Earth Elements

What a little hidden gem. I discovered Earth Elements quite by accident while wandering around Grandview. Initially, I was looking for a metal essential oil burner that fits around a lightbulb but I ended up talking to the girl behind the counter about all of their bases and mixing ingredients. All of the fancy boutique bath and body products are nice but this is where the real excitement is. Earth Elements has it all, from flower hydrosol and unscented lotion base to enzyme peels and hydrating serum, not to mention any size and shape of container you could ever want. I only ended up buying two small things — a lemon face mask and some mint infused shea butter — but I will definitely be back. As a plus, the girl who helped me was knowledgeable, patient with my questions and very sweet. She even gave me three free samples. I will definitely be back and would recommend this little shop for anyone into natural, DIY skincare or the like.

I was first introduced to Earth Elements when I took one of Kyongson Pei’s classes on «Kitchen Cosmetics» that is sometimes carried in the Upper Arlington Life Long Learning series. This is the best shop in town for essential oils and base ingredients for making your own products.
Kyongson thoroughly vets her suppliers so you can be sure of the quality. That you can even purchase the more expensive essential oils by the drop is even nicer when you’re just whipping up a small batch of something.
The packaged stuff is strictly for the tourists. Anyone who is in the know is there to purchase ingredients. I’ve patronized the shop for many years there are few place in town that can match the quality and variety of basic diy ingredients.

Located on the corner of an inset of stores on Grandview Avenue, next door to Heidi’s Homemade, is Earth Elements. Gracing the presence of their window facing Grandview Avenue are garlands of circular mirror pieces that piqued my interest and enticed me to check out the place.
After waiting patiently until the lady behind the counter was free, I was able to ask her a few questions to which she willingly answered.
In their store is sold all sorts of natural body care products including lotions, candles, soaps, bath salts, crèmes, perfumes, incense and more. Found on the shelves are commodities from lines such as Archipelago and Archive. Come to find out, Earth Elements has been in business for fifteen years. Managed by Kyongson Pei, it is a place where massage therapists often come to find their supplies. It’s also a place where you can tend to your personal skin care needs yourself.
Compared to places like The Body Shop, Earth Elements is cheaper, yet still pricey. A small bottle of lotion was $ 6 at Earth Elements and a bottle of lotion about the same size at The Body Shop is about $ 9 to $ 10.

I have always been interested in what this was. Earth Elements is body care shop. They have aromatherapy candles, scented (with essential oils… the sales clerk told me repeatedly), hair care, etc. The do sell a few lines I’m familiar with Dr, Hauschka and Burt Bee’s, and few other’s I recognized but not well enough to remember today.
I was hoping for some good deals, but nothing was marked down. Not until well into my visit, did I find the 50% off basket. It was pointless, filled with yucky smelling lotions. The rest of the products in the store were very nice. Everything else smelled pretty amazing. But it was so expensive!
After chatting it up with the sales lady (it was her last day and she was a little bouncy), I learned that you can create your own oil and lotion mixtures. I was a little too tired to be creative, but I did want to try something. I got one ounce of the first thing I asked about: the belly oil. It’s meant for pregnant mom’s to be to help avoid stretch marks. One ounce is $ 2.75. The woman grabbed an ounce container (which cost $.75, she told me after filling it), and pumped it full of this miracle oil, with essential oils, and maybe wheat germ. She didn’t know exactly what was in it. I thought that was strange.
The oils cool so far. Smells funny. I’ll probably get some more and mix in a scent. Unfortunately, it will probably add another $ 1.00 to the order.

I just don’t get it. Maybe it was because it was Saturday. Maybe it was game-​day. Maybe she had a rough night before. Maybe she had met her sales quota for the week and didn’t need my business. Maybe, maybe, maybe… But as a small boutique fanatic, I know well enough to know that anyone walking through the doors will either be impressed or turned off and you have about 30 seconds to make that impression. Customers are the livelihood of a small business and one bad one can effect up to 15 other people through word of mouth alone.
As bad as this opening sounds, I have to be honest and say that I didn’t have ‘that’ bad of an experience but it was so UNimpressionable that I doubt I’ll ever go back. I was greeted with the most disinterested nonchalance imaginable and the overall feeling I got was that I was interrupting her classical music concert kindly hosted in HD radio by NPR.
Needless to say, while the products were interesting, all I got was sticker shock and bad vibes. Disappointing because I had heard so many great things…