Important Announcement – Big Changes Ahead

Some of you may have heard whispers of change through the rumour mill, which we’ve discovered moves at the speed of light! So we thought it was time to address the speculation directly to ensure false rumours aren’t being spread.

This is a decision that we’ve been mulling over for more than a year, and it hasn’t been made lightly.

This is a bit of a long read, but here goes!

First and foremost…

We are NOT closing down

But we are changing directions.

Navigating through these last couple of years with all the seemingly never-ending price increases, product availability (or lack thereof), insane shipping bills and stresses of operating through COVID, has brought into focus what is really important to us –

1. Keeping our business sustainable as a “small family business” – this is super important to us. We started out as a small family business and that’s exactly what we want to be. We don’t have ambitions of being a big organisation with lots of staff members. Being a small “owner operated” business means our customers are dealing with a person who truly cares – no one will care about a business as much as the person who owns it, and I think this shows in our level of customer service and how fast we ship our orders out (even though it sometimes means we have to get up at 1am to start packing orders!)
2. Fragrance is our passion – without a doubt this is my favourite part of the business, and I feel like it’s the core of our industry. Smelling new samples, sharing fragrance suggestions and testing how they perform in soap are the things I most look forward to and the thing that brings me joy.

Which is why we will be transitioning to:

Selling only fragrance and essential oils (and a verylimited range of carrier oils/solvents).

As we run out of ingredients over the next few weeks and months, we won’t be restocking them.

What products are we keeping?

• ALL fragrances oils
• ALL essential oils
• Fractionated Coconut Oil
• Sweet Almond Oil
• Reed Diffuser Base Oil
• Ethanol
• Isopropyl

Why are we changing?

Many of our ingredients are imported directly from the USA and Asia, and I’m sure you’ve all noticed the shipping delays and price increases – this is one of the major reasons why we’ve chosen to become a fragrance house rather than a “one stop shop” for soap and candle making. Instead of splitting our time and money between hundreds of different products, we will have a single focus – fragrance and essential oils. All our time and resources will go towards learning about, investing in and supplying you with the largest range and best quality premium fragrance in New Zealand.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying “Jack of all trades, Master of none”

Well we are going to be the MASTER OF FRAGRANCE!

We already have the largest range of fragrance oil in the country, and it’s about to get much bigger! As our other range of ingredients drop away, and we free up space in our warehouse, you’ll see our selection of fragrances grow, and grow… and we are SO EXCITED about it!

TIMELINE

When is all this happening?

We don’t have any fixed dates, as the timing largely revolves around how fast we go through our stock on hand and how much warehouse space we are freeing up, but this is a general guideline for how we expect things to progress, please be aware that we may run out of certain products sooner than we anticipate so we can’t guarantee all ingredients will be available for as long as we think.

But a rough estimation based on current stock levels – 

• Common soap making ingredients such as coconut oil, castor oil, shea and cocoa butter, and caustic soda will start to run out quickly (within weeks)
• GW464 soy wax – before Christmas, if not sooner
• Wicks and accessories – several months for most sizes.
• Glassware – several months for most styles.

We have a pretty good supply of other raw ingredients such as micas, epsom salt, citric acid, SLSa and various other items, however certain other ingredients such as baking soda and beeswax are running very low.

We are anticipating moving to our new fragrance focused website in early 2023.

Important Information

• As part of this transition we are completely overhauling our website. We’re are making the switch from WooCommerce to Shopify. 
  What this means for you: When our new website goes live you will need to reset your password to access your account. We’re unsure at this stage if all your past order history can be transferred over – more information to come as we setup and learn to navigate Shopify!
• New rewards program – we are going to be scrapping our current rewards program and setting up a much simpler system (no more confusing levels)
  What this means for you:We will transfer over any reward points balances to our new system, however you might like to redeem your points now while you still have access to our full range of products.
• When we make the switch to our new website in early 2023 it will only have our new product range, however we anticipate that we will still have remaining stock of several products. We’ve set up a new “clearance” website where you will be able to purchase any of these items. We’ll let you know the website in a few weeks so you can check it out and maybe even score an early bargain!
  What this means for you: This new website is very basic – there is no past account history, no free shipping, no further discounts or coupons and we can’t combine shipping with any purchase made at Zen Aroma – this is a completely stand alone website.

We will be sending out more information on all of these subjects as we near closer to the time.

Summary

We know this news is not going to be welcome by many of you, and for that we sincerely apologise. We are fully aware that you have come to rely on us for your ingredients to keep your businesses and hobbies operating. Which is why it was such a agonizing decision to make, and one that I went back and forth on for months.

Changing direction to be a fragrance house is something that I’ve been dreaming about, and desperately wanting to do for a few years now, and I finally found the courage (with a big push from all the COVID related issues) to follow through with my dream.

I genuinely believe that if I can zero my focus in on the thing that I’m truly passionate about, then our business will thrive and it will be a good thing not only for us, but all of you as well.

We hope you come along with us for the ride!