Question:
What are Mental Essentials?
a gang of oil characters reflecting a spectrum of moods and emotions,
guiding and simplifying your wellness journey.
Each character represents an oil, a country, a culture and a mood and are dressed
in clothes from around the world.
Lavie wears a simple dress similar to the ones worn by girls in Provence, in the south of France. Lems' paisely print tights reflect her Indian roots, while Berg's clothes
are inspired by a Renaissance painting.
The characters range in age; seven year old Mandi is the youngest, while Patch, the only one sitting down, stopped counting her age years ago.
Each character belongs to a different family, some are from the floral family, and others from the citrus family. Some of them belong to a few different families, like Cam, who belongs to both the floral family and the herbaceous family.
Euki, Berg and Cam are gender neutral. Or at the very least, they're not open to discussing their gender at the moment, and we respect that.
Some are excited and can't wait to meet you (hi, Geri), while others can barely be bothered to get out of bed to say hello (take your time, Euki).
WELLNESS HAS NO FACE
When we started Vellum Wellness, we made a conscious decision not to include any hired models or stock image photos of models on our homepage. We wanted our message to be super loud, and super clear - wellness is for everybody.
There is no 'face of wellness'; each of our wellness journeys is unique and personal. Featuring a model on our homepage would be subtly sending a message of who we think our audience is, and who we think deserves wellness. We believe everybody deserves wellness.
Our personal wellness journey, and our first collection, began with essential oils, and as we learned more about essential oils, we began to understand each oil's unique profile. Each oil has a different aroma and a specific set of characteristics, so instead of assigning a face to wellness, we decided to assign ten characters.
We scrapped all the models and dreamed up a garden of characters, from Patch to Euki, to Lavie and commissioned LA based artist MRBBABY to hand paint these characters, bringing them to life.
Each oil transformed into a character with a big mood. Regardless of who we are, when, where, or how we were raised, we all experience a range of different moods and emotions in a day, just like our Mental Essentials characters.
Oils are multi purpose with a range of benefits for the mind and body. To make it a little more simple, we identified the singular best mental benefit of each oil and put it right on the front of the bottle, making it easy to select an essential oil for your mood.
HONOURING THE CULTURES THAT INSPIRE US
We were so taken with the impact essential oils had on both our physical health and mental health, and wanted to pay tribute to the countries these oils stemmed from. Our collection of essential oils are sourced from all over the world, from China to Portugal and each oil is praised for not only its physical benefits, but also for the benefits the oil has on our mood.
Our idea of wellness has roots from all over the world. As a way to pay homage to all the countries and places inspiring our brand, we're delving into the history of each oil and character in our Mental Essentials collection.
Each oil can be traced back to a different culture and era. Ancient Egyptians used chamomile in beautifying rituals, while the French turned to lavender for soothing comfort. It was important for us to recognize and represent all of the different cultures and countries our oils have grown from.