Potential new Shop item

[Proghound]

@Teresa and her other half Gary have been working on these, hand-finished from pine wood, laser-etched with the A2OC logo. They do look rather attractive They are pre-soaked with essential oils and come on elasticated cords, to use as air fresheners. They also come with a little bottle of essential oil for you to top up the fragrance as required. Fragrances available currently are apple and orange, but more may be introduced. Future production could also be left un-soaked for you to have complete control over the intensity of the fragrance.

However, from @timmus' experiences with air-fresheners in many A2 interiors over the years, and from some testing of my own, we can sadly confirm that essential oils in heavy concentration are not good for the soft-touch coating in our A2's. If not wiped off, direct contact with essential oil causes it to become soft and rubbery and more vulnerable to damage, even to blister and peel in a matter of days. In the longer term, exposure to the vapours in the vicinity of essential oils will also cause softening of the coating as above. The greater the concentration, the worse and the quicker the effects - you get the picture.

So we couldn't recommend hanging these from the rear view mirror, out of concern for your dashboard if not for your forward visibility. However with low concentrations of essential oil, they may be OK when hung from the rear passenger grab-handles, well away from the dashboard. In these locations, the only soft-touch items in the vicinity are relatively easy to replace if it comes to it - door handle surrounds, electric rear window switches & surrounds.

In light of the above, to see whether these items would be worth stocking as a product in the Shop, we'd like to gauge demand via the poll at the top of this thread. Please choose the option that most closely matches your opinion, and of course feel free to leave any comments in posts below. Thank you for any and all responses you would like to give

A final piece of relevant information, the likely price in the Shop would be around the £5 mark, plus £1.50 postage which is combined with any additional items ordered. If they don't end up in the Shop, @Teresa and Gary will still have some available to buy at socials for those who would be interested.

 

[audifan]

That does limit their usefulness. Not against the idea but what sort of dimensions are they?

Perhaps they may be suitable to mount inside the pollen filter area. More awkward to fit and not on display but certainly diffuse their aromas from there.

 

[Proghound]

That does limit their usefulness. Not against the idea but what sort of dimensions are they?

Perhaps they may be suitable to mount inside the pollen filter area. More awkward to fit and not on display but certainly diffuse their aromas from there.

Good question, I'm away from mine at the moment. If it's any help, I do know that the logo is exactly the same size as the one on the external sticker that comes in the A2OC window set. I'll measure tomorrow.

You could use any suitable size piece of wood in the pollen filter location - just pick up the essential oil of your choice and add to taste. That would very likely be cheaper as most of the cost is in the time invested in making these.

 

[Proghound]

I'll measure tomorrow.

The size is approximately 116mm x 42mm x 9mm.