I was searching for those long needles for a while and couldn't find them in sewing or craft stores so i ended up ordering them from India. The needles came with special garland string but i found it wasn't the best. I use corchet string i got from a craft store it specially designed not to get tangled and its smmoth texture allows flowers to slide on easily. one thing i've found is the cotton string can suck the moisture out tof the flowers so they wilt faster, but if you soak the string overnight the flowers keep better especially if you make the garlands the night before.

With the oils some of the ones from india are 100% but its really hard to tell, alot of them have odd wording like 'pure scented oil' to fool people. The only problem with the oils from candle shops is that some of the scents are not the best for deity worship like lavendar, vanilla etc. But i have been able to get some nice sanadalwood, rose and amber(nice for winter).