QUESTIONS ABOUT WHEN AN ORDER WILL SHIP? This is discussed in detail in our Shipping section.

On this page we have tried to post and answer some of the most frequently asked questions:

This topic has been covered on our website numerous times. It’s covered on our Home page, in our Shipping Policies, in our Terms & Conditions, on the screen all customers see when they finish placing an order and in the "thanks for your order" email all customers receive. The answer is simple and we will cut and paste it here once more:

Orders are logged in the next business day after the order is placed, we’re closed on Fridays. From the log in date, we’ll ship in 2 to 3 days from that date. For example, an order placed on Thursday will be entered into our system on Monday (if it’s not a holiday) and should ship either Wednesday or Thursday. Once we ship, UPS will email the customer with tracking information.

We offer a UPS time-in-transit map to assist customers in determining how long a shipment will take from us to them .

Some customers claim they’ve not received the UPS notice. UPS religiously emails tracking information the moment we create a UPS label. AOL customers seem to be the largest group of customers who never receive our emails or UPS’s emails, the second group is Yahoo! customers. If the email address provided to us on our order form is not correctly spelled or is not functioning, the customer will not receive any of our notices or the UPS email.

1. What is the quality of your products and how are your essential oils processed?
We have been in business, online, since 1998. We offer essential oils and other raw materials of the highest quality, pure and unadulterated, which we source worldwide. We process many of our own imports ourselves and deal with numerous reputable distillers throughout the world, both large and small.

2. Do you offer unrefined carrier or fixed oil?
No, we don't. Unrefined fixed oils usually have a peculiar odor which many customers find objectionable as the odor may impact their final product. Another reason is that unrefined fixed oils have the risk of containing bacteria. Should an unrefined oil be applied to broken skin, the person runs the risk of introducing bacteria directly into his/her system.

No, we don't have a paper catalogue. Our complete catalogue is online.

4. Do you accept PayPal, money orders, checks or do COD shipments?
We discontinued PayPal due to their deceptive business practices related to non-protection of the merchant. As of 1/26/09 we began accepting money orders drawn on U.S. banks. That same week our eCheck acceptance program became effective for checks drawn on U.S. banks. We don’t process COD orders. You may read more about our policies regarding these payment methods in our Terms & Conditions section.

5. Do you have a store?
We have a small showroom which is not open to the public at this time.

6. Do you offer discounts?
We offer numerous price breaks based on sizes of various products, those are classified as BULK. We post Monthly Specials the first days of the month and those items are also further discounted. Occasionally, throughout the year, we may offer various discounts, many of these are offered only to subscribers of our newsletter. Please subscribe on our Home page. Any other promotions offered to the general public appear in our Special Promotions category. You will find that none of our competitors offer the price breaks or the discount promotions we offer throughout the year.

7. Do you offer terms or wholesale?
We do not offer terms, all orders must be prepaid. We do not "wholesale". Please read paragraph #6.

8. I want to make a lotion and need someone at Camden-Grey to tell me if the following ingredients will work in my recipe and what steps I need to follow.
We're a supplier of raw materials for aromatherapists, herbalists, massage therapists, soapmakers and toiletrymakers. We don't make products and feel we are not qualified to tell customers how to use these raw materials.

For this reason, we have created our own List in Yahoo! Groups which is monitored by a highly experienced toiletrymaker and teacher, Ela Heyn McAdams. To subscribe to our list, please go to our Home page and look for the Yahoo! icon for The HandmadeToiletries List. Click on it and subscribe to Digest. The List library includes recipes, regulatory information, labeling information.....it’s a very valuable list. Once your subscription is accepted, you may post any questions or problems you may have as they relate to toiletries and soaps.

9. I forgot my password and/or login name.
It's always a good idea to save your basket in the event you encounter a problem during checkout or if for any reason the credit card transaction is declined. It’s easy to create an account on our Home page, the link appears on the left top side of the screen, it says "Log in to your account and saved baskets".

To retrieve your password, click on Checkout even if you don’t have anything in your cart, enter your login name in the space provided and then select "email me my password". The system will do so in less than a minute. Please make a note of your login name and password and keep it in an accessible place for future use. If you’ve forgotten your login, sometimes we're extremely busy and may not be able to provide you with your login and/or password for a few hours on business days. Remember that you may also place an order without logging in, you’ll see that option once you click Checkout.

