Summer Hack for Repelling Bugs

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Sunny day along Juanita Bay

*This post includes affiliate links to Mountain Rose Herbs. I highly recommend their essential oils, herbs, and crafting materials, but use whatever you have on hand first!

A couple of weeks ago my niece mentioned that her sunscreen, which she loves, attracts bugs, which she does not love. I recommended putting essential oils into the sunscreen container because bugs do not like essential oils. I realized later that it’d be more useful to actually add the essential oils right before you put sunscreen on, and an easy hack for anyone who would like some insect protection along with their sun damage protection. I’ll explain how to do just that in a moment, but also want to remind you how easy it is to make your own bug repelling sprays and body oils for when you are heading outside and maybe do not need sunscreen, such as enjoying summer nights out, or you just want to be able to spray yourself repeatedly throughout the day. I have all the details on making your own bug repellent here.

Instructions:

To make your sunscreen into a bug repelling screen as well, all you need to do is squeeze about a tablespoon of sunscreen into your palm. Add 5 to 10 drops of essential oils into the sunscreen, mix it together, and then lather it on your body. This hack is for your neck down, not your face. Start on the lower end of that 5-10 range, so 5 or less drops of essential oils per tablespoon, to make sure your skin isn’t sensitive and then you can add more drops next time if you wish.

Which Essential Oils?

Almost any essential oil can be used and will be effective, but do not use citrus oils because they can cause hyperpigmentation. Citrus oils are mostly obvious, such as sweet orange, lemon, and lime, with one exception, bergamot. Please avoid these and any other citrus essential oils in your sunscreen. Particularly effective essential oils are citronella (of course!), lemon eucalyptus (not a citrus oil despite the name), thyme, and all the mints but especially peppermint. Be a little cautious with peppermint because it is a cooling essential oil but just as dry ice can burn, so can peppermint at certain levels and everyone’s skin sensitivity level is different. Mixing essential oils is recommended because some bugs are repelled more or less by certain scents, so your end result will be more effective with two, three, or more essential oils.

Let me know if you try this and how it works out for you!

Happy Bug Repelling 🐜🚫 and remember, it’s good for the bugs too because if they aren’t bothering you, you aren’t bothering them! ☮

Bay Laurel Crown D.I.Y.

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Bay Laurel is my all-time favorite herb in terms of the rich stories where this herb takes center stage. Nowadays we think of this herb as a culinary herb, although one that we don’t actually eat but instead use it to flavor beans and broths, so even that makes it a bit of a standout. Bay laurel is the herb at the root of bay rum, which you may have already read about here or in my book because I love to talk about that traditional men’s scent and make it on occasion. Bay laurel leaves have signified triumph, nobility, and scholarly success since the Greek heyday, and the Romans adopted that symbolism just as they adopted so many of the Greek ways. Olympian winners were crowned with laurel wreaths, and scholarly successes were also celebrated with laurel crowns. The word baccalaureate derives from bay laurel, as does the word laureate, as in Nobel laureate, poet laureate, etc. Graduates can be seen donning laurel crowns which is something that I’ve wanted to do for my own sons ever since I first researched bay laurel years ago and found modern photos online of both Olympians and graduates with glorious crowns of bay leaves around their heads. My oldest graduates from high school in a couple of weeks so I decided it’s time to break out the garden wire that I have had for years for just this occasion. If you would like to make your own, here’s what you’ll need:

Floral wire

Floral tape ideally but fishing wire, floss, or any kind of strong thread will work

Fresh Bay Laurel leaves

Scissors

How To:

Take two pieces of garden wire and measure them around the head you want to crown, or your own and make adjustments based on your best guess if the head will be smaller or bigger than yours.

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One last little tradition that I love involving bay leaves is that people used to sleep with one tucked under the pillow to promote good dreams and/or to boost creativity. Give it a try if you need some creative inspiration whether in your waking life or in your dreamscape! Let me know if you try any of the above!

Congrats to any grads out there and their families too! 🎓🎉🎓🎉

Happy Equinox🌞🌚

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In a rare fit of fastidiousness, I looked up the sunrise and sunset times for today, hoping for the satisfaction of seeing a neat 12 hours on display, some proof of order in the midst of so much chaos. Instead I was greeted with this surprise:

Sunrise and sunset times on spring equinox 2022
Wait, what?!

It looks like the sun is already taking over the show here in the Pacific Northwest, and I can’t say I’m too disappointed by the promise of order I was unexpectedly denied. Nature is not known for timeliness, yet the grander efforts and gifts seem to always appear right on time. The earth rotates, we spin in and out of darkness and light, the seeds beneath us somehow know when to peek out, the trees bud, the birds chirp, and the bunnies are born. It’s spring here and we once again have our turn at renewal, warmth, and light. What changes are you making?

