Starter Kit. Idea 107 of 500. Cluster 5
Aromatherapy product ranges for the spas abroad, from oils distilled here
The mechanism, from the book
Ayurveda is a system of medicine the world already recognises and seeks out. The demand is there; what Sri Lanka needs is more of its own names, known and asked for abroad.
The first step
Buy cinnamon, citronella and other oils from a distiller you can name, and blend three products a spa uses every day: a massage oil, a room scent and a bath oil. Label each with the oil's origin and send samples to five spas abroad, run by Sri Lankans or already using Sri Lankan oils. Ask what they pay now and what they would pay for a range from the source. The proof is a first paid order.
- Who pays first
- A spa abroad that buys its massage oils from a wholesaler and would rather buy a named range from where the oils are distilled.
- What leaves today
- The oils leave in bulk to be blended, bottled and branded abroad; a range made here sells the finished product at the spa's price.
Ask first
- National Medicines Regulatory Authority. Ask whether a blended oil for massage must be registered before it is sold abroad.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which markets buy massage and spa oils and what papers a shipment needs.
Check before you spend
Confirm each oil's purity and safe dilution, the labelling and warnings the buying country asks for, and the distiller's written supply terms.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a spa abroad pay for a litre of massage oil?
- What does a litre of each oil cost from the distiller?
- How many spas abroad already use Sri Lankan oils?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"story, a shipping label, a buyer who knows your name."
The oil is the easy part; the label, the story and a buyer who knows the range make it sell.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.