6 lessons from 38 years of Absolute Essential

Here is what I knew when I started Absolute Essential: Aromatic Medicine, the therapeutic use of plant extracts, which I grew up with and had just trained in, in France. Here is what I did not know: how to start or run a business.

I had two young children, $500 and no capital. The plan was to figure it out.

38 years later, I am still figuring it out, but the product and company turned out a lot better than that plan.

If you are standing at the start of something with very little, I hope this helps. It can grow into something very special, making a difference for many.

Ours grew into Absolute Essential, a New Zealand company founded in 1988 that makes certified organic and wild harvested therapeutic essential oils and botanical wellness products.

1Go to the source

I was a clinician first. When I arrived in New Zealand 41 years ago, I could not find essential oils good enough for my clinic, so I sourced them myself, directly. These oils had to do their work for the people in my care; that standard has never changed. I told anyone who would listen what I was doing, with more passion than was strictly polite. Other practitioners asked me to buy for them. Then some retailers asked. On 13 November 1988, Absolute Essential was incorporated, in one room at the back of that clinic.

2Know your why

In 1982 I was travelling through Africa. I knew how highly Frankincense was valued in religion and healthcare in the West. I saw what it left behind for the people who harvested it: poverty, exploitation, injustice. I thought, there must be a better way.

So from my first raw material order the rule was simple. Build the business around the growers. Make sure everyone in the value chain benefits: the plants, the farmers, the people, and you, our customers, with an artisan quality second to none.

'Trade not aid' became my motto.

Running a business is hard, and there are many days you ask yourself why you are doing it. Knowing the answer is what gets you up the next morning. There was never a backup plan. I have enough fight in me.

3Read the label, then ask who made the oil

Many essential oils behind fancy labels and big claims come from the same 1,000 hectare farms, grown for the flavour and fragrance industries (hot and fast), then sold as aromatherapy oils and contract manufactured under different brand names. Same product, different label.

We took the long way instead.

Our own network took years to build. Mostly small-hold growers, nine cooperative collection points, more than 30 countries. Distilled at or near the harvest, low (temperature) and slow (time), so the skill and the income stay in the growing communities. In Nepal, we have worked with village communities since 2012 to establish a wintergreen industry that provides new skills and an independent income to the women and older people who remain in the villages.

This work has been recognised before: in 2023 we won Natural Health Products New Zealand's inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility Award and its Supreme Award. This year it earned the 2026 Global Impact Award from Clean + Conscious Australia.

4Be uncompromising, and proud of it

My friends call me uncompromising. On principle, I am. I share what I know freely and generously, but I have always had a bold vision.

If I am told that is not possible, I ask why.

Early on I could see where organics, plant extracts (vegan), sustainability and fair global trade were heading. We chose independent organic certification, and we still hold it. BioGro and AsureQuality certify 96% of our catalogue, and 99.6% of everything that can be certified. We swapped plastic for a compostable shipper, and it has won an innovation award of its own. Our labels are printed on tree-free mineral paper, made from quarry waste (demolition concrete) instead of plastics. And we share the shipper design with anyone who wants it; all we ask is a small donation to the orphanages we support.

These choices, amongst others, cost us.

But they were and are the right ones for everyone in our value chain.

Ethics and efficacy belong together. The oils have to do right by the people who grow them, and they have to work for the people who use them.

5Stay close to home

Since 2002 our home has been 16 acres at Muriwai Beach, Aotearoa New Zealand. Every product is precision crafted in our solar powered facility, and the water we use on site is collected rainwater. We plant hundreds of native trees on the property. For our 35th birthday we replanted the roadside after a cyclone took our old trees. Three years on, here is how they are doing.

Home is more than the property. Aotearoa has shaped everything: the ocean, the bush, the air, and a relationship between people and nature that is woven into daily life here. This place keeps me accountable. It reminds me that sustainability is not a department in a company or a badge; it is a daily act of respect and practice. I do not believe I could have built Absolute Essential anywhere else in the world. My work has always been about listening: to people, to plants, to place.

The Edmund Hillary Fellowship (I have been a fellow since 2020) gives that belief a wider home. The Fellowship is a global community of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors working on challenges such as climate change and social inequity. For me, and for Absolute Essential, it is a community of shared purpose: people who believe, as we do, that business can be done this way.

6It was never just me

We grew from one clinic room to serving customers in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and around the world.

Nothing is constant but change.

Every economy, trend and regulation changed us. So did you: every call, review, question and request for a product. The purpose is the one thing that stayed put.

What made us survive is two simple things, in my humble opinion: our agility and our efficacy.

Those two young children from the start of this story are adults now, with families of their own ❤️, and they have been nothing but supportive: the building blocks of this company's foundation. This birthday, and all future celebrations, are theirs too.

There are many key people on this journey; I cannot name them all. They know who they are. Without them we would not be here.

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a city to build a sustainable business.

So here we are, sticking to our efficacy and our ethics, and slowly but surely growing a global sustainable business in a disrupted world.

Every order you placed kept growers working and this business going. Thank you for 38 fabulous years. ❤️

Thank you for sharing our story and for every purchase. If you are new to Absolute Essential, these are our foundation products:

• Lavender and Frankincense, where it all began.
• Stress Less, created 38 years ago and still a best seller.
• Apricot Kernel Oil, high in B17, cold pressed.
• Rose and Frankincense Intensive Serum, a firm favourite.
• The Chakra Set, the story behind our Global Impact Award.

Dr Bo Hendgen DO ND AM