Nettles are the first herb I think of when I think of spring herbs. They are known for being highly nutritious, blood building, skin clearing, and overall detoxifying. People use them in salads, pesto, soups, and tea, and they provide a ‘green’ taste that is refreshing and very spring-like. Not surprisingly, nettles are also often used to treat environmental allergies, which certainly do get triggered in the spring, just when nettles are at their peak for using. Nettles have a long history of being used as a textile as well. A fun fact I just read recently on Gaia Herb’s website is that …”during the First and Second World Wars, Nettle fiber was used as a substitute for cotton yarns, when this material was unavailable.” Herbs are amazingly versatile and I just don’t know what we’d do without them. What is your favorite spring herb?

We are so fortunate to have herbs and produce year-round in our modern lives, but there are still good reasons to eat with seasons in mind as much as possible. We evolved eating seasonally, and our bodies know best what to do with the foods that naturally surround us. In a world where rituals and connection with nature are waning, we all still need to eat, so why not add some seasonal thought to our plates? It’s reassuring to know some patterns persist despite the unending tumultuous turns of events which seem to color our days more and more. It is worth reflecting on these seasons that we are jetting through at such a fast pace, and find comfort in the truism, “some things never change”, such as the contrary nature of March:

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
-from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Whether you are experiencing the spring or fall equinox right now, I hope you are enjoying the transition and ready to make the most of the light and dark at your disposal.✨🌿🐰

Healing Food Sensitivities

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Just a quick note to recommend this episode of Sarah Otto’s healthy gut documentary (no affiliation): https://gutimmunesolution.com/episode2-live/. If you have food intolerances, this explains how leaky gut is at the root cause and how to heal your digestive system and reintroduce those foods. I believe it’s only live for the rest of the day (2/23/2022), although these types of documentaries usually follow a format of replaying all the episodes for 24 hours after the last one airs so if you are interested and you miss it, check back in a few days.

Time to Start DIYing for Valentine’s Day

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There are a lot of options for making your own one-of-a-kind, deeply personal Valentine’s gifts, but I’m partial to perfume body oil. It gets my vote for best DIY Valentine gift because it can also be used as a massage oil for some loving partner time, or bath oil for individual (or shared) self-care tub time. Even if your gift recipient is prickly about baths, massages, and perfumes, they can still rub their feet with the oil before putting on socks and this is a highly effective way for the essential oils to get into the body, and whose feet don’t need some extra love? They could also soak their hands in warm water with the oil which again is another way for the whole body to experience the essential oils and afterwards they can rub their hands with more oil for deep moisturizing after pandemic quality washing and sanitizing for a couple of years now.

Making a body/bath/massage oil is incredibly easy with just base oil(s) and one or more essential oils. It can be made even more healing and complex with first creating an herbal oil, then adding essential oils. Making an herbal oil using the quick method only takes a few hours and is guaranteed to make your house smell divine. I have several tutorials on how to do this, here, and here.

Base oils are fairly interchangeable but there are some I’d recommend over others depending on how the final product will be used. If you think it will be used as a pulse-point perfume, then jojoba or fractionated coconut oil are the best choices. If you don’t have either of those, use sweet almond oil or grapeseed oil. For a full body perfume oil, combining two or more of the oils mentioned above is a great idea. Just using one of those oils will work too, but sweet almond oil and grapeseed oil are going to provide more slip so those two make it easier to cover larger areas than merely pulse points. That makes those two oils ideal for massage oil, and any of the base oils I’ve mentioned will work for a bath oil.

For herbal oils great choices would be lavender, rose, or vanilla, or a combination of two or more of those herbs. As noted above, I have several tutorials on making herbal oils here and here.

