Name: Louise Idoux

Business name: Herbarium

Opening times: Monday to Saturday from 9.30am until 5pm. Closed on a Sunday

When did you open your business and why?

I OPENED my business in 2004 and I’ve been a qualified practitioner herbalist for 27 years.

It’s a life-long love of mine – I just love being a herbalist and love making people better.

But in a rural area, to be able to earn a living, you have to expand and sell other things as well like toothpaste, shampoo, etc.

So that’s really why I decided to open the shop and I’m still here today, so it’s gone well.

Why in this location?

I’m LOCAL to the area, but on top of that, Oswestry is a great little town for independent shops.

It’s a really good size. We do have some chains in the town, but there isn’t loads of them, we have lots of nice independent, well-established shops.

Everyone knows each other and because of that, people often recommend each other and even though we have lots of people moving to the area nowadays from further away, it remains a very friendly and nice town.

Tell us about your business

I SPECIALISE in herbal remedies, being a practitioner herbalist. I hold a lot of consultations here in private, but I do a lot of that over the counter as well.

It’s really a case of putting the herbalist back on the high street – rather than being behind closed doors by appointment, you can actually come along and speak to a practitioner here and get the answers that you need.

Very often the questions asked are “can I take this herb with this medication?”, that’s a common question. But as far as the business is concerned, we sell a lot of body products and natural products, herbal remedies for animals and pets, and we have a team of practitioners offering different things such as massage, Shiatsu, Homeopathy, chiropractic and Bowen Therapy.

We also have a nutritionist, so we have quite a wide range of different practitioners.

We sell loose herbs by the ounce in paper bags as well, which we’ve been doing for a while.

What is your proudest moment in business?

I THINK my proudest moments are when people come back to me and tell me they are feeling better, based on the advice that I have given them.

A few weeks back, a lady brought me some flowers to say thank you after I advised her to go back to a GP as opposed to selling her something.

She went to the doctor for a vitamin D test and they were able to help her then.

When people appreciate the advice I give them, it’s really nice.

Any strange requests?

We DO get some odd requests occasionally – every now and again people ask for paracetamol. We have been asked for cakes before too, and some washing powder.