It all started with a bottle of essential oil in Singapore. Just before Covid-19 hit the shores of Singapore in a big way, I was finishing up my diploma in aromatherapy and knew that something could be put together for myself and family. I mixed up little bottles of a formula after doing research, and gave them to my family, friends and whomever I met. I printed little labels and leaflets off my home printer, and used a paper cutter to get them cut. Then a friend asked if I could make some for her friends. That’s how Soleus started. 

Established in 2018 for the aromatherapy diploma case studies and clients I was meeting in Hong Kong, the story goes further back than that. Soleus just isn’t about aromatherapy and essential oils, it’s about what I love doing, and what got me through my darkest days. During the many consecutive nights of insomnia where I would lie awake, wired and zonked from not sleeping for a week, I thought that I would never wish this on my worst enemy. The weeks turned into months and the months into years. I was a chronic insomniac for two full years before I quit my job, highly stressed, burnt out and falling sick every two weeks.  

Nobody understands insomnia until they’ve experienced it, nobody really talks about it, and to be fair, neither did I. You are not really alive but not really dead either, and having constant headaches and eyes that feel the pressure in their sockets. Insomnia isn’t a condition that is recognised under any insurance card and nothing that conventional medicine could do except prescribe sleeping pills and muscle relaxants of zolpidem and diazepam. I looked fine on the outside even though I was dying on the inside. I was told that I should go back to a decent job by people who cared but didn’t know.

At night, I watched the seconds, minutes and hours go by and heard the twittering of birds as dawn approached, signalling yet another sleepless night. The endless days of fatigue and just trying to make it through the waking day, only to reach the night and do it all over again.  It took so much energy to make appointments and meet people, I would end up more exhausted. I was inconsistent with keeping in touch, and needed the right head space to get back. It was so hard to keep up. I used to stare out of my window and wondered if this was all there was to life. 

I was taking half a sleeping pill initially, then one, then two before I could get to sleep. But I would wake up feeling even more wired, having been to sleep but not really slept. I read the side effects of the pills I was taking and I decided I could not be taking sleeping pills for the rest of my life. I went cold turkey, and gave up it all up. I started to look for other things that purportedly helped, warm baths and organic milk before bed, chamomile tea, valerian supplements.

To restore my health, I saw naturopaths, functional medicine and TCM practitioners, went for relaxation programs at a health resort and Ayurvedic panchakarma detox programs. I tried acupuncture treatments, past life regression sessions, card readings, soul retrieval sessions, crystal and shamanic healing, theta healing, hypnotherapy. I learnt reiki and Nutripuncture, attended life coaching sessions and workshops, meditation and dharma classes. I gave up using synthetic chemicals and fragrances, changed the cookware and containers that were leaching heavy metals and endocrine disrupting chemicals into my food, switched plastic bottles for glass and stainless steel ones, used essential oils to clean the home. I used homeopathy and Bach flower essences on myself. I read voraciously about energy work, vibrational healing, metaphysical anatomy, teachings of the Zen master Thich Naht Hanh and the works of Louise Hay. I learnt about chakras and emotions, completed a diploma in aromatherapy, gradually found light at the end of the tunnel, and this led me to where I am now.  

It was a long journey. It wasn’t easy, and one thing led to another. Most of all, I loved what I learnt. I connected again with the interests I was always curious about when I was younger- astrology, numerology, personality types. I always thought that if I wasn’t a lawyer I would be a psychologist. As a therapist, this is probably as close as it gets. I cannot be everything to everyone but I can be something to someone. Soleus is an expression of myself, an offering and love letter to the world. It is a place of sharing and community. It is not just a sole journey, it is about us. sole+us

 xxx