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Eve Taylor is the founder of the
Institute of Clinical Aromatherapy 
and is regarded by many of her peers 
as the best in the business.

WHEN Eve Taylor started selling beauty products door-to-door just after the end of WWII, she never dreamed she would one day have her name on such a product. Born near Lambeth, south London, she was the first Avon representative in the south-east of England. Eve loved the products but felt she wanted to know more about what she was selling. "As someone who sold products for human use, I felt that I should be knowledgeable, and I wanted to find out more."

As a young woman in the post war years with a husband in the Navy, you might have forgiven her for simply keeping house for a few years – but Eve had other ideas. With three small children and another on the way, Eve would travel across the city on the tube to drop the children with her mother, before getting back on the train and continuing on to cosmetic school. She said: "My first salon was in south east London, and it was opened by Johnny Briggs (who later played Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street) and Tony Selby (Clive Mitchell in Eastenders)."

Another salon followed in Sevenoaks in 1972, and the innovative aromatherapy products just kept coming, all formulated from scratch by Eve. When formulating you have to decide what you want to achieve, whether you want something to relax or stimulate, for example. "You then have to let it infuse naturally for a few days, then you can go back to it and see if it is still doing what you need it to. "This gives you a concentrate, which you can then use in products." Alongside her formulations and with a fifth and final son to care for, Eve went to study under the direction of a Chinese doctor. She said: "I didn't want to learn to stick needles in people, but I did want to understand more about the philosophy."

Although born in London, Eve moved to Peterborough 17 years ago, first with a unit in Werrington before moving to her current premises in Bretton. With three of her five sons involved in the business, from packaging through to marketing, it really is a family affair for Eve.

Founder of the Institute of Clinical Aromatherapy and highly respected worldwide, the Eve Taylor range of pure essential oils are the number one selling professional aromatherapy brand in the world. Exporting all over the world, from Japan and Australia through to central Europe and even Lebanon, Eve Taylor products can be found almost everywhere you go, both as a brand name and behind the formulations of others. Although the products stand alone as simply excellent, it is the way that customers are advised that takes the range into a league of its own.

Such a remarkable success did not go unoticed, as Eve received an OBE in 2007 for her contribution to 'Aromatherapy and to the Beauty Industry'. At the time she said: "It's an honour to be made an OBE. I'm thrilled and all my staff are very excited. "Our target has always been education and improving the well-being of human beings. I think of it as well-being via the skin."

"At the moment I still travel the world. I love what I do and I enjoy education and meeting new people. With a new range for men hot off the production line and an Eve Taylor salon planned for Peterborough, the sky really is the limit.