If you regularly browse the health and wellness shelves in Boots or Superdrug, you may recently have come across Puressentiel.
But if, like me, you don’t but you do have a growing interest in using 100% natural remedies for getting your engine ticking over again when it’s not feeling at its best, then you may just want to check them out.
Puressentiel is the number one natural health and wellness brand in its native France and in Belgium. It arrived on our shores last year, with a launch range of ten products to help with respiratory problems, muscle and joint pain, rest and relaxation and air purification.
A few weeks ago the brand’s co-founder, the elegant Parisian Isabelle Pacchioni, was in London at a media meet and greet at which she discussed Puressentiel’s philosophy and products. She also revealed plans to significantly expand the brand’s presence in the UK – it has 150 different products on sale in France!
Isabelle and her husband Marco created Puressentiel in 2005, fulfilling a shared passion for developing a line of health and wellness products using only natural ingredients and aromatherapy. The knowledge behind the practice was already in Isabelle’s DNA – both her mother (a herbalist) and father (a naturopath) have authored and published natural health reference books.
The development of the Puressentiel range has been overseen by teams of doctors and pharmacists, and two years ago the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, the city’s oldest hospital, approached Isabelle and Marco over a study it was conducting. The brand’s Rest & Relax Air Spray was successfully used in the study to help wean patients off sleeping pills, which can be highly addictive.
At the media event we got to sample the 10 products currently on sale here in the UK, and to take away with us three of the brand’s hero products (above): the best-selling Purifying Air Spray (one is sold every 10 seconds globally), the Respiratory Hypertonic Nasal Spray, and the aforementioned rest and relax air spray.
With health problems like asthma on the increase and more of us now paying greater attention to labels on medicine packs, natural remedies have become a very attractive proposition.
One thing I particularly like about the Puressentiel line-up is the clear labelling. On the front of every product, in big type, is the number of essential oils contained within. The Purifying Air Spray contains 41 essential oils (yes, 41!), Rest & Relax Air Spray 12, and the nasal spray four (this has fewer as it needs to be sprayed directly inside the nasal passage).
Puressentiel Purifying Air Spray - £19.99 (200ml)
This is bactericidal, fungicidal and virucidal. It claims to destroy bacteria, viruses and microscopic fungi. I squirt this in the four corners of my bedroom about an hour before sleep time. Not only has this got a real punch to it (a very pleasant one) but it really does hang about. Ideal for spraying in the kids’ rooms too. The 41 essential oils include dill, anise, sweet basil, bay st thomas, rosewood, cajuput, cassia cinnamon, atlas cedarwood and lemon.
Puressentiel Rest & Relax Air Spray - £16.99 (75ml)
A sleep prep containing 12 essential oils including camomile, cypress, lavender, mandarin, marjoram, neroli and orange. I’ve been squirting this on a tissue placed next to my bed. Again, it delivers a very powerful (though not overpowering) whiff, and the blend here really does make you want to put your head down and hit the sleep button on your alarm clock radio.
Puressentiel Hypertonic Nasal Spray - £9.99 (15ml)
I’ve put my prescription spray to one side and started using this instead. You pull off the cap, place a little way inside one nostril, hold down the other nostril with a finger, and breathe in as you press down on the applicator plunger to release a single spray.
I’m still waking up in the morning with a slight blocked left nostril, but I have only been using this spray for three nights, which is probably too early to make a proper assessment. Once again, a lovely blend of essential oils to smell and enjoy – here it’s ravintsara, geranium, eucalyptus radiata, niaouli.
More on Puressentiel here. You can buy the range from Boots here. The Puressentiel range is included in Boots' current '3 for 2' offer.
PR Sample