So, which essential oils to choose? That’s the easiest part in one way, and also the most daunting in another. It’s easy because any essential oil or combination of essential oils is going to most likely reduce feelings of stress and tension, and help boost feelings of wellness and calm confidence. The only time this might backfire is if the person has a bad experience associated with a certain scent and therefore the scent can trigger feelings of unease. For example, lavender is traditionally known to be calming and relaxing, but if someone went to a lavender farm when they were young and got lost in the fields, separated from their family for long scary minutes, then lavender could easily trigger feelings of distress and alarm on some level for that person for the rest of his/her life. This is fairly rare though and we often know what scents our friends and family gravitate towards. If they are big flower people, pick florals, if they love citrus fruits, pick a citrus, if their favorite thing to do is to hike in the woods, pick pine or cedar, etc. The daunting part can be when trying to decide which essential oils blend together nicely, and for that I’d recommend starting small and starting early, which is why I am posting this a couple of weeks before Valentine’s Day. Use a small container to test the essential oil blend before adding it to the oil, so that way you can see how the blend develops over a few days or weeks’ time, and what adjustments need to be made, such as more top note for more of a lighter initial hit or more base note for grounding, or perhaps more middle note to weave it all together better. I have a few recipe suggestions below but follow your intuition, your nose, and what you know about your gift recipient. Think of this as a truly customized, personal, gift that only you would make for only that one special person. That way what you create will be unique to you and your giftee and both of you will think of the other each time that scent is in the air. Which reminds me, don’t forget to write down your recipe so you can recreate it!

If you are looking for an aphrodisiac combination since this is the holiday that celebrates all aspects of love after all, keep in mind the general effect of any essential oil is to support a calm, confident, and relaxed yet alert state, so any essential oil is truly going to be a good place to start. That being said, some essential oils have traditionally been used for aphrodisiac affects, including the spices such as cinnamon*(see caution), cardamom**, and nutmeg**(see note). Vanilla which is not a true essential oil but can be used in the form of an herbal oil or an absolute. Rose, jasmine, and ylang ylang have sensual reputations as well.

*Cinnamon essential oil can be irritating to the skin. Cinnamon leaf is less so than cinnamon bark, but use either essential oil sparingly in blends and test for sensitivity. ** Cardamom and nutmeg are very potent and easily take over blends, so although they aren’t known to cause the same skin irritation that cinnamon and clove e.o. can, use one drop in a blend at the end of blending, mix, and then test to see if you want to add more. If so, only add one drop at a time, mix, then test.

If you prefer to just buy a ready made oil or body mist with aphrodisiac essential oils already considered in the blend, you might like to check out these two items from Mountain Rose Herbs: a body oil and a body mist. They also have an essential oil Love kit that makes picking out ‘love inducing’ scents easy too.

Here are a couple of recipe ideas to get you started. There are many more recipes in my book, All-Natural Perfume Making, with proposed amounts of each ingredient, so check it out if you like playing with herbs and essential oils. I didn’t suggest amounts for the recipes below so you can truly experience blending with your nose and intuition. Feel free to contact me though with your ideas if you want a second set of eyes.

For a traditionally masculine scent:

Cedarwood, vanilla absolute, bay, and lime in a base of lavender, rose, or vanilla herbal oil

Or

Sandalwood, vanilla absolute, bergamot, and nutmeg in a base of lavender, rose, or vanilla herbal oil

For traditionally feminine scents:

Vanilla absolute, ylang ylang, rose absolute, and cardamom in rose herbal oil

Or

Sandalwood, jasmine absolute, ylang ylang, lavender in vanilla herbal oil or rose herbal oil

Here are more Valentine’s Day DIY projects to consider and here is a post with more information on herbs that support reproductive health, including healthy sexuality.

Wishing everyone rich, deep and layered love this upcoming Valentine’s Day and always ❤.

A Balm for Winter🐾

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Here in the Seattle area, 2021 is going out with a bang. This summer we had record breaking heat and in the fall we had record breaking rainfall. Now, this winter is serving us a record breaking cold snap. Maybe 2022 will take it a little easier on the record breaking weather, but in the meantime my dog and I are walking over the snow and ice for two outings a day, and although she’s invigorated by the cold air at first, her paws would start to bother her after walking on the hard ice and having the snow pack into her pads. Someone told me about a balm they put on their dog’s paws before going out in this weather, so I decided to make one for Bailey and see if it helps. Sure enough on the first walk we took where I’d slathered her specially-made-balm on her paws she did great the entire walk! She didn’t stop, lie down, and lick her paws once, and we went for a slightly longer walk than her usual one. The balm is so easy to do too! I didn’t put any essential oils in it because dogs’ noses are just too sensitive for essential oils. If I’d had time to make an herbal oil and turn that into a balm, I would have used lavender buds, rose petals, and/or plantain, but just the oil and beeswax balm worked well. Here’s the (so easy!) recipe:

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Dog Paw Protective Balm

2 oz almond oil (you can use another oil such as grapeseed or olive oil)

1/8-1/4 cup beeswax (the more wax you use, the harder the balm)

Mix the two together in a double boiler set-up. I use a measuring cup in a pot of water. Turn the burner on medium, making sure the water never boils. Mix the combo occasionally with a chopstick until the beeswax is all melted. Pour into a container and let it cool before capping.

