Recipe

Two Ingredient Face Mask from Your Kitchen

by

This was not planned and turned into something else entirely once I started doing it because I cannot estimate measurements for the life of me, but I figured I’d share it anyway because we all have extra time at home these days so this might be an enjoyable project for you too, as it was for me. (Even though I messed it up!) But herbal crafting is incredibly forgiving, which is one thing I love about it. Just to be clear, turmeric does stain. The yellow disappears from skin within hours if there is any at all left after using, but on clothes, washcloths, porcelain, towels, etc, it can last forever, so do be careful. Again~ on skin and nails it might stain for a few hours, but it goes away quickly. If that bothers you, here are other mask options that are no doubt lurking in your cupboard or fridge. To be honest I had to buy the buttermilk which was about $2.50 at Whole Foods. It’s going to last for many masks and perhaps some pancakes too. 

Let me know what your go-to DIY mask ingredients are! I’d love to hear and it’s a fine time to experiment.

I hope you are all safe and sane, healthy and happy.

Does Anyone Know What Day it is?

by

I just got back from a walk and on it I tried to remember if schools had been closed for two weeks as of tomorrow, or three…? These days are running together in a blur and I have the building anxiety that I need to move on from the initial stages of getting used to this new ‘normal’ and start being productive and constructive again, but honestly the only thing I’ve been doing more of is sleeping. I have been taking walks, making food, and trying to do some dance cardio in my bedroom but it’s just not the same on carpet and with no other goofballs cardio-dancing next to me. Even cooking has been difficult since we moved into a new house at the same time as all this pandemic craziness really got going and by ‘new’ I mean new to us, it is a middle-aged house by human years’ standards and I don’t think anything has been updated since its rebellious teen years at best. The refrigerator freezes our produce no matter how warm I make the temperature, and it has also frozen some sauces and salads. The stove top is one of those flat ones and I don’t even know what the material is but I don’t care for it one bit. It just makes cooking more difficult for now, although I’m sure I’ll eventually figure out the issue with the fridge, or have yet another service guy out here to do it, but for now we are just dealing with it. I did see a pho recipe recently that got me excited though, not only because it’s a noodle soup and I love noodle soups, but also because it’s just for two which means I won’t have leftovers that might potentially freeze in our refrigerator. Not that leftovers are often a problem with two teen boys in the house, but best not to take any chances. In case you are new to pho, which is pronounced, I’m told, close to fu? with a lift at the end like a question, it is a Vietnamese soup that is packed with nutrients. It is usually made with pork or beef, but you can find chicken or vegetarian versions such as the one I intend to make later this week when I get back out to a grocery. What makes pho unique is the use of spices such as star anise, cinnamon, and ginger which are excellent for the digestive system and for supporting the immune system. Keep in mind that star anise is the primary source for the main ingredient in Tamiflu. Herbs are powerful indeed.

Here’s a link to the vegan pho on Frontier Coop’s website. Let me know if you make it or have your own go-to pho recipe. By the way, restaurants are very clever out here with naming their Vietnamese restaurants which I never understood until someone explained the pronunciation to me. My favorites are: What the Pho? and Pho King.

Stay safe and stay sane.

 

Valentine’s Day DIY Gifts

by

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m reposting my blog post from last year. I hope you all have a lot of love this Friday, self-love, family-love, friend-love, and romantic love too. XOXO

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission or other incentive for purchases made through these links.

Homemade gifts made with heart and intention are perfect for the holiday that celebrates love. Valentine’s Day is a warm reminder during this cold season that love should be celebrated fully and joyfully in all its forms, from friendship to family, and of course that special someone. Everyone can appreciate an herbal gift that conveys not only love, but also health, beauty, and green thoughtfulness.

WP_20180307_10_29_27_Pro

What plant could be more associated with Valentine’s than the rose? A flower of beauty that signifies love, it also has healing attributes that qualify it as an herb. Drinking rose petal tea is relaxing, due to its mildly sedative properties, and it also has some historical use as a headache reliever. The petals are used extensively for skin health, anti-aging, and beautification, while rose hips are full of bio-available vitamin C. Rose oil makes a lovely base for a massage or bath oil, and bath salts with rose petals would make a relaxing gift that encourages self-care and rejuvenation. Baths full of rose petals are picturesque and you will see plenty on Instagram, but if you don’t want to clean up wet petals after a restful bath, I suggest packing them in a muslin bag. You get all the benefits without worrying about the messy clean-up afterwards. The proportion of salts to rose petals is completely up to you, but if you want to add essential oils to the mixture, keep the essential oils down to about 10-20 drops per cup of mixture. Example: 1 cup Dead Sea Salt, 1/2 cup rose petals, 15 drops of lavender oil, and 10 drops of rose absolute in jojoba. Mix all together in a bowl before adding to a jar with a tight cap for gifting. Don’t forget to add the reusable muslin bag inside the jar, or tie it on the outside.