10. How are your essential oils dispensed?
Essential oils are dispensed by weight. Essential oils in sizes from ½ oz. to 4 oz. are dispensed in amber glass bottles without orifice reducers and without glass droppers. If we ever run out of amber glass bottles, we reserve the right to use any other glass bottle available at that time.

Essential oils in sizes from 1/4 oz. or smaller are dispensed in amber glass vials with an orifice reducer. An orifice reducer allows the user to dispense the product one drop at a time. It also prevents full spillage of the bottle should it be accidentally knocked over. We sell glass bottles with orifice reducers or Eurodroppers up to 1 oz. in size should you wish to purchase those separately.

Essential oils in sizes of 8 oz., 16 oz., 32 oz. and 5 lbs. are bottled in amber plastic pharmaceutical grade bottles. We strongly recommend that essential oils not be stored in plastic bottles for long periods of time and it would be best if they are transferred to amber glass soon upon arrival. Amber glass bottles are sold separately. Many essential oils are quite aggressive and the plastic bottles may become deformed. Ten pound sizes and larger are packed in a metal or plastic can with pouring spout.

Our reason for using plastic to ship the larger sizes of essential oils is to prevent breakage while in transit to the destination. While in our warehouse, essential oils are kept in amber glass bottles under air conditioning and are poured into the plastic bottles the same day the order ships. Please note that most of our suppliers ship essential oils to us in aluminum or plastic containers.

11. Why isn't my bottle of Sandalwood essential oil filled as high as other bottles in my order?
Essential oils are dispensed by weight. The weight and density of each essential oil will vary. A very liquid essential oil, such as Orange, will take up more space in the same bottle than a heavier oil such as Sandalwood. Rest assured that your oil weighs what it should weigh.

12. Why isn't my bottle of Almond oil filled to the top?
We dispense all our vegetable/nut oils by weight, not fluid ounces (unless specifically indicated that a particular product is sold in fluid ounces). If the product you ordered is currently dispensed by weight, this information will be posted on our website at the time of your purchase, as well as on the label of the bottle. Our HDPE plastic bottles hold more than the amount specified on the product’s label.

13. How are your fragrance oils dispensed?
Sizes smaller than 8 oz. are bottled in amber glass. Larger sizes are bottled in plastic HDPE bottles to prevent breakage while in transit to the customer. Many fragrance oils are quite aggressive and there will also be various temperature ranges a package will go through while in transit. Fragrance oils are shipped to us by our suppliers in plastic HDPE containers. You may transfer to glass upon receipt if you so desire. If we ever run out of amber glass bottles, we reserve the right to bottle all sizes of fragrance oils in HDPE plastic; feel free to transfer them to glass if you wish.

14. I couldn't find.......... Do you sell this?
Please use the Search feature on our website. If the item for which you're searching does not appear, we don't offer it. You only need to type a portion of the name of the product; for example, if you're looking for lavender type only "laven", if you're looking for patchouli, type only "patc", if you're looking for glass roll-on bottles, type only "roll". The less you type, the more chances you will have of various products turning up. But the word must be properly spelled.

15. Please tell me how much S&H will be for a pail of almond oil to zip code 99999.
Our shopping cart takes care of all S&H quotes. Once an item is entered into the cart a pink box opens up. It’s in that box that you may obtain your quote once you enter your zip code and state. If it’s an international shipment, you’ll need to enter more information.

16. I don't want to place my order on the website.
Telephoned or faxed orders incur a $5 manual entry fee. We're usually busy in the warehouse preparing and packing orders; this means we're not always by the phone. With our current order processing system, all orders must be placed online. Please note that if you’re concerned about placing credit card information online, entering the credit card information online is the only way we can process an order.

17. I don't want to place my credit card information on your website.
Please read paragraph #16 above. Identity and credit card theft are growing concerns for all of us and we can understand someone's concern about providing credit card information online. Credit card theft is all around us: the waiter at the restaurant, the clerk at the store, the cashier at the bookstore or at the hospital. What control does one really have once the credit card is turned over to someone else? We have gone to great lengths and expense to make our site fully secure. With our current order processing system, all orders must be placed online.

