While music and aroma can be meticulously charted on paper, the quality of music is best experienced by listening and the quality of aroma is best experienced by smelling.

In “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, Robert Pirsig is asked to define quality? Are there ways to measure quality objectively, or is it just what you like? He discovered that his students could reliably agree on which of their peers' writing was high quality, but they could not precisely define why. Quality is real, but difficult, impossible really, to measure or define apart from the actual thing. Quality has both a subjective and objective aspect. It takes practice and ultimately those who care deeply can sense the highest quality.

Choosing to purchase and use essential oils that you can trust is an important decision. Brain Skinness, Imani founder and crafter, personally selects each essential oil for Imani Natural Products. His intimate sense of essential oil quality is borne from working with them on a daily basis since 1993. They are the oils that they use with the family and provide to naturopathic clinics, holistic chiropractors, body workers and others who desire to maintain responsibility for their health care decisions.

Imani oils are individually hand poured, allowing for a continual assessment of quality from batch to batch and year to year. The skill and art of evaluating essential oils, coupled with the intent of
using them personally, creates an exceptional continuity of quality that is our service to you.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand in natural healing is that our immune system is intelligently designed. It works to keep us healthy, in spite of the abuse that our bodies endure from daily stress, lack of good nutrition and toxicity.

It is less vital to specifically test and diagnose an ailment, because the natural approach to healing is to strengthen the immune system by optimizing nutrition, reducing toxicity and managing stress. Paradoxically, this simple solution is far from a "one size fits all" approach since every individual has a unique combination of nutritional, toxicity and stress factors.

Essential oils can be an important facet of natural healing with their well documented history of fighting infection and reducing inflammation in harmony with, rather than fighting against, our immune system.

Essential oils are not a replacement for a pharmaceutical medication. We would not say "take this instead of that"; however, if by supporting your immune system your body becomes stronger, you and your doctor can determine if your need for a particular medication may be reduced.

“A true story since 1993.

My journey with essential oils began after reading Magister Ludi; The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse - A game played with beads that reveals the relationship between a Bach Fugue and a mathematical equation.

A tapestry of connections is all around us!

As a musician, I thought of the intervals of harmony and dissonance in sound. Reasoning that this pattern continued with light and color - it suddenly hit me, "right on the nose" - AROMA!
​
That was my Eureka! moment and I coined the term "Aromatic Omnivision".

AROMATIC OMNIVISON
A harmonic synergy of light, sound and aroma capable of leading the mind through archetypal states of consciousness by tuning brainwave frequencies.

And then it happened...

My imagination was captured by the world of natural plant aromas.

We partnered with the Oshadhi brand in 1993, printed 300 copies of our first mail-order catalog, placed ads and waited for the phone to ring.

And rang it did!

We were retailing bottles of Oshadhi, along with sourcing our own oils and offering them under “The Apothecary” label. In 1997, a friend found a bookmark with the name IMANI on it and felt compelled to give it to me. My eyes lit up and I said, "This is the name for our essential oils!"

From that moment, everything changed.

Imani means faith.
It inspired us to look at our business differently. We limited our focus to 40 essential oils from organic and wildcrafted sources, enabling us to become more familiar with each oil. Since that time, we have carefully expanded our inventory with additional oils, synergies and formulas.

"Inspiration, move me brightly..."

In 2004, we bought a building in downtown Nevis, Minnesota large enough for Imani Natural Products along with our other creative pursuits. It grew to be a Music, Art and Wellness Centre, featuring a soundstage, yoga studio, massage room and an art gallery.

We called it...Terrapin Station.
Sound - Light - Aroma
Hearkening to AROMATIC OMNIVISION, our band played weekly on the Terrapin Soundstage with its colored lights and the ever present aroma of Imani Essential oil!

It was the experience of a lifetime!

In 2021, we sold Terrapin and moved Imani to our property outside of town. The move has been good.

This is a family business and it is our lifestyle. We personally select every essential oil. We hand-pour every bottle.

And when you place an order,
we know you by name!”

• Brian Skinness - Imani Founder and Crafter