Making a rose petal mask is another lovely way to gift roses and encourage self-care. Make a powder from dried rose petals either by using a mortar and pestle or a food processor. I actually use an old coffee grinder for making herbal powders and it works great. Mix the rose powder with either French Green Clay or another clay that suits the skin of your recipient (or yourself if this is a self-love gift) in the proportion of 1/3 rose powder, 2/3 clay. Example: 1 tablespoon rose powder mixed with 2 tablespoons clay. Store in a dark glass jar and mix one tablespoon at a time with either a water, a hydrosol, honey, or yogurt to apply. Actually, adding the powder mix to any of these one ingredient masks will make a multifaceted concoction, and you can choose if you want more of a firming, brightening, or evening out action. Leave on for 10-15 minutes, then rinse off with warm water. Skin will be moisturized, clean, firmer, and more even-toned.

Making a massage oil out of rose oil is as easy as adding the desired essential oils to the homemade rose oil. Aim for no more than 50-60 drops of essential oil per cup of base oil. You can also add in more base oils to the rose oil, so the mixture is more suited to the recipient’s particular skin. The heavier the oil, the more appropriate for dryer skin, and the lighter oils are more beneficial for oilier skin. Massage oil should not soak into the skin but rather allow for easy gliding, so sticking with sweet almond oil, avocado oil, apricot kernel oil, and grapeseed oil are good choices, especially when mixed together. Here’s a sample recipe including the aphrodisiac scents of rose, vanilla, and jasmine:

Massage Oil

F8F80BD2-C5DE-4ED5-9AA9-B901B2DDFC5B[1]
Making Massage Oil
1/2 cup Rose Oil (olive oil infusion)

1/2 cup Vanilla Oil (sweet almond infusion)

1/4 cup Avocado Oil

1/4 cup Apricot Kernel Oil

30 drops Sandalwood

40 drops Vanilla absolute

5 drops Jasmine absolute in jojoba

I hope your Valentine’s day is full of love for your family, your friends, your partner, and yourself. We are experiencing the most snow in most of our lifetimes here in the Seattle region right now so I’ll be herbal crafting away happily this week. I also managed to make my first sourdough loaf this past weekend and it turned out splendidly! There’s a pic on my Instagram if you are interested.

Thank you for reading and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Body Spray for Guys

by

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned here that my teenage sons were not big fans of essential oils. Then this past weekend my oldest asked me where we could buy some body spray for when he stinks after working out but can’t shower. I told him I would make him one and if he didn’t like it, then we could buy one. I really didn’t know if I could put together something he would like because his friend uses Axe body spray so I knew that’s what he was imagining. I honestly don’t know what that smells like so didn’t try to replicate it, which is probably a good thing since no doubt I would not be able to do so with natural ingredients, but happily, he does indeed like what I made him. I like it too so I thought it worth sharing. My other son wants me to make one for him now, but I’m waiting for an order to come in with his favorite essential oil, fennel. And by favorite I really mean the only essential oil he’s ever liked, so I think the wait is worth it. Here’s what’s in my 15 year old son’s body spray and I apologize for the inexactness. I didn’t realize I’d be sharing it and just threw it together in a bit of a hurry. Luckily I made myself write it down though so I can remake it:

2 oz dark glass bottle

about 1/2 filled with bay rum which I made a while ago

about 1/4 filled rose/vanilla extract which I also made

A little bit of distilled water so that the liquid almost reaches the top curb of the bottle

25 drops Sandalwood essential oil

10 drops Cedar essential oil

10 drops Bergamot essential oil

5 drops Frankincense essential oil

I capped it up with a spray top and let him know he needs to shake it every time he uses it. It really is a nice scent that a teen guy can wear, and really I’d say any guy who wants a subtle but masculine scent. I’m thrilled he’s actually using it and that he’ll be getting the emotional/mental benefits of essential oils without even realizing it.

Stay well everyone in this flu and virus season. And if you find yourself feeling worried about getting sick, remember that there are plenty of herbal immune boosters out there so instead of worrying, you can be proactive with keeping yourself healthy.

