Skeem Design is a husband/wife team who creates stunningly designed gift items for the home. 

They combine quality scents with gorgeous design, and to further this brilliance, they design to eliminate unnecessary packaging.

Most of their containers are easily reusable.  They have a sensual way with scents —just sample their strong Arabica Coffee Field Jar candles or Palo Santo soap. Their soy-based candles and match bottles are “hand-made in small batches in the USA”.

Here, we feature selections from their Talisman collection, which is based upon the legendary Four Thieves blend. Here’s the quick story:

Six or seven-hundred years ago during the Bubonic Plague, four thieves stole the possessions from the myriad dead. Legend claims they stayed alive and avoided the Black Death because of a special blend of essential oils in vinegar. The recipe for vinaigre des quatre voleurs was known as:

Take three pints of strong white wine vinegar, add a handful of each of wormwood, meadowsweet, wild marjoram and sage, fifty cloves, two ounces of campanula roots, two ounces of angelic, rosemary and horehound and three large measures of champhor. Place the mixture in a container for fifteen days, strain and express then bottle. Use by rubbing it on the hands, ears and temples from time to time when approaching a plague victim.

Rene-Maurice Gattefosse, Gattefosse’s Aromatherapy (CW Daniel Company, Ltd. First published in Paris, France in 1937 by Girardot & Cie.), 85-86.

There are as many different recipes for this blend as there are variations of the story, but the effectiveness of the blend is due to the anti-microbial properties of essential oils.

We offer the Talisman essential oil roller ball and soy-candle. Use the roller ball to combat fatigue, as a mnemonic aid for studying, or simply to transport your senses to a calmer place. Pair the candle with the astronomy matches and you have a lovely gift to give someone.

#skeemdesign

For more information on the properties of essential oils, try the

National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy