welcome

What began with a small printed aromatherapy catalog became a life shaped by natural wellness, trusted growers, careful blending, and gratitude for every customer served.

Imani is an ancient word that means Faith

Faith in God, nature, community, family and oneself.

While modern medicine is valuable for many reasons, we still believe that nature provides beautiful remedies that are good to remember. Our Imani brand is founded on faith in the healing power of nature created by God.

Dedication to quality and personal use

Our belief inspires us to seek natural products with the quality that we want to use for ourselves, along with our friends and family.

Trusted sources

With over 30 years behind us, we have developed relationships with sources that we trust to have a track record of consistent quality.

Our recipes

Blending essential oils and formulas is a lot like cooking in the kitchen. The more you practice with various herbs and spices, the better you become at creating an excellent dish. The recipes for our synergies and formulas have been fine-tuned over many years, and they bestow a unique personality to the Imani brand.

A thousand things

We started this business in 1993 with nothing—no name, products, customers or selling systems (like a website!). Our business is the result of thousands of decisions, each one usually small and relatively insignificant. But those thousand little decisions add up to something pretty unique.

As Vincent Van Gogh is credited with saying:

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

Our History - Established 1993

My journey with essential oils began after reading The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It describes a game played with “beads” to illuminate the patterns that are common among all things.

I thought about the intervals of harmony and dissonance in sound and color. Realizing that everything has a frequency, it hit me right on the nose - AROMA! That was my Eureka! moment and I coined the term Aromatic Omnivision—a harmonic synergy between sound, color and aroma capable of leading the mind through archetypal states of consciousness by tuning brainwave frequencies.

Since sound and color frequencies can be replicated with precision, my focus turned to aroma, feeling that I needed to explore it on a more personal level. I was instinctively drawn to the natural aroma of essential oils.

We partnered with Oshadhi—a brand from Germany—and printed 300 copies of our first aromatherapy catalog. This was before the internet, so we placed classified ads in magazines and the phone began to ring!

Soon after, we began to source our own oils, offering them as The Apothecary. Then, in 1997, our friend Tamara found this bookmark...

She felt compelled to give it to me. When I saw it, I knew that Imani was the perfect brand name for our own essential oils.

From that moment, our vision became clear.

Imani means Faith

The name inspired the best in us. It helped us to see our business as a lifestyle flowing from our deepest beliefs. We phased out of Oshadhi and began focusing exclusively on medicinal quality essential oils from organic and wildcrafted sources.

Living with the oils is a profound experience. Every drop carries a significant amount of plant energy*, so shepherding 100’s of kilos of oil from their source to our customers over the years has been an epic journey.

*For example, it takes about 62 pounds of Cinnamon Bark to yield 1 ounce of essential oil and 30 roses to yield one drop of Rose essential oil.

We individually select oils from around the globe, and hand-pour every bottle that we sell, allowing us to grow familiar with the subtle aspects of each oil. This experience enables us to provide a continuity of quality that is our service to you.

As for Aromatic Omnivision, we developed Terrapin Station - a Music, Art & Wellness Centre where we played with sound, light and aroma for 17 years.

Our journey continues...

We are grateful to serve you,
Brian and Stacey Skinness