FAQs regarding products

General Queries

Which of your products are organic?
Organic is is an agricultural designation and the term can only be legally applied to farm grown produce. We get all of our ingredients from the mountains. While wildlands are always more clean the them most organic of organic farms, they can't legally be called organic since they're not farm land. The first ingredient in all of our products are wildcrafted. All the ingredients that aren't wildcrafted, such as the vegetable oils in the soap, are organic. We even use organic hemp string to tie our smudge sticks!

is your packaging recyclable?
Yes! All of our packaging is comprised of 100% post-consumer waste chipboard (which can be recycled). Even the plastic bags in our packaging are vegetable-based and can be tossed in your compost pile.

where do you get your plant material?
All of the plants and trees we use to make our products are sustainably harvested in the mountains and deserts of the West. We always get permission, and primarily harvest on private ranches, forest service and BLM land.

Are you guys chopping down trees and pulling plants out of the ground? Of course not! We prune the plants and trees we work with and they respond to pruning by putting on more growth. So those douglas fir trees in the picture on this page? We're harvesting around the bottoms of 40 foot trees. We might remove something like 5% of the green growth near the bottom of these trees. They keep growing vertically, and they respond to the pruning on their bottom branches by putting on more growth - it's just like pruning a hedge at home, it always comes booming back. Please visit our wildcrafting page learn more about our harvesting techniques.

incense

why doesn't my incense stay lit? Our incense is totally natural and doesn’t contain any of the yucky stuff that other incense manufacturers use to keep their incense burning fast and hot (like charcoal and potassium nitrate). From time to time, you may experience a stick of our incense spontaneously going out because we don’t use those awful ingredients. Simply re-light and enjoy…it’s a small price to pay for incense that is as natural as you can get. 

How do I burn incense? Light the end of the stick and allow it to burn (with a small flame) for a few seconds. Blow out the flame and place the stick (the end with the bamboo) in an appropriate holder.  Dream of campfires and enjoy…

SACHETS

How long does a sachet last? The amount of time a sachet lasts depends on whether or not it is in direct sunlight. In a dark drawer or closet, a sachet can last for years (it will remain pretty strong-smelling for up to a year). If you chose to keep your sachet in a spot where it gets a lot of sun (like in a car), it will remain scented for 3 to 6 months. Our sachets are made with freshly-ground plant material—we don’t add any fake fragrances or perfumes. What makes our sachets smell so good are the natural essential oils (the highly aromatic and concentrated oil that carries the distinctive scent of a plant) that are released when the plant is ground up—and essential oils are very volatile (meaning, they vaporize quickly when met with sunlight and oxygen).

how can i revitalize a sachet that has lost its scent? Our sachets are not meant to last forever— once the essential oils in the ground plant material are gone, they’re gone for good. Please do not place your sachet in a microwave oven or spray it with water in hope of bringing back the scent. Please DO re-use the organic cotton bag once your sachet has done its duty. Try your hand at wildcrafting and make a sachet of your very own…

What do you do with a sachet? Our sachets are meant to smell good—plain and simple. Whether you like to hold a sachet to your nose to bring you back to a place you’ve been before or you like to use a couple to make your sock drawer smell good, there's no right or wrong thing to do with them. Some of us like to keep a few in our car to get rid of that stale “road-tripping” smell. And some of us sleep with a sachet to induce pleasant dreams of wildcrafting.

Will one sachet scent a whole room? No, one sachet will not scent an entire room, but it will scent a drawer quite nicely. During the holiday season, many of our customers are looking for an alternative to a traditional Christmas tree—they want the scent of a tree without the hassle of an actual tree. It would take about a dozen Christmas Fir sachets to scent a small room. If you want to scent your whole room you should try our essential oils and aromatherapy products.

Will your Siskiyou Cedar sachets ward off moths? All plants in the Cypress family (juniper, cedar, cypress etc ...) will discourage moths from setting up camp. The Siskiyou Cedar sachet is the best one for warding off moths. But if the moths have already made themselves at home, forget about it - those are persistant little fellers and you'll need something stornger than our sachets to get rid of them.

Smudge sticks

how do you use a smudge stick? To use a smudge stick, light one end briefly then place the smudge in a heat proof container and allow it to smolder. Smudges are not meant to burn continuously, but rather to be lit, allowed to smolder and then re-lit. To increase the amount of smoke that is released it sometimes helps to gently wave the smudge stick.

why doesn't my smudge stick stay lit? Smudge sticks will not stay lit because they are made of all natural plant material bound together tightly so very little air passes through the leaves. There is nothing added to the plant leaves to promote continuous burning. This is one of the reasons smudges last for such a long time!

soaps

how long does a bar of soap last? The lifespan of a bar of soap depends on the amount of people using the soap and the amount of showers that happen per day in your household. For one person using a bar of soap for one shower a day, the soap should last 4 to 6 weeks.

FAQs regarding our company procedures and policies

When will my order ship? We always ship within 48 hours (2 business days), and can usually do a little better than that.

Why aren’t you open on fridays? We love the 4 day work week! Yes, we believe that every weekend should be a 3-day weekend, we all firmly believe in working sane hours and having time to do fun things outside of work. This is good for you too because it keeps us energized and excited about making lots of fun new products for you!

Can I come to Juniper Ridge to pick up my order? Unfortunately we are unable to permit customers to come to our warehouse to pick-up their orders. We have a very small staff and are therefore unable to coordinate such pick-ups. We are happy to give you information about stores that carry our products in your area if you would prefer not to use our mail-order store.

Can I order something to be brought to the farmers’ market? We are also unable to give your order to our farmers' market sellers to hold for you at the markets. Our sellers have to lug lots of products to the markets each weekend and it's very difficult to coordinate individual orders on top of this. Thank you for understanding.

Can I get a retail discount if I order a large number of one product? Sometimes we do this kind of thing - call us!

FAQs regarding general information about our company

How long have you been in business? Hall Newbegin, owner and president, started this business in the winter of 1998 in his kitchen using his stove, a soup pot and shoebox-soap-mold. His soaps sold like hotcakes the first time he tried selling them at the Berkeley Farmers' Market and that was when Juniper Ridge was born.

Who do you donate your money to? Please take a look at our donations page to learn more about the organizations we give money to.

What stores carry Juniper Ridge products? We are in the process of setting up our store locator. Until then you can call us on our 1-800 to get information about stores in our area.