Meet Ambre

Ever wonder how Ambre Blends was started? Not sure how to pronounce Ambre Blends? We’re giving you an inside look at Ambre Blends from the very beginning, straight from Ambre.

In 1997, I was living in Colorado and studying to be a massage therapist. I started studying aromatherapy and working for an herbalist, and we were making products for pregnancy and lactation. During that process, I knew I was sensitive to chemicals and synthetic fragrances/products. Working for a company where the products were so pure inspired me to grow a garden filled with lavender, lemon balm and chamomile, and to play with different ingredients making products out of them for my own personal use.

At the time, I was not making what is now Ambre products, I was making totally different products like detox bath crystals, spritzers, soaps and candles. My three signature products were tranquility, calm and clear and energizing citrus. I called them Ambre Blends Handcrafted Herbal Body Care because they were blends made by me, Ambre.

From there, I started playing with oils and using them as natural fragrances. That’s how I created Ambre Essence. The reason why I called it Ambre Essence was because the main ingredient is an amber oil. There’s thousands of amber oils out there, but I would get this oil and add ingredients to it to give it a clean, euphoric smell mixed with a slightly musky scent.

I named it Ambre Essence since it was my own personal fragrance and I wanted it to be my essence. My name is spelled A-M-B-R-E, which is how the name came about. We have people ask us all the time, is it pronounced “om-brey” or “amber?” My dad named me Ambre because he wanted it to be different, so he used the French spelling (even though I’m not French), but it is pronounced like Amber.

As that oil started to take off, I was making it into the soaps, detox baths, candles, spritzers and lotions. It just took off from there! I started to take the Ambre oil as well as Invoke and expand the line, which is how Ambre Blends grew over the years. Eventually, I let go of the tranquility, calm and clear and energizing citrus and focused on the Ambre Essence. I was then getting into products that the common ingredient in the line was the Ambre Essence, which is why I kept Ambre Blends as the business name.

I moved home to Indianapolis in 2001. When I met Steph through a mutual friend a couple years later, I gave her an Ambre roll-on as a gift and she loved it. She saw the reaction she was getting when wearing it. She believed in the product and wanted to help spread the word, which is when she started to work with me in 2007. At about the same time, Rebecca came on board and was making products while Steph was handling sales and pushing the product.

We were working out of my Broad Ripple bungalow, and I’d be upstairs massaging while hearing Steph on the phone and Rebecca making product. In between clients, I would run downstairs and help them out. I had to keep massaging for a few years to put that money into Ambre Blends.

In 2009, we knew we needed more space so we moved our studio out of my house and into a space in Broad Ripple. Shortly after, Adam came on board and we had two other employees working there as well. As soon as we moved into that space, the extra square footage allowed us to really build our business. We were there for three years until we moved the studio into my new northside home. I had a newborn, so that allowed me to work while still spending time with him for his first year.

After one year of that, we knew we had to move, which is when we moved into our current space. Here we are, not even three years into our new building and we are adding 5,000 square feet onto our space to accommodate more business and more product. We are gearing up to launch a new scent in 2017! Thank you to all of our customers and retailers for helping us make this happen!