That’s it! For a vegan balm, substitute the beeswax with carnauba wax or use a butter instead, such as shea butter or cocoa butter. The final balm will be softer if using the butters and the waxes provide a better protective barrier so use those if you have them.

Look how cute they are! Little gifts for all your friends with pets next year!

Happy New Year Everyone! 🎆May it be a healthy, joyous year of growth and fulfillment for you and all those you love! ✨(Including your furry friends and family, of course🐶🐈🐰).

Free Viewing of Series about Health

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Nothing to do during this strange, timeless week between Christmas and New Year’s? If you are looking for some inspiration on how to create better routines and better health in 2022, you might like watching a few of these episodes. This series, by Nick Polizzi, is one I’ve shared once before when they first released it for free viewing. I’ve only watched a few of the episodes but those were good and I’ll try to watch more during this free viewing period. If you are interested, here’s the link or click the episodes below which all take you to the main page of the series.

Here are the episodes you can choose from (or watch them all!) before the end of December 30th, 2021 (11:59PM PT).

Episode 1 – The Hidden Root Cause Of All Disease

Episode 2 – Reversing Autoimmune Disorders & Healing Your Gut

Episode 3 – Brain Health & Restoring Cognitive Function

Episode 4 – Solving Fatigue & Insomnia

Episode 5 – Healing Heart Disease, Diabetes & Obesity

Episode 6 – Overcoming Physical Pain

Episode 7 – Healing Emotional & Physical Trauma

Episode 8 – Cancer Breakthroughs

Episode 9 – Intimacy, Fertility & Hormone Health

Anti-Anxiety Natural Helpers

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Natural Help for Anxiety through the Holidays and Beyond
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This is the post that has all the same information in it.

5 Ways to Incorporate More Herbs into Your Daily Life

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Herbs host powerful health boosting nutrients. At the very least they all have vitamins, minerals, and fiber that support optimum health. Additionally, each herb has unique affinities for specific areas and/or systems of the body which it supports, and they can contain ingredients that aid digestion, fight viruses, bacteria, and other toxins, boost immunity and even support beauty and healthy aging.  

Herbs can be placed on a continuum from food to medicine, and fall anywhere on it depending on how much is taken, how often, and for how long. For example, let’s look at turmeric. If you drink golden milk once, it’ll probably be a pleasurable food experience with possibly some immediately felt benefits. If you drink it every day, that moves it a bit towards the medicine end of the scale because the opportunity for long-term benefits is there in terms of anti-inflammatory actions, digestive aid, and joint pain. If you have it everyday plus take in turmeric through curries a few times per week, and maybe add in some turmeric supplements, then there is potential for even more pronounced affects which nudges the turmeric even further towards medicine. The more we incorporate herbs into our lives, the more benefits we will notice in our health and wellbeing.

Here are some ways to add these health boosters to your day that can be easily incorporated into what you already do.

  1. Add tinctures, syrups, and/or glycerites to the drinks you already consume. Hot teas, coffee, smoothies, cocktails, juice, all can handle tinctures. For example, if you want to boost immunity you can add elderberry syrup or astragalus tincture to a drink.
  2. Add powdered herbs to your smoothies or other drinks. Smoothies are a great way to incorporate powdered herbs and tinctures both, and you don’t have to choose between them. I always switch my adaptogen mixes every month or two, and add digestive spices to the mixes as well. Powdered tulsi is a great herb to add to tea or coffee. Try 1/2 teaspoon per cup.
  3. Add fresh herbs to your salads and sandwiches. Do you love basil? Use the fresh leaves in your salad or as part of your greens mix on a sandwich. Are you team cilantro? (I know it’s either you love it or hate it and I’m a big fan myself.) Add the fresh leaves to your rice noodle soups or on tacos. When you think of herbs as ‘greens’ you can start to find ways to use them along with your lettuces and spinach.
  4. Add dried or fresh herbs to soups, sauces, stir-fries, etc, including the foods you aren’t making from scratch. Just because you are using canned or frozen food, doesn’t mean you can’t add some thyme and oregano! A bouquet garni is an option for using fresh herbs in soups, or if you are roasting or steaming veggies, add an herb or two along with the salt and pepper.
  5. Drink at least one herbal tea (a tisane) per day. This is easily done with yogi teas or traditional medicinals, or a plethora of other herbal teas companies out there, or you can make your own. I tend to drink a digestive, detox, or relaxation tea in the evenings after dinner. It’s a ritual that settles me down and I usually put a teaspoon of a tincture or glycerite in the cup as well.

