SOUTH Fremantle firm Mother Earth Aromatherapy is taking to the skies, supplying skincare products for Virgin Airline.

They won’t bear the ME logo, but will be sold on domestic and international flights under an indigenous banner.

The massive deal means ME will need bigger premises, and more high tech machinery.

“It’s going to be big and we will have to contract out…We found a good place that will let us put crystals in their water tanks,” owner Hellene Kukulj says, explaining that crystals and reiki are used when making their natural products.

ME can still be found at the Strang Street workshop and on-line, but these days they are more likely to be blending for other companies.

Virgin isn’t the first, and Coles approached the company some years ago when they started selling alternative care products.

“Contract work is big for us,” Kukulj says.

• Mother Earth Aromatherapy owner Hellene Kukulj.

From her first foray into aromatherapy in her granny’s kitchen in 1993, to a stall at the Fremantle markets, and then moving into a quaint limestone factory in Strang Street, Mother Earth has come a long way.

The range is free of chemicals and parabens (preservatives widely used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products), is certified organic and uses pure essential oils, organic flowers, herbs and herbal extracts.

But it was the magic of blending ingredients to create a unique cream or lotion, not a desire to be chemical free, that was the driving force.

“It was something I loved doing,” Kukulj says.

Working in the mining industry, she was injured in an horrific car crash, and decided to do a one-day aromatherapy workshop.

Driving force

She discovered she intuitively knew “what went with what”, and pretty soon it turned into a consuming passion, and a three-year study to become an aromatherapist.

A close relationship with her grandmother was cemented by cooking up potions and lotions together.

“I got into aromatherapy fuelled by granny,” Kukulj says.

Things really took off when a Fremantle business woman bought out her entire range at a country market, and ordered more.

“A labour of love was becoming an exciting and fun filled business.”

The Mother Earth Christmas sale is on next weekend, December 2 to 10, at 18 Strang Street, South Fremantle.

For more go to mothereartharomatherapy.com.au or call 9433 3040.

BY JENNY D’ANGER