 

 

 

Spray Perfume DIY

by

When making your own natural perfumes, you have plenty of options to consider. What scent? What base? What container? Most perfumes will either have a base of oil or alcohol, unless you are making a solid perfume which also requires oil but also beeswax, or carnauba wax for a vegan option. If you want a spray perfume, that makes it pretty easy to decide on your base because only alcohol will work with a spray top. There are other ingredients you can mix in with the alcohol, but the fundamental base should be an alcohol that is 80-100 proof, with vodka being the most common choice because it has the least amount of scent. You can find perfumers alcohol if you look around, but I like to follow the rule of ‘if you wouldn’t put it in your body, don’t put it on your body’ when making my own products.

I always have a perfume body oil that I use first thing in the morning and right before bed at night. I put it all over my torso and arms, sometimes legs too, and then it has to soak in before I put clothes on so that makes it confined to the above mentioned applications. Spray bottle perfume is something I like to keep on hand for applying before I leave the house or when I just need a mood lift from the scent, because no matter what is in there, it always lifts my mood. I even spray the inside of my coats because they need a little refreshing after so much use in the winter, especially since I tend to wear my coats inside quite often. I’ve actually tried to break that habit by putting a warm sweater or hoodie or something always accessible in the kitchen near the coat closet to make myself change out of coat. My aversion to being cold is a mighty one. Here’s the current situation here by the way:

snowmorning

Even my 15 year old son asked if I had any sprays he could use to freshen up before leaving the house last week and since I’d just used the last of my perfume I handed him a bug repellent spray that we had leftover from the summertime, and he thought that just fine. After spraying it he said that it smelled really good so I hope I wrote that recipe down in my notebook!

For the spray perfume I’m making today, I’m using homemade rose-vanilla extract and vodka with some of my favorite essential oils for winter. It’s a two ounce bottle, which means 12 teaspoons, and the general rule is 5 to 20 drops of essential oils per teaspoon. That means I’ll want between 60 (12X5) and 240 (12X20) drops of essential oil in my two ounces of alcohol base. (I made the extract with vodka, rose petals, and vanilla beans, so it is indeed an alcohol base, just an enhanced one.) I’m using about an ounce each of the two bases.

I decided to make this focused a bit more on mental and emotional well-being while my normal perfumes are usually all about the scent. January through March is not my favorite time of year so I thought some uplifting essential oils were in order. Here’s what I made:

Januaryperfume1

2 oz dark glass spray bottle

A little less than 1 oz vanilla-rose extract

A little less than 1 oz vodka

50 drops sandalwood

40 drops ylang ylang

10 drops clary sage

20 drops bergamot

10 drops frankincense

5 drops rosemary

This turned out to be a really refreshing scent. I might add more rosemary once the blend settles, but for now I like how it smells. I won’t know for a few days if it needs any changing as it takes time for everything to mix and mingle and meld together.

Thank you for reading and let me know if you have a favorite essential oil blend for the wintertime!

 

DIY Holiday Gifts

by

Since there is so much gifting this time of year, I wanted to share two more recipes from Aura Cacia that seem like nice, simple luxuries to share this time of year. I’m working on a writing project so my posts here might be more infrequent than usual, but I’ll still be checking in and you will be the firsts to know more about what I’m up to when the time is right. For now, here are two bath and body recipes to get you through the holiday season, either through gifting or using yourself. The first is a peppermint foot soak for those that are on their feet all day, athletes, dancers, or anyone that gets tired, achy feet and legs. Peppermint is the go-to herb and essential oil for tired feet and legs and this soak is guaranteed to make your tootsies tingle in the best possible way.

Peppermint Foot Soak (recipe from Aura Cacia)

Ingredients:

4 Tbs sea salt

4 Tbs baking soda

16 drops peppermint essential oil

16 drops tea tree essential oil

16 drops tangerine (or Sweet Orange) essential oil

4 oz. wide mouth amber glass jar

Directions:

  1. Measure sea salt, baking soda and essential oils into a small bowl and mix until blended. Sotre in an airtight container.
  2.  To use, measure 1 to 2 Tbs into a basin, fill with hot wather and soak feet until water cools. Rince and towel dry.

The second recipe is for a fizzy bath powder which is easier to make than it sounds. The citric acid granules combined with the baking soda is what creates the fizziness. These can be fun for tweens and teens to make their friends, although anyone can enjoy this scent. If mixing a citrus aroma with lavender sounds strange to you as it did me at first, try it! You will be surprised at how well they blend together and if you are looking to shed a few pounds, lavender and grapefruit or lavender and sweet orange are actually great combinations because they relax while also being uplifting and energizing. And we all know that anxiety and stress = cortisol = weight gain so relaxing is just as key as the uplifting/energizing part.