18. I received my order two weeks ago and I just noticed the bottle of orange is missing (or the two empty glass bottles I ordered are in pieces, etc.).
Our policy is that all missing or damaged items must be reported to us within 48 hours of your receipt of the order, no exceptions. Unfortunately, since so much time has elapsed since you received the order and we were not notified within the specified period of time of the problem there's nothing we can do about this matter at this time. Please review all our Terms and Shipping Policies before you place your next order.

19. Why do I see an additional $10 charge on my credit card statement?
Based on the information we have on your last order, a credit card charge which we had to enter manually (you added items to the original order) was declined by your credit card company. As stated in our Terms section, we will charge a customer $10 each time a credit card charge is declined.

20. Why do I see two charges on my credit card statement for my last order with you?
As stated in our Terms section, sometimes adjustments need to be made to invoices and these are usually done after an order ships and once final S&H charges have been added. These adjustments may be due to an item being on back order in which case the customer is owed money, they may be due to an undercharge or overcharge by our shopping cart and either a credit or debit is due, they may be due to S&H quoted by our cart which was too low because the shipment was extremely heavy or required more than one box or to other factors.

Adjustments are detailed on the final invoices which are emailed to customers once they're finalized. Whatever charges you see on your invoice and/or your credit card statement will add up to the invoice total. Please contact us if you have questions before disputing a legitimate charge with your cc company.

21. Why are you sending my invoice and charging me an additional charge days after my order shipped?
Sometimes when order volume is extremely high, we may get behind on finalizing invoices. However, even if it takes us a number of days to close out an invoice we have to get it done and we have to get paid. We thank all customers for their understanding.

22. I placed an order on Sunday and I need my order delivered this Wednesday. I'm in Oregon.
We always ask customers to plan their orders and to click on our UPS time-in-transit map to determine days in transit. We're located in South Florida, zip 33122. From us to Oregon it takes UPS 5 business days to deliver a ground shipment. We don't ship essential oils and other hazardous liquids by air. It doesn't look like you will receive your order by Wednesday. Orders are logged in the next business day after they're placed. Since yours was placed on Sunday, it won't be logged in until Monday and should ship on Wednesday. We don’t allow order cancellations, your order will ship via Ground when it’s ready to ship or you can email us with your agreement to pay for Air services if the order doesn’t contain any hazmat items.

23. Why is S&H on my $25 order so high?
Unfortunately, when orders are small a customer will usually pay a premium for S&H. The minimum it will cost to ship the lightest package via UPS residential is about $10.00. To this we must add our minimum handling charge of $5 per box in a shipment. Right there you have a S&H charge of $15.00. Please keep in mind that the heavier and/or larger an order is, the more equitable UPS rates will be. A 10 lb. package, on the other hand, should cost $17.66 in UPS costs + $5 handling charge for a total of approximately $22.66 .

24. If the products I ordered should have weighed 10 lbs., why does the UPS label on my box say the weight is 13 lbs.?
Customers must take into consideration packing materials, including the weights of the bottles and/or pails in which the oils or other products are packed. All boxes weigh, but the sturdy double-wall boxes we use weigh more. We gain nothing by inflating the weight on a UPS label since UPS will charge us for that weight. The weight you see on your UPS label is the true weight of the package, rounded off.

26. Why haven't you credited my Visa for the oil I returned to you last week? I didn't like how it smelled.
You must have missed reading our policies at the time you placed your order. All sales are final and we don't accept any returns. Unauthorized returns are done at the customer's risk and expense and will be discarded upon their arrival at our warehouse. How an oil "smells" to one customer is totally subjective; while it may smell stinky to one customer, it may smell delightful to another. See question #32 for how to properly smell a fragrance or essential oil.

Credit cards are charged immediately upon order placement. Orders are logged into our system on the next business day after they're placed....yours was placed on Friday, we’re not open on Fridays. The order was logged into our system on Monday. We strive to ship most orders within 2-3 business days of the log-in date, perhaps sooner. This order should ship on Wednesday or Thursday.

