About Us
Will Lapaz has been interested in, and has worked with, plants and the natural world since childhood. In 1999 he purchased Eden Botanicals and began his journey into the world of essential oils. Will was educated in essential oils primarily through his ownership of Eden Botanicals where in 1999 he took a struggling aromatics company that sold a retail line of solid perfumes (amber type) and five essential oil perfume blends and created a thriving essential oil business that soon specialized in genuine and authentic essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts and related natural aromatics. At Eden Botanicals he focused on sourcing very high quality essential oils and sold them in bulk at wholesale pricing to a wide range customers including bodycare companies, essential oil and aromatherapy companies, natural perfumers, small home-based businesses and the general public. Without advertising, the essential oil business grew quickly and steadily primarily because it filled a niche in the essential oil field of very high quality essential oils at fair and reasonable pricing.
At Eden Botanicals the sourcing of essential oils from distillers around the world, in addition to quality control, became Will’s primary focus. He began with 14 different essential oils and ten years later he was importing and selling more than 200 different essential oils including many rare, unique and even a few one of a kind oils that no one else was selling in North America.
In 2004, Will became a certified aromatherapist studying with Kurt Schnaubelt, PhD at the Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy. He continues to blend therapeutic as well as natural perfume formulas, educate others and help individuals and essential oil related business reach their goals.
The beginning…
Will’s first summer job was working in an organic garden at the age of 12, learning about composting and growing ornamental plants. As a high school student he became enthralled in the natural world and spent as much time as possible roaming the mountains, deserts and other natural places. He studied ethnobotany at this time focusing on native plants found in the wild. Later he would study European, Chinese and South American herbs as well.
Will graduated college with a degree in environmental studies and planning and worked for Menocino National Forest, Olympic National Park and then was hired as a horticuluralist helping to restore the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm in Sebastopol, California. Following this he entered his first career as a revegetation and restoration specialist working for several different environmental and biological consulting companies dedicated to restoring disturbed environments back to their original, native plant and animal communities. This work included growing, planting and supervising the installation and maintenance dozens of species of native plants in diverse plant communities ranging from salt marsh and sand dunes at sea level up through riparian, chaparral, oak woodland, mixed evergreen, pine and fir forests to subalpine meadows in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Later he obtained a landscape contractor’s license and performed the planning, designing and preparation of restoration plans and specifications primarily for water districts and other public agencies.
In addition, Will studied herbology, bodywork, nutrition and other health related subjects and attended the East West School of Herbology, the Institute of Chinese Herbology, Heartwood Institute, the New age School of Massage and took classes with Michael and Leslie Tierra, Dr. Bernard Jensen, Christopher Hobbs, Ed Smith and Michael Moore. He studied permaculture design with Bill Mollison and is a long-time student of traditional yoga and tai chi and continues with a daily practice. To round out his education and life experience he has travelled to Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, India and all over the western US.
The Perfect Essence
The Perfect Essence is both a consulting company and provider of essential oils. The name was chosen for its varied meanings. On the one hand it denotes a striving to find perfect essences (essential oils). Searching for the best and rarest essential oils is a journey that requires patience, a sense of adventure and a knowledge of plants, cultures and distillation and extraction techniques. The search for elusive and rare essences and locating the finest distillations of them is a personal quest and passion of Will’s. Additionally, The Perfect Essence speaks to our inner being – our own essence – which if one wants perfection, is also a journey of discovery and of effort to create perfection in our own life. So, by using this name we don’t suggest that we have the perfect essential oils, rather that we are searching and striving for The Perfect Essence,
…and we invite you along on our quest.
