Shops We Love: Norfolk Natural Living
We first stumbled across Norfolk Natural Living in its home town of Holt, some years ago – and were instantly impressed. Back then, they were mostly a home care and laundry products store, with some hand washes and lotions for good measure. All of it, it has to be said, super-stylish, with amazing natural and therapeutic fragrances.
Fast-forward to another encounter, this time with NNL’s very engaging aromatherapist founder Bella Middleton, at the Chelsea Flower Show – where we discovered that the line has massively expanded to include all manner of fragrant fabulousness (and all of it non-toxic, vegan and skin-friendly, still hand-made in Norfolk).
Beyond that, Bella explained that she now has several London stores – or ‘perfumery & wellbeing spaces’, as they call them, and invited Jo in to discover the Lamb’s Conduit Street branch, and to enjoy the 30-minute hand massage that’s on offer to any customers, absolutely free.
As someone who holds a lot of tension in her hands, that was too good an offer to pass up. And oh, what a flipping joy that store turned out to be. Decorated rather like someone’s living room, complete with mantelpiece and dresser, the whole, very extensive range – which now includes home fragrances, eau de parfums, pet care, gardening products and sleep/aromatherapy products. Basically, a range to turn everything from washing dishes to bedtime routines into small moments of c-a-l-m.
There is wallpaper. There are lamps, and armchairs, and generally, we would very much like permanently to move in to this Norfolk Natural Living shop, please.
The fragrances – for home and skin – are seriously impressive, with Jo finding herself particularly drawn to Spring 91, a fabulously evocative, genuinely spring-like blend of bergamot, lemon, green petitgrain, orange blossom, jasmine and magnolia, settling into sandalwood, cedarwood and a whisper of patchouli. Positively sunlit, this. But she also fell head-over-heels for the limited edition Annotations: warm, woody and evocative of a Cambridge library.
We like that all of the fragrances are available from 10ml, priced just £20 for, and there is a Little Wonders Mini Discovery Set available for just £18, with a spritz or two of each. The full-size fragrances come in gorgeous bottles! With cork caps! Honestly, there is nothing not to love about the treasures in this boutique.
The hand and arm massage itself is carried out with your choice of Hand Cream fragrances (Jo went for Rose Garden), and a spritz of your chosen fragrance (Spring 91) is part of the experience. (A 30ml tin of the Hand Cream is a very reasonable £9, by the way.) The sales consultants are really good at these massages, and you will feel the stress ebbing away not only from hands and arms but shoulders, mind…
We have already earmarked this shop for return visits – we think it would be an especially lovely place to take a mum, a daughter, a best friend who you want to treat to a fragrance, but don’t know what to buy them. And it may be a little early to start thinking about Christmas, but… just saying!
Lamb’s Conduit Street (Bloomsbury), 31 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1N 3NG
Columbia Road (East London, Flower Market), 142 Columbia Road, London E2 7RG
(There are also stores in Cambridge, Aldeburgh, Southwold and more – find a full list here)