When we incorporate herbs into our daily habits, we move closer to holistic health. Ideally, these herbal additions will help prioritize health and taste on a daily level and move us out of thinking in modern medicine terms of ‘take this herb for that problem” which is how many people first approach herbs. (Totally understandable! It’s the paradigm we live in.) Herbs don’t work that way though, or at least that is not how they work best. They are part of a holistic paradigm and it takes time to understand the subtle shift in thinking that is required to make the most of herbs in your life. The effort in exploring that shift is more than worth it though, and quite tasty and pleasurable too!

Herbally Yours,

Kristen🌿

Evening tea and me

Slow Health – a Continuing Conversation

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The other day I was looking through some of my older blog posts and this one from 2018 surprised me with this foreshadowing statement (the italics are new):

Technology, and especially social media, are pushing images and information onto us and into us at an ever-increasing rate, leaving everyone a little on edge, if not completely frantic, and feeling always and forever behind. The laws haven’t kept up so how could our long-evolved emotions, our sense of time and space, our ideas of community, morality, humanity? They haven’t had the time and the future certainly isn’t carving out space for us to collectively take a time out and regroup, unless something major happens which certainly wouldn’t be pretty, so the best thing I can think to do is to try to be mindful of it all and not get swept up and away into the vacuum of a false reality.

The pandemic lockdowns certainly shook up our perspectives quite a bit, and one thing that seems to have amplified is polarization. People have been picking sides, as if there are only two options: follow modern medical protocol, or use only natural methods to keep oneself healthy. Anyone who claims there is only one right way to move through this quickly changing landscapeof the pandemic is clinging to a notion that there is a truth and they know it and it keep them afloat in this storm despite the flood of (mis)information. I understand the need to feel some control in this new situation, but clinging to one notion can become a sinking weight instead of a safety float.

I absolutely believe we can and should do all we can naturally to keep ourselves healthy. I think of this as ‘Slow Health” in the model of Slow Foods, where we each our accountable for the foods we eat, the activities we engage in, our rest and well-being, and the herbs and supplements we incorporate into our lives. This is long-term thinking with an adult mindset, able to distinguish and choose between what we want now, and what want most, with the understanding that we need to keep in touch with our changing needs, aging bodies, and shifting priorities. We are accountable for all our choices in life, so why wouldn’t we be accountable for self-care? Yet in our modern paradigm it is common for that responsibility to have shifted solely to the doctors and other health professionals so fully that it seems we forget we are the ones who have to live with our bodies, minds, and emotions, and we along with everyone in our lives are the ones who are affected by our emotional, mental, and physical health. In the ages before this modern time, people, mainly the women, knew how to support their and their families’ health through the seasons and over the years, but there were also always healers in the communities to offer additional tonics, support and guidance, and perhaps a chant, prayer, or ritual, depending on the time and place in history we are discussing. There have always been times when above and beyond actions are needed, such as when there is a broken bone involved, cancer has taken hold, or a deadly virus has shut down the world. Modern medicine is not perfect but it is a system based on vigorous scientific research and the Hippocratic oath and it’s essential to recognize we are blessed to have this tool when needed. It seems so odd to me to see “natural health experts” claiming modern medicine is evil or junk or untrustworthy when they are using modern technology build on the same scientific principals to shout their messages. It’s science that created computers, science that made social media possible, and science that built all the modern technology that we use all day long without even thinking about it. This all to say that when it comes to optimal health, there is no black and white choice between being ‘all natural’ or being a believer in modern medicine.

The more we integrate the lessons of history with the advances of today, the more we can evolve and create a better world. Personally I hope that means a slower world, where everyone has the chance to connect with themselves, nature, and their communities, and make healthy decisions that support their long term goals and the health of the planet. That certainly is a viewpoint that leans more towards the lifestyles of the past, but modern medicine and modern technology are useful tools that can be used for positive gains. Jumping on every new app or technology won’t foster that kind of thoughtful, pursposeful living, but thinking through what you truly value and want in your life on adaily basis is available to you and will ideally allow for the right mix of technology and non-technology to support you without distracting and overwhelming you. That’s my goal anyway. And I’m totally down with chants, prayers, and rituals being thrown in for good measure too. (Did you know those chants and prayers over herbal concoctions were how time was passed down in oral traditions? They didn’t have watches back then so “stir for 45 seconds” tuned into something like, “stir while saying three Hail Marys”. Pretty clever, eh?) Who’s to say that we can’t have it all?

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season and taking time to experience the twinkling moments to their fullest.