You may find all information related to local orders and pick up charges by clicking on the section titled South Florida Orders. Sometimes it makes more financial sense to have an order shipped rather than picked up.

Credit/debit cards are charged immediately upon order placement. Should a card not have enough funds to allow a transaction to be approved, there will not be an order created and the transaction will be declined by our credit card processor. You will see on your screen text indicating that the transaction has been declined.

You placed not one, but two orders yesterday, both will ship. Please read once again the order confirmation, they will each show a different order number. We ask customers over and over again NOT to place more than one order if they experience a problem placing the first order. The problem could have been a communications glitch with your credit card company over which we have absolutely no control, the problem could have been that you entered a wrong digit for the card or for the security code and we also have no control over this.

Throughout the Checkout process we’ve inserted text asking customer NOT to place more than one order if they’re unsure if the first order went through. Yet, customers continue to place more than one order when they encounter such problems. We’ve had customers place an order now and another one 30 minutes later and, yet, they’ve claimed they had no idea they placed two orders! We’ve had customers place an order today and another one tomorrow, yet they’ve claimed they had no idea they placed two orders!

Let us explain what customers can expect if they place more than one order: (1) Since we don’t accept order cancellations, all orders will ship. (2) If the 2^nd shipment is refused upon delivery, the customer will be charged return UPS charges to return the package to us, a $10 cancellation fee and 20% restocking charges on orders with products less than $150, 30% restocking charges on orders with products over $150.01. This is a very serious and expensive matter and we wish customers would pay more attention to order placement than they currently do. If you have any suggestions as to how we can improve getting this point across to customers, we’re open to your suggestions.

While it’s common knowledge that many food/candy manufacturers use essential oils in their products (cinnamon, mints, citrus, etc.) those companies have staff at their disposal to do their research and studies. They also have access to lawyers and purchase huge insurance policies to protect their interests. Ingesting certain essential oils may be OK, ingesting certain essential oils could prove fatal. We specialize in selling products to persons who make toiletries and who practice aromatherapy and massage. It’s not our position to recommend essential oils be taken internally. The customer should do local and online research before taking this step. Essential oils are not commonly ingested in the U.S., they are commonly ingested in certain European countries.

As you indicate, this oil is sold by weight. A pound consists of 16 oz., 7 x 16 = 112 ounces. But this product is not sold by fluid ounces. We don’t have the answer you require, we’d have to pour each oil we offer into measuring cups to obtain this type of measurement. If you will be using this oil in a recipe for soap or toiletries, those recipes usually call for weights, not fluid measurements.

We’re glad you’re asking this question. It’s been our experience that many users of essential and fragrance oils do not follow the proper steps to smell or sample an oil. As you indicated, doing this improperly will quickly overwhelm the nose.

We sell perfume testers for this purpose. If you don’t have any, you can make one using a clean, unmarked index card or a piece cut off from a manila non-colored file folder, plain copy paper will not work. Cut the piece so it will fit through the neck of the bottle. Label one end of the strip with the name of the oil, dip the unlabeled end into the oil. Smell it about 2" from your nose, no closer.

Make a written note of what you smell, set the strip aside. Smell it again in 30 minutes, make written notes, set it aside. Smell it again in an hour, make written notes. You will notice from your written notes how the notes have changed throughout this time period. NEVER SMELL DIRECTLY FROM A BOTTLE! All bottles have air head space which distorts the notes of an oil. Smelling directly from a bottle will also quickly overwhelm your nose and you won’t properly smell the oil. CAUTION: Do not place the wet strips directly on wood, fabric or any other area which may be damaged by the aggressiveness of the oil.

We use amber pharmaceutical-grade plastic bottles for our essential oils dispensed in sizes of 8 oz. and larger to prevent glass breakage while in transit to the customer. This is based on years of experience shipping these products. We highly recommend that any essential oil bottled in plastic be promptly transferred to amber glass upon receipt and not left inside any plastic bottle. Amber glass bottles are sold separately should you need to purchase some.

All our salts are food grade except the Dead Sea salts. Our European Spa and Pink salts contain lots of beneficial minerals not commonly found in table salt.

