautifully filled with like-minded brands, in the heart of St. Catharines.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Jolene to discuss her journey and how she uses essential oils.
How did you first discover essential oils? I discovered them at a time in my life when I really needed them. I used to work in the film industry, in Toronto, even after I moved to Niagara I was still going back and forth to Toronto to work. I’d sublet places there and I’d come back here (to Niagara) for my one day off. But I was starting to feel depleted and low, and actually I was quite unwell with health challenges. I started seeing a massage therapist every week. She’s a very intuitive person and does cranial sacral and some energy work. She could feel that I was depleted and low in energy. So, she would use some of her essential oils on me, sparingly; and had a lot of knowledge about them. She encouraged me to educate myself on essential oils and pointed me in the right direction of where to look, including the Tisserand Institute that has a wealth of knowledge. She’s an incredible practitioner that has a business here in Niagara and I have so much respect for her. It was through her and that experience that I started looking into essential oils and collecting a few that I needed at the time. Part of what was going on with me at that point was a lot of chemical sensitivities and autoimmune thyroid disease, so I was trying to clean up my diet and environment. I started dabbling around and making some skincare products, soaps and other stuff with essential oils and loved them! That was the start to essential oils for me. It was a personal journey – I had no consideration of making it business then – it was just making me feel good. I was trying to get well and my body was tolerating everything I was making and it was clean.
Has your “relationship” with essential oils changed over the years? If so, how? Definitely! I have learned more about essential oils and use them way more sparingly now. As we work with essential oils in our product line, we respect that they’re extremely potent plant materials so we wear gloves and masks when we handle them. These precautions are necessary as overuse can lead to sensitivities or other dermatological reactions. We don’t want to overexpose ourselves to oils. There’s mixed information out there, which I feel angry about sometimes, but all I can do is educate others (through my shop) and source well (for my products). I want people to use them properly, in healthy safe dilutions, and harness the power of them without abusing them. They deserve a lot of respect and care. Sadly, people are throwing them around, putting them on their children and pets, diffusing them 24/7; it’s a bit excessive and too much in my opinion. We should be treating them like other items found in our medicine cabinets. You don’t need to use them all the time. There’s new research coming out about more intermittent oil use – diffusing essential oil with breaks, for example ½ hour on ½ hour off, which protects your olfactory system (your sensory system used for smelling) as it can get fatigued.
You include essential oils in your skincare line but now you also sell pure essential oils. What led to that addition? Demand. We’d be at various markets, selling our skincare line, and pure essential oils was something that people kept asking me for, a lot. As they were something I already had, as we use them in our soaps, skincare and really all of our products, and could provide them at a reasonable cost I went for it. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to provide a little bit of education on them as well.
How did you go about selecting which pure essential oils to carry? I thought of it like a medicine cabinet. What would your arsenal be for antigenic, antiviral, antibacterial, air purifying, cleaning, etc.? I wanted to create a collection that could help with everyday things like that. We use a lot of different essential oils in our skincare that we don’t sell pure as they’re more precious and expensive. But the ones available are a great start!
How do you use essential oils in your daily life? Any tips you can share? I mainly use essential oils through the products that I use, such as my skincare line. I don’t tend to diffuse essential oils at home anymore. I haven’t found the need to, as the shop is more concentrated. But, I do use mists and toners with essential oils in them pretty much everywhere – in the bathroom (rosewaer after a shower is heavenly) and bedroom (on my pillow and linens). I also enjoy burning woods like Palo Santo or Frankincense. Even my cleaning products are formulated with essential oils, instead of chemical fragrances. I try to stay away from the chemicals. In terms of tips, I would recommend people use them when needed and that they’re properly diluted. Use with care and in moderation.
If you could only use one essential oil for the rest of your life what would it be and why? If I were on a desert island with no first aid kit it’d be lavender as it has pain relieving, calming and healing properties. But for everyday life it would be rose. Even just thinking about it gives me goose bumps! I love how it makes me feel – it completely elevates and is almost a spiritual experience for me. Of course it’s super expensive, but it’s beautiful and wonderful in skincare too – it’s skin softening.
Garden City Essentials is located at 35 James Street, St. Catharines, ON L2R 5B9, and is open Tuesday-Saturday but you can shop online 24/7. Follow them on Instagram for all the latest news and cool workshops!