Naptime Aromatherapy Co. products. Image by Katie Jeanne Photography
Michellel Stangl, the founder of My Naptime Jewelry and essential-oil brand, Naptime Aromatherapy Co., recently opened her first storefront in White Bear Lake. Also named Naptime Aromatherapy, the gift and home décor shop carries a mix of goods from makers from the U.S., fair-trade, artisan-made goods imported from Thailand, Indonesia, and Brazil, as well as Stangl’s jewelry and essential-oil products.
After first making her own jewelry in high school as an outlet for migraine relief, Stangl picked it up again three years ago as a way to pass the time during her child’s naptime. One day, a friend asked her to make a necklace with a volcanic-lava stone, an absorbent stone that can be covered in essential oils to diffuse throughout the day. Inspired by the experience, Stangl began designing her jewelry exclusively with volcanic-lava stone. She began working with a local essential oil source who has relationships with organic, small artisan distillers from around the world for a line of custom essential oils. The Naptime Aromatherapy product line now includes roller balls, aromatherapy body oil, aromatherapy room and linen sprays, aromatherapy body cream, aromatherapy bar soap, cleansing cream, and more in the works.
Stangl didn’t set out to open a store. “It sort of happened like a snowball effect,” she says, “or shall I say, avalanche.” She began looking for a studio space after outgrowing her makeshift workshop in her basement and stumbled across a storefront in downtown White Bear Lake, where she lives. She fell in love with its natural light, big windows, and wood floors, but balked at the size of the space.
“I thought, No way, it’s way too big, I’m not looking for a retail space,” she recalls. “I just want a jewelry studio so I can fulfill my wholesale orders and store supplies and inventory in peace, and just go home at the end of the day. I do not want a retail space.”
She kept looking, but nothing compared to that big, bright storefront. “I thought, Okay, if I decide to get this space, I cannot waste it,” she says. “It’s way too beautiful and spacious, with high traffic outside. If I do this, I have to do this.”
In addition to Stangl’s jewelry and essential oils, the store carries Naptime Aromatherapy’s new line of ultrasonic aromatherapy diffusers, including its nebulizing diffuser (which atomizes essential oils and circulates the fragrance of the oil into the air) and Himalayan salt diffuser.
Stangl realized she couldn’t fill the store only with her jewelry and oils, so she added things she thought would pair well with them—high-quality, giftable items such as authentic mulberry silk pillowcases and sleep masks, luxe robes and loungewear, buckwheat- and lavender-filled pillows, body wraps, cleansing Himalayan salt bars, bath and body scrubbers and loofas, and de-puffing eye pillows.
The store also carries goods made by small-batch makers from across the U.S., including artisanal, beautifully packaged tea and travel tea infusers, greeting cards, journals, and stationery, mugs and teapots, leather wallets, and carrying cases perfect for Naptime Aromatherapy’s roller bottles and essential oil bottles.
Naptime Aromatherapy’s home goods include handmade, global goods that combine earthy elements with shiny metals, including copper-tone tumblers, patterned throw rugs trimmed with colorful pom-poms, Turkish cotton throws and towels, and woven baskets that can double as planters.
“Almost everything I carry is handmade and not machine manufactured,” she says. “I love to intermingle modern goods with worldly items.”
Now open @ 2168 3rd St., White Bear Lake, mynaptimejewelry.com/naptimearomatherapyco