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Making a Difference
Purple Flame Aromatherapy
Caring about essential oils
Caring about our planet
Just imagine for a moment that you are a therapist back in the late seventies. Aromatherapy is almost unknown, and the precious essential oils you need can be hard to get hold of. Some may take months to arrive. How do you cope? What do you do?
After years of frustration with unreliable suppliers, aromatherapist Christine Sapsford decided to make a positive difference for herself and other therapists by setting up her own essential oils business in 1980. She called it Purple Flame, symbolising sacred healing energy.
A former nurse and yoga teacher totally in love with essential oils, Christine knew she’d made the right decision. Her approach to health has always been holistic, bringing both mind and spirit into the healing equation. Purple Flame provided a way to take this further.
Her first customers (many of whom are still using Purple Flame oils over two decades later) were able to choose from eleven essential oils and pre-mixed blends. Orders were safely and conveniently delivered to their homes by mail order, very much as they are today.
Good news travelled fast and the client list grew steadily longer. Therapists all over the UK and throughout the world were drawn by the fine quality of Christine’s oils, backed up by her growing reputation for knowledge and enthusiasm.
This enthusiasm has now extended into training in Russia with bioelectrography, and the research and development of products incorporating the effects of the frequencies of light, colour and sound on the body, resulting in the creation of 3 CDs and an interactive CD ROM, and the creation and production of an energy enhanced skin care range.
Quite early on, the customer base broadened to include hospitals and hospices, as the company began supplying oils and consultation backup on request. As time passed, various colleges and universities also found out about Purple Flame oils and started using them in aromatherapy courses.
We helped to introduce Aromatherapy at the John Radcliffe Hospital with advise, training and oils. Details of the Delivery Suite research and use over 12 years is published in Midwifery and Aromatherapy in Intrapartum Practice available from Purple Flame (ref BKS29).
Great Customer Relationships
As the number of Purple Flame customers increased over time, so did the number of products on offer. Within four years, 45 top quality essential oils and 35 pre-mixed blends were available, plus a wide range of carriers.
The company has always been customer led. Says Christine: "Therapists would ask for a particular oil. We would ask our suppliers many of whom are still supplying us with superb oils to source it. Once we were sure of the quality, we would add it to our list." Christine’s husband Joe adds with a wry smile: "many of our competitors began copying our price list word for word, - even down to the accidental spelling mistakes."
After much research we launched a DOS computer programme in 1996 `Aroma Search` with client assessment programme, and detailed use of all the essential oils on our price list. Years later this was serialized in magazines and was the first published ‘Essential Oil Index‘. Today many magazines now carry such features.
Purple Flame has come a long way since those early days; the current product catalogue contains over 500 products! Customers can choose from more than 100 pure and natural essential oils and organics, plus there is a many and varied selection of high quality aromatherapy products and accessories also on offer.
Customer ideas for products
Meeting therapists’ needs remains Purple Flame’s number one priority, with the majority of new products being developed in response to customer requests. Our base and skin care ranges started off this way, and so did our traditional handmade soaps.
Purple Flame also provides support via a customer help line. It started off as Christine giving advice on oils, and has gradually evolved over the years into a friendly place where clients are encouraged to ask for help and to give their comments and suggestions on our services.
The Purple Flame School of Aromatherapy & Post Graduate Studies [Click here to view courses]
In 1983, Christine began the Purple Flame School of Aromatherapy and Post-Graduate studies, making a groundbreaking contribution to the training arena, which was poorly served at the time. Her courses were a great success, and before long they were being held at the University of Warwick, USA, and for the last 7 years at our Aromatherapy centre in the green belt just North of Coventry. We also train our distributors in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The school is fully accredited by the International Federation of Professional Aromatherapists and is an accredited school of Internationalcolour.com.
Today, Purple Flame continues to provide the best quality aromatherapy diploma courses. For therapists who are already trained, a wide selection of post-graduate courses and workshops are available.
For nearly two decades, the Purple Flame School of Aromatherapy and Post-Graduate Studies has been supplying best quality training to aromatherapy students and therapists from all over the world. All our tutors share Purple Flame’s philosophy, and have excellent and longstanding reputations in their fields of expertise. Our wide selection of courses and workshops include:
- Aromatherapy Diploma
- Back Massage
- Chakras and Subtle Anatomy
- Crystal Healing
- Energy Master Classes
- Holistic Aromatherapy
- Hopi Ear Candles
- Hot Stone Therapy
- Indian Head Massage
- Kirlian Diagnostics
- Light, Colour and Sound Therapy
- Massage for Cancer Patients and the Terminally Ill
- Mixing & Blending
- Practical Nutrition
- Pregnancy and Childbirth
- Reiki 1 and 11
- Reiki Masters
- Scientific Aromatherapy Made Easy
- Sports Massage
- Vibrational Healing For Practitioners
To find out more about training opportunities, call Purple Flame on 01676 542542.
A family business
Coming into the business full-time in 1988, Christine’s husband Joe - a former production engineer and schoolteacher - has worked alongside her right from the start. His business acumen and strength of character is renowned throughout the aromatherapy industry.
Although Purple Flame is very much a family business, Christine & Joe remain constantly aware and appreciative of the valuable role that their loyal, professional and conscientious staff continue to play in the business.
In 1996, Rob Sapsford, an aromatherapist with a passion for boats, photography and the natural world, began to take over general management of the company.
We have to announce with the deepest regret Rob died from a brain tumour in March 2006 but it was Rob’s love of nature that lies at the heart of Purple Flame’s environmental policy, a policy that continues.
Genuinely ‘green’ company
Purple Flame entered another chapter in 1999, when they moved to new premises in the Warwickshire countryside. The one-acre site has provided us with an excellent opportunity to further develop the company’s green ethos.
Every time you buy from Purple Flame, you are actually helping to improve the environment
Two thirds of the site is managed to support biodiversity, with an abundance of wild flowers and plants providing a natural habitat for wildlife, including birds, butterflies and bees. There is a pond for aquatic life.
Producing less than half the rubbish of an average household, Purple Flame is run with energy conserving efficiency by its staff. Our electricity is brought in from a renewable energy supplier. We also recycle our steel, glass and aluminium
Packaging is primarily ‘green’ - either re-cycled, re-cyclable or re-usable, often all three. Shredded office paper and biodegradable starch chips are used in place of polystyrene packaging, and we use paper tape, rather than vinyl.
Buying from Purple Flame actually helps lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the biggest contributory factor to global warming. This is because the company offset more than double their carbon emissions (independently calculated) by replanting British woodlands.
No animal testing
Purple Flame’s respect for and affinity with the natural world has always extended to animals. In line with the company’s holistic philosophy, Purple Flame products are not tested on animals.
Making a difference
It’s what we at Purple Flame have always done best. If you’d like to find out more about how we care for the environment, or would like information about any of our products or services, please get in touch. We’d love to talk to you!
Carbon emissions calculated by Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management. Trees planted by Future Forest. Electricity supplied by Unit (e).
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