Thanks for your interest. We offer a "wait list" program, all you need to do is look for the hyperlink of Wait List near the out of stock item, click on it and provide your email address. Our system will automatically notify you once this product’s back in stock.

When you placed the order, our system immediately emailed you a copy of the order. Please check thru your spam or delete folders for that confirmation. Due to the fact that we have thousands of customers in our database, we cannot possibly begin searching for and emailing thousands of invoices because the customer needs them for their taxes. A copy should have been made when the order was placed and filed away in a folder for tax time.

We don’t include invoices or packing slips with a shipment. When the order was placed on our site, our system emailed you a copy of the order. Please locate this copy among your emails and check your shipment.

The majority of our vegetable/nut oils are edible, you’d have to do your own research for the oil which interests you to see if it’s recommended to be taken internally. We know products such as jojoba and foraha are not taken internally. The majority of our vegetable/nut oils are expeller or cold pressed, except grapeseed which is solvent extracted. Should we add any other oils which are solvent extracted, this will be explained in the explanation provided for each oil. Click on the product and the description will open up.

We’re sorry, but the offer is now over. Please wait for our next offer. Please subscribe to our newsletter on our Home page, many promotions are offered only to our subscribers.

The discount code blank space is clearly marked during Checkout. If a discount code is not properly entered by the customer, the order will not receive the discount and we cannot apply the discount later on manually. Please understand our position on this and don’t ask us to enter a discount code for you after the fact. This is also not fair to customers who followed instructions.

We don't make products and for this reason we have created a list, The Handmade Toiletries List. Upon joining the list you will be able to obtain valuable information related to making toiletries and soaps and you may also post any questions you may have. The list also offers a library of topics and recipes, as well as labeling regulations information. The information our List provides is priceless.

To join, please visit our Home page, www.camdengrey.com and look for the Yahoo! Groups purple link. Click on the link, you must create a Yahoo! account if you don't already have one. Please subscribe to the digest version. Please also subscribe on our Home page to our newsletter, many of our discount promotions and sales are offered only to our subscribers.

A company such as ours that is not certified by the USDA as an organic vendor CANNOT offer any organic products or label them as such for sale. If you’re currently purchasing organic products from a company which is not certified, you have no guarantee that the products they’re promoting as organic are indeed organic since they’re violating the law. You may find out more information about the USDA NOP program here: http://tinyurl.com/65z34c

We offer various lavender oils, but you misspelled it and that’s probably why our powerful Search feature did not find it. It’s spelled LAVENDER. Please try again.

Standard cultivation plants could be grown with or without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Wildcrafted plants are grown wild without anyone adding synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.

Tracking information is sent via email directly by UPS the moment we create the UPS label for your shipment. AOL and Yahoo! email customers seem to be a group that always has problems receiving our emails and UPS’s emails. Please adjust your settings if you belong to either service so that our emails and UPS’s emails will go through; otherwise, you will not receive our notices. We cannot provide tracking information if a UPS label has not yet been created.

Yes we do. Please use our powerful Search feature. If you enter a correctly spelled word and we offer the product, it will turn up in all its sizes.

There are no essential oils available at this time which are obtained from fruits or certain foods such as chocolate.

It’s an oil created by combining dry plant material with a carrier oil, usually extra virgin olive oil. It can either be placed in a tightly sealed clear glass jar and placed in full sun for a few weeks or it may be kept indoors. It may also be "cooked" for a few days in the oven at extremely low temperatures or in a crock pot at the lowest possible temperature. Once done the plant material is strained and placed in sterile jars or bottles.

We wish we did, but it’s cost prohibitive for a small business such as ours that has 150+ essential oils in inventory. These costs would have to be passed on to our customers. Instead, we purchase directly from long established distillers, both large and small, with whom we’ve established business relationships since we started in 1998. MSDS's are available for the majority of our products, not all products have had an MSDS created by the manufacturer or distiller (i.e., infused oils, herbs, etc.). MSDS's MUST BE requested directly on our order form. If you order them after an order's placed and we must mail them, there will be charges involved and we will only mail them for orders which are less than one month old.

Yes, they are.

(Rev. 1/31/09)