Imagine a morning on a warm summer day. The first rays of light hit the bedroom and you are excited what the new day will bring. You just put on some clothes, take your keys, walk out the door to cross the street, walk through that little park with the statue in golden sandals. Just a little uphill walk and you are there: in the middle of the forest. Silence welcomes you, the fresh nordic breeze and the rustling leaves are your companions. Here and there you can hear a bird chirping a lovely melody from afar. While you walk on this little path covered with needles, the sun gently shines through the trees on your face and a squirrel crosses your path, not too shy, wondering where you might go.
You walk to this wooden bench on the little rock where you have a wonderful view over the lake with the island. Once you reach this place you lay down on the bench and slowly the stress of the last weeks starts to fall off your shoulders. A big smile overcomes you because you are happy where you are right now: it’s just you and the Finnish forest and it feels amazing.
For weeks, ok to be honest for months, me and my heart are ready to depart. To Finland. It has been a long year and also this one seems to turn out not very promising to be able to leave soon. But little wonders can also happen at home: In March I was chosen to be an ambassador for the Finnish brand Hetkinen.
Hetkinen is a Turku based company that manufactures natural cosmetics and minimalist interiors. Most of their products look like the Finnish forest and also smell like it.
Hetkinen is a Finnish word, “hetki” means moment. The brand’s name should be interpreted in this way that you should take a moment for yourself, you should stop for a while and calm down - with the help of Hetkinen products. Similar to my holiday memories in the beginning of this post, the products create a feeling of a relaxing forest walk which suits body and soul – just that you are at home or in your office. Hetkinen’s mission is to bring people closer to nature in their busy everyday lives.
To me the forest has always been a place to escape. A place to recover. A place of joy.
It’s great to see that there is a brand that drives inspiration from the Finnish forests too and dedicates their time to mindfully develop natural products by using purest essential oils that both smell and do good.
Their product line is made of 100% natural ingredients – no artificial smells or substances like parabens or polyethylenes are used – and it’s fully vegan.
You can find essentials of pine in many of their products, a very common tree variety in Finland with a sustainable population; they use spruce resin which has been collected from Kuusamo, all kind of berries like rowan berry, crowberry, cranberry or juniper which can be found in the Finnish forest. Everything is made in harmony with nature.
Even the product packaging is worth mentioning: it is beautifully designed and plastic-free.
Most of their products come in wooden jars from Finnish pine heart wood. No chemicals are used in the process as the tree is naturally antibacterial. During a virtual company tour we found out that Kari, who is a carpenter, is creating these beautiful jars. Each jar is unique because no tree is like the other. Once the products are consumed, you can reuse the jars as little storage boxes or recycle them (e.g. compost them or take them to a wood recycling centre).
In the last three months I learned a lot about the forest – now I can distinguish all kind of tree species – about Hetkinen and their product line which is growing every time whenever I take a look at their website.
The candles
Candles are the first things that come to my mind when thinking of creating a beautiful moment for myself.
I really like to use them all around the year, for example while eating dinner to make the moment a little bit more special and hygge.
Hetkinen offers a great selection of veggie candles. You can separate them in two sections: The traditional veggie candles and the happiness candles.
The traditional veggie candles smell for example like spruce resin or smoke sauna. If you don’t have a fireplace, use one of the candles because the wooden wick creates a crackling and relaxing sound. Hetkinen also offers a candle refill set: you get all components to create your own candle except of the jar which we all have plenty at home. It was really easy and fun to do; the active candle making process didn’t take longer than three minutes.
The happiness candles are the fancier candles for design lovers: they come in round or tree shapes, have a cotton wick and a pine root holder as a design element. The round/globe version is available in three different sizes.
The scents
Every day you can find me near the pine forest scent diffuser trying to inhale the great scent when leaving the room. My room already turned into a Finnish forest thanks to this beautifully looking and smelling diffuser. It has a neutral and most important natural scent of pine needles which calms me down and makes me feel relaxed. There are also a few other scent options: “Finnish sisu” which empowers your senses with menthol and black pepper, the spicy “shinrin yoku” which means “forest bathing” and the festive “happy holidays” scent with cinnamon for a cosy atmosphere.
If you want to take the forest everywhere you go, I can recommend checking out the perfume section where you can find two fragrances called “forest riot” and “bark bout”.
The creams (& the lip balms)
On my desk next to me you can find a staple of beautiful boxes of pine heart wood. I immediately think of trees and the forest while looking at them. What I love about the body butter, the resin salve and the hand balm is that these are solid products – they are waterless and very sufficient – you just need a very small amount of the product.
Buy less, but better is another aim of the brand which they want to state with their product line.
All Hetkinen products are manufactured in their own company in Turku. It’s amazing how a small team with less than ten persons can design products from pure and minimal ingredients, bearing in mind the safety of the product for the user and nature.
If you would like to create a Hetkinen moment for yourself, please check out their website:
My top 3 Hetkinen interiors:
1. Pine forest scent diffuser
2. DIY/ refill candle
3. Happiness globe candle
My top 3 Hetkinen natural cosmetics:
1. Spruce resin salve
2. Pine lip balm
3. Pine peppermint salt soap
My top 3 songs:
1. “Time to Escape” by Idiomatic
2. “ASAP” by Milow
3. “Ready to Depart” by Idiomatic