Let's be real. Not everyone has the kind of mother that warrants the delivery of FTD’s Best Mom Ever™ bouquet! There’s no greeting card that says, “Mom, the years you didn’t speak to me were the best years of my life.”If only there were a web shop called the "Guilt" Group.

But it’s not just the social mandate on Mother’s Day gift giving that's so stressful. It’s the ham dinner ritual children are forced to attend each year. All through brunch you listen to your Mom tell you how “proud” she is of your doctor sister and how “relieved” she is that you, a Humanities major, “finally turned out o.k.”

Sitting there pushing the restaurant’s non-Vegan food to the edges of the plate your teenage dreams -- of running away to 1980’s New York City to wait tables for 90 hours a week at a Chinese restaurant to pay for a tiny apartment with a tub in the “kitchen” and just enough room for a twin mattress and a giant can of roach spray -- still sound pretty good, actually.

HR Products' mood lifting aromatherapy sprays are great gifts for less-than-perfect Moms - and their children. You're never too old. Each scent is a blend of essential oils chosen to elicit a positive emotional response to apathy, narcissism, passive and aggressive behaviors.

For Mother's Day, 2012, customers who purchase a bottle of Passive™ aromatherapy mood lifting spray will receive a full-sized bottle of Aggressive™ at half price. That's a $19.99 value for just half of $19.99.

Also through May 13, 2012, customers who purchase any anti bad mood spray will receive a 3 ml glass mini-mister bottle. "Ideally, you would not whip out an 8 oz. bottle of The Antidote for Ego™ at your brother's birthday party," says Heidi Rettig, CEO of HR Products. "This mini-mister is the perfect compromise."

And Father's Day is just around the corner.

Creative by nature, I surround myself at work with art that inspires me. Today, I bought four prints from inflated/deflated . Each speaks to  the character of the four anti-bad-mood sprays I manufacture. It matters to me that you've bought them, and you love them, and it matters to me that world class resorts like Four Seasons Resorts want them too. It was a tiny idea, and the idea waited nearly twenty years until I was in the right place, at the right time. Which is right now. So I'm celebrating by supporting someone else's idea. 

Apathy.

Ego. 

Passive.

Aggressive.

I'm going to arrange these in a row on my office wall. Who knows? Maybe someday, I will have so much bad mood art that I'll be able to tour it as a collection. Just like UBS Bank.

Our anti-bad-mood sprays were featured in a hilarious anti-Valentine's slideshow, "(Not So) Bitter Party of One" on DailyCandy.com  

The feature made me so happy - I love DailyCandy.

I wanted to share this recent feature from urbandaddy.com!The Antidote for Ego anti-bad-mood spray in all it's goodness!

TODAY ONLY: Buy three aromatherapy mood sprays (your choice) and get one free*. 

The perfect office gift for your secret Santa; the natural antidote for bad smells in workplace restrooms, at home, or in the car. 

Apathy™; The Antidote for Ego™; Passive and Aggressive™ aromatherapy mood sprays are spray-able essential oils. Each formula is custom blended to combat a specific kind of bad mood. The scent is subtle enough for use in shared spaces. 

*The purchase price will be refunded to your credit card when order is processed. 

James R. Thompson wrote a great article, "When Smells Overtake the Workplace" for TheOfficeProfessional.com    Somewhat timely given yesterday's crisis in downtown D.C. And not just because he mentioned our products. 

Somewhere near 13th and H Streets, NW, an intern microwaved his leftover fish in the office kitchen. This is another common problem with interns in D.C., though not nearly as well-publicized in the media. Each semester, a well-to-do, pampered-from-childhood Ivy Leaguer joins a company. Desperately wanting to save their parents' money (since they are not being paid) decides to bring their Morton's leftovers to eat for lunch. Regular air fresheners won't cover it. The result? What one staffer called, "Mountain Breeze Flounder."  

Apathy™ ; The Antidote for Ego™; Passive™  and Aggressive™  essential oil air fresheners are formulated with citrus oils that clean the air naturally - instead of just trying to cover bad smells with artificial scents or harmful chemicals. 

There are good reasons to switch to our natural air fresheners, beyond their "mood enhancing" qualities. Perhaps the most important reason is that they don't contain phthalates, which have been linked to troubling health conditions. Read more about commercial air fresheners and phthalates in this Time Magazine article. 

 This movie-making technology from Xtranormal.com inspires me! I made a video of passive/aggressive behavior at work. If you have a boss like this one, you might benefit from one of our sprays - Passive or Aggressive - or both.  Enjoy the video!

When I decided to produce and sell Apathy™ there were some difficult decisions to make about the packaging of the products. Aromatherapists usually choose a cobalt or amber glass bottle to protect the essential oils from light and heat. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to source a glass bottle at an affordable price and the weight of a glass bottle made the products expensive to ship. Packaging suppliers tout PET amber plastic bottles, but after watching photographer Chris Jordan's

The video is difficult to watch, I know. Since I first saw Jordan's work, I have limited my bottled soda and water purchases and switched to products that are minimally packaged. 

When it came time to produce the cubicle sprays I knew I had to do the same. Each spray comes in a recyclable and/or reusable lightweight aluminum bottle with a removable coated-paper label. 

It's easy to clean and reuse your bottle! Disassemble the spray top and soak the bottle and the spray top pieces in two tablespoons of baking soda, a crushed vitamin C tablet, and 1/4 c. of white vinegar and a bowl full of hot water overnight. You might also use denture cleaning tablets or those specially made for aluminum water bottles. 

Heidi.