While spending the day in Seattle before dropping my friend at the airport, he mentioned wandering through Pike Place Market before leaving the city. I think we were more excited than he was at the idea once we remembered we hadn't been there in a while. We started off in search of honey sticks but the stalls on the ground level were starting to close up. We walked up and down for a while, and out in the beautiful rain looking over the stalls that were still open but we never did find any. But we tried Pluats for the first time and when Michi (also known as The Roommate) mentioned she needed to stop in at the tea shop I remembered one of my favourite parts of the market: The Apothecary. I just needed to find it.
Their first mistake was letting me lead. They ignorantly trusted me when I started downstairs and around every twist and turn after that. A few more flights down I was sure I was about to wander into Diagon Alley when Michi and Jyoudan jumped ship. He found himself a CD store and she dissappeared into a bead store where I asked the lovely woman behind the counter how to get where I was going. She turned me around and sent me back upstairs.
If you are ever looking for Tenzing Momo Apothecary in Pike Place Market walk straight in and past the throwing fish guys. You can't miss it.
Tenzing Momo is a wonderful store that I had been to before but completely forgot about. It's small and comfortable and the staff has never made me feel out of place. They go about their work, happy to help if you ask. If you make a sharp left after walking in you will find a wall of books on health and alternative lifestyles/religion. Behind the counter is their jars of countless dried herbs and teas and on the right you can find a really amazing selection of inscense, tinctures, essential oils, and related items I still plan on going through. The tinctures and oils at least are the store's brand and very fairly priced. I still have a lot of questions on the products that I didn't have the time to ask, such as how much of the actual product is made there, if they grow their own plants and if anything is organic but for now I am just happy to be buying local. I will definitely take a trip to grill them next time.
I spent a little too much time in the store but I'd spent so much time looking for it I think I earned it. I found a lot of nice things I will be buying in the future, including quite a few books I want to read, but for this trip I was excited to come out with the vanilla essential oil I have been looking for as well as a rain scent and chai spice scent. I also bought some tranquility inscense sticks but those won't be going into my soap, they just help me nap after work.
I was very glad to have found it, though Diagon Alley probably would have been just as helpful. Oh well. Until I find it I still have Tenzing Momo.
In other news, while procrastinating from writing this post I ordered, from Bramble Berry, a raspberry fragrance oil, some little eye droppers so I don't have to cross-contaminate, and merlot mica powder for colouring. (Mica powder works best for clear base) This means I have everything I need to make my wonderful friend her raspberry-vanilla Hello Kitty soaps! My first order! I hope I can make her happy! (Wow, lots of exclamation points.)
More soon with new soap and a couple of homemade face masks I had fun trying out!
♥ Amanda Leigh
