Why we press our own oil
Eleven miles, three weeks from flower to bottle, and a shelf life short enough to be inconvenient. An honest account of what that costs and what it buys.
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Notes from the glasshouse
Journal
What our therapists actually think about rest, water, skin and the awkward business of slowing down. Published when we have something to say, not on a schedule.
What eleven years of cold water has taught us.
The plunge pool has been held at 8° since 2015 and we have watched roughly forty thousand people get into it. Some of what we assumed at the start turned out to be nonsense, and one thing we thought was marketing turned out to be true.
Ines, who designs every contrast circuit in the building, walks through what the evidence actually supports, what it does not, and why she will still ask you to go in last rather than first.
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Recent entries
You are probably over-exfoliating
Marit sees the same barrier damage every week, almost always from a routine bought one product at a time. What to stop, and in what order.
Read →The thirty minutes afterwards
Everybody guards the treatment hour and nobody guards the half hour after it. That half hour is where most of the benefit is decided.
Read →Deep tissue does not mean painful
Rowan on the myth that has done more damage to massage than any other, and how to tell a firm therapist from a careless one.
Read →What is growing this month
Meadowsweet, calendula and more nettle than anyone needs. The seasonal blend changes on the first of the month, and here is why.
Read →Forty decibels, and how we got there
Soft-close hinges, three layers of glass and a plant room buried in the hill. Quiet turned out to be an engineering problem, not a policy.
Read →The basalt stone sleep effect
Guests keep telling us they sleep nine hours after this one treatment. We went looking for a mechanism and found a partial answer.
Read →What is safe in the second trimester
Heat, pressure, positioning and the three things we always decline. Written with a midwife rather than lifted from a training manual.
Read →Nobody here earns commission
It costs us somewhere around £60,000 a year in retail we do not sell. We would make the same decision again tomorrow.
Read →One letter a month.
New writing, seasonal rituals and member evenings. No offers, no countdown timers, and one click to leave.