NEWS

Great News For Eucalyptus Fans! Also, hi to Granddad!

I love eucalyptus, always have, since I was little. My grandfather snuck away some Läkerol pastilles (a sweet throat lozenge in Sweden) when Grandma wasn’t looking, put some in my hand, told me they had magical powers and were tremendously good for the chest. I loved them and the pastilles turned into our special secret. A bit forbidden, great tasting and magical. A great childhood memory of Granddad and eucalyptus!

It wasn’t until I moved to Australia in 1994 that I realized eucalyptus isn’t ONE scent, that there are many different fragrances in the Eucalyptus family. When exposed to them all I immediately fell for the Lemon Scented Gum, the Citriodora, and have been using that essential oil to represent eucalyptus since the start of this business for our wheatbags. But it’s time for the more common, scent, the more “medicinal” one, to make an appearance amongst the choice of fragrances. Welcome to EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS essential oil! It has been requested for a while from customers so alas, here we are. It is a very familiar scent for most Australians. But don’t worry, The Lemon Scented Gum can still be chosen in our drop down box on each product page under its own name. If you choose Eucalyptus though, you will now get the standard Globulus and not the lemony one.

Please note we will NOT be bringing Eucalyptus Globulus scented wheatbags to markets and events, only the Lemon Scented Gum ones. We figure there are enough choices as there is and if you are keen you can shop them online.

Ring/text/email/facebook me and I will assist with any queries.

07-08-2020 15:10:10

WE MAKE MASKS!

SHOP YOUR MASKS HERE

This is a super cute, double thickness, cotton mask that you can wear on your face. The elastics loop over your ears keeping the mask in place over your nose and mouth. Adjust the length of the elastic straps as necessary to achieve the best fit and comfort for adults as well as for children. The Face Mask is made from cotton materials and is washable. There is an opening at the long side of the mask to insert a barrier of your choice into. Use perhaps another piece of fabric, a paper towel, tissues etc that can provide protection as required. Simply remove and discard inserted materials daily when used and definitely prior to washing. We recommend a cold wash with similar colours.

Wear a mask. It stops you from touching your face, therefore stopping transmission of the virus, or anything else for that matter, protecting you and others. Wear the mask in public if you have a chronic condition and cough a lot. The mask wearing practice is well developed in parts of Asia where it is simply considered polite to protect others from your own illness if you are not feeling well. Let us introduce that custom and make it a new Australian tradition and the mask a modern Aussie icon. For everyone`s sake.

PS. The cat is not for sale.

06-08-2020 14:55:47

FACE MASK FAQ

There has been and still is much silliness around wearing face masks. Here at The Australian Wheatbag Store we have been at the leading edge of TRUTHFUL and ACCURATE information and facts about masks. We are not citing the sources of information as we want to keep this paragraph easy to read. We are happy to provide the scientific papers for our information upon request.

1.
Q: Do masks work?
A: Masks work. There is a large body of evidence to show that masks, when used by a population, greatly reduce the spread of COVID. The graph below shows just how effective the countries, where everyone wear masks, are at reducing the spread of the virus.

2.
Q: How do the masks work?
A: The image below is one of the best and easiest explanations of how they work.

3.
Q: What about the eyes? If you do not cover the eyes, masks are useless, I hear.
A: While it is true that an eye cover will make it more effective to stop the spread there are a couple of things to note:
1) In the image above you can see that the breath does not even get to your eyes when wearing a mask. Science works in probabilities. The goggles will reduce your chance of infection somewhat. But the mask is the primary means of doing so.
2) Recent data shows that if you just wear eye cover (shield or goggles) but no mask there is no measurable reduction in infection risk.

4.
Q: Are not viruses so tiny that no mask will stop them?
A: It is correct that viruses are tiny. However, the bulk of infection happens from viruses on particulates, either aerosol or other air particles viruses attach to. This makes the virus “larger”. The good masks allow for N95 (Stops 95% of airborne particles) - see point A.1 above. Science works in probabilities. The Australian Wheatbag Store’s face masks allow, to improve the filtering, an insertion of additional filter in the cotton pocket. We ourselves use N95(PM2.5), carbon filters inserts. https://www.theaustralianwheatbagstore.com.au/product-mask.php

5.
Q: What about my sovereign citizen rights?
A: We wear seatbelts, drive under the speed limit, wear gloves when preparing food in a commercial facility etc. We live in a society and we follow rules to ensure our common safety. We must all adhere to the same rules!

6.
Q: Are not masks a world government conspiracy to make us obedient and normalise government intervention?
A: Unsubscribe from that Facebook group. Facebook does no fact-checking and does not remove fake news. As one person said: Facebook is Deception at Scale

7.
Q: Have I not seen people on social media using oxygen meters to show that you get less oxygen with a mask?
A: That’s not correct. Proper research has been done in this area. People were concerned that surgeons performing critical surgeries may not get enough oxygen. The conclusion after testing was that after a few hours of mask wear, the blood oxygenation was actually slightly higher than previously.

8.
Q: I am still not convinced...
A: Wear a mask for yourself and everyone in your community. Be good. Be smart. There are lives at stake!

NOTE: Recently a Victorian health official talked about masks with exhaust vents.
While such a mask is better than no mask, they are far from ideal! The exhaust vents have little to no filtering making the primary purpose of the mask, containment of your breath, far less effective as you basically have a hole in your mask.

That’s a few questions sorted. If you have anything you are not sure of, please feel free to contact us or better yet, check out the latest Corona Cast featuring Dr Norman Swan. They are daily FACTUAL updates on the Covid regarding the science, the spread, vaccines etc and can be found on ABC Radio or anywhere you get your podcasts. Please take care googling information regarding this virus as there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Here is a great source of information on Corona from the Australian ABC