How Auroma grew from the kitchen table to an international supplier of quality essential oils, fragrance oils, vegetable oils and base products.

Auroma is the dream of John Fergeus, a man with an amazing passion for the power of essential oils. Essential oils have played an integral part in John's life since the mid-1970's. 

The original business started at home, with John mixing and blending oils and bases himself. With a longstanding interest in the raw materials and extraction of oils from plants, John decided to apply his entrepreneurial skills at the beginning of the 1980's to create a market for the finished product - the Auroma shops.

At this time, people were buying synthetic fragrances, and Aromatherapy had not yet become an industry.  Auroma focused on essential oils and was one of the pioneering companies involved in developing the Aromatherapy industry to where it is today.

The very first Auroma store opened at Jafa House in Prahran in 1987. In 1988 the decision was made to open a larger store in Hawthorn, Melbourne with the ability to display the entire product range. This store remains today, although moved to a better position on the same street in 1993.

With only one store, we found that many customers were knocking on the factory door out in Hallam to buy products. This prompted the opening of the Hallam store, which has proved a huge success with local customers.

In 1998 the opportunity arose to expand into South Australia, and the Glenelg store opened. We now operate these three stores successfully and there are plans in place to provide the ‘Auroma experience' to customers in other States around Australia. 

In the meantime, customers order our products via phone, fax and mail-order or more recently shop online via the Auroma website.

As the stores have progressed, so too has the Auroma product range. Auroma is a reflection of the times as well as a leader. Since it's inception, Auroma has maintained its core range of essential oils, which is continually expanding as new oils are introduced and the supply of others drops off. In fact, Auroma has one of the most extensive ranges of quality essential oils in the industry.

Complementary products in the range have included botanicals, back when pot pourri was all the rage, fragrance oils and more recently,   an increased focus on base products for customers to create their own natural hair and skin care products.