If you‘re on the hunt for unique gifts this holiday season, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs encourages you to kākoʻo ʻoihana ʻōʻiwi, support Hawaiian businesses as you do your shopping. This November, OHA is continuing its annual tradition of providing free advertising to native Hawaiian-owned businesses – and we also found a few items we aloha to provide some inspiration.
Gourmet Sea Salt
Salty Wahine
saltywahine.com
(808) 378-4089
Salty Wahine offers a variety of gourmet seasonings, including Hawaiian sea salts with names like Hot Lava, Kiawe Smoke and Black Lava. The company also has a sweet side, offering cane sugar in flavors like lychee, lilikoi and coconut. A single packet of salt or sugar will cost you less $10 and the website offers gift sets for those who can’t choose just one.
Puʻulāʻau Remedies
The Lotus Blossom in You
thelotusblossominyou.com
This Wāiaole-based company features a lāʻau lapaʻau product line with puʻulāʻau remedies for the face, herbal salves and sprays, and ʻohana remedies: Lako – Body Butter; Laʻa – Elevate Oil; Kohe – Sacred Oil; Mani – Pē Powder; Ola – Salve and a Mamalama postpartum care package. HANU, a tincture for throat and lungs is one of the most popular Puʻulāʻau Remedies. Prices start at $13.50
Handcraft Soap Company
Wewiha Soap Company
www.wehiwasoaps.com
Handcrafted in Hawaiʻi, Wehiwa Soap Company creates luxurious soaps that are both beneficial for your skin and relaxing using ingredients like activated charcoal, sweet almond oil, kamani and kukui nut oil, lavender and local honey and beeswax. A variety of soaps, scrubs, skin creams and lotions are available for under $20 apiece on Wewiha’s website. Also available at Noʻeau Designers at Ka Makana Aliʻi Shopping Center, a store featuring a variety of Native Hawaiian-made products.
New Hawaiian Music
“I Ke Kō A Ke Au” by Keauhou
www.keauhouband.com/shop
Keauhou has released “I Ke Kō A Ke Au,” a follow-up to last year’s debut album, which earned the trio nine Nā Hō kū Hanohano awards. The new release features seven originals and “renewed gems” and draws on the talents of Kealiʻi Reichel, Jeff Au Hoy, Halehaku Seabury-Akaka, Frank Kaʻiuokalani Damas and Les Ceballos. You can buy both Keauhou albums on their website for $15.99 each
Promote Restful Sleep
Makana Esthetics Wellness Academy
www.makanaacademy.com
In addition to spa services, Makana Esthetics offers self-care products, such as the Maka Hiamoe Hawaiian salt soak, which blends sweet Hawaiian orange and pure sandalwood essential oils with salt. A tablespoon of the mixture and a warm bath will pave the way for a restful sleep.
Thoughtful Reading
Life of the Land: Articulations of a Native Writer By Dana Naone Hall
ʻAi Pōhaku Press, distributed through www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
Native Hawaiian activist and poet Dana Naone Hall’s new volume from ʻAi Pōhaku Press contains three decades of essays, poetry and other writings, as well as testimony, interviews and public talks to explore the relationship Hawaiians have with the ʻāina, including rights to traditional lands and burial preservation. Order the book through the University of Hawai‘i Press for $26.
Specialty Gifts
Ku‘ono Wai Wai Gift Shop at Waimea Valley
www.waimeavalley.net
The botanical garden’s gift shop features a wide array of products made in Hawaiʻi, including spices from Hanapēpē, Kauaʻi; earrings by Solomone Jewel and Leighton Lam; prints from local artists and photographers Clark Little, Celeste Holmes and Kim Taylor Reece; ʻukulele; Hawaiian blown glass and Indigenous Soap Company products.