Grapefruit and Lavender Fizzy Bath Powder (Aura Cacia’s recipe)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup baking soda

2 Tbs sea salt

2 Tbs citric acid granules (you can find these at well-stocked natural foods stores like Whole Foods, usually in the bulk bins section, or craft stores, or online)

24 drops grapefruit essential oil

24 drops lavender essential oil

4 oz. wide mouth amber glass jar

Directions:

  1. Measure baking soda, salt, citric acid and essential oils into jar, replace lid and shake until well mixed.
  2.  To use, add up to 1.4 cup to bath water.

As always, be sure to label everything and write down what you did because if you are like me you will surely deviate from the recipes a bit and you will want a record of what you did and if you liked it. I’ve been thinking recently about how families pass on their food recipes and how if you are a crafter you should really pass down your craft recipes as well. With herbs and essential oils, these materials have been around for all our ancestors before us, and will be around (hopefully) for generations after us and how amazing would it be for your great great grandkids to be able to make the same scented body oils or bath salts that you did…? So if for no other reason, make sure you write down those recipes because your descendents need heirloom, family history, herbal knowledge. Pass it down and pass it on.

XOXOXO

 

 

Sourcing Your Essential Oils

by

People often assume I am involved in a multi-level-marketing (MLM) company when I talk about using essential oils, but I have never been part of one. I get most of my essential oils from Aura Cacia which can be found at Whole Foods and other natural foods/products stores, and online or brick and mortar, or directly from their site.  They are part of Frontier Co-op whose sustainable practices are worthy of supporting. The essential oils are high quality and despite a common misconception, they are just as pure if not more so (because of sustainable practices) than MLM versions even though they do not advocate ingesting the essential oils as MLM companies often do. For one thing, ingesting essential oils can be harmful and should only be done under the guidance of a qualified naturopath or aromatherapist. Essential oils can dry out mucous membranes when taken internally and can cause other issues, some quite severe depending on the essential oil and the health/condition of the person. Second of all it is not in any way sustainable to use essential oils internally in a casual manner. Many plants, such as sandalwood, are already endangered due to essential oil production. Making essential oils is the most material-intensive way to use herbs, when there are often more eco-responsible and respectful ways to work with the herbs. Don’t get me wrong, I love essential oils and use them often as the only choice for certain herbal crafts, but I’m always conscious of what I’m doing and using. Companies that advocate dropping a drop or 2 of essential oils into all the glasses of water you drink, the teas and juices, the cakes and cookies and cocktails, etc, are really disconnected from the reality of what essential oils are. (You can make an herbal tea, water, shrub, etc without using the essential oil of the herb.) If you think about the fact that it takes 10,000 rose petals to fill one 5ml bottle, or 60 roses to create one drop of essential oil, you can get an idea of how special and potent essential oils are and how using them casually is not sustainable at all.

I also get essential oils from Mountain Rose Herbs which has all your herbal crafting needs covered, but that is all online, unless you are Eugene, Oregon, and I like knowing I can get high quality essential oils at my local natural foods stores at any time. I do order straight from them as well and they actually sent me some holiday inspired essential oil recipes to share which I intend to make into videos this season, but thought I’d go ahead and post a recipe or two today for Thanksgiving hostess gifts. These are fun projects to do with kids too, but always be careful with kids since essential oils should not go directly on the skin so gloves are recommended. Here’s a holiday tree inspired room mist recipe from Aura Cacia:

4 drops sweet orange essential oil (e.o.)

8 drops balsam fir e.o.

8 drops pine e.o.

1 Tbsp. fractionated coconut oil

2 fl oz distilled water

2 oz glass bottle with a spray top

Mix together the ingredients and shake before spraying for a woody, sweet aroma

And here are Candy Cane Diffusion Salts

1 drop spearmint e.o.

1 drop vanilla in jojoba oil

2 drops peppermint e.o.

2 drops sweet orange e.o.

1/2 cup sea salt

Mix together and add to a festive bath, or set into a bowl and let the scent diffuse into a room.

Thank you for reading and good luck staying sane as the holidays approach.

 

 

 

Easy Homemade Hostess Gift: Vanilla Extract

by

I have another post on making Vanilla extract if you like to read more than watch, but even so this quick video will show you how to pick out the right vanilla beans. You can often find these in bulk bins at natural foods stores such as Whole Foods, or they might be sold in the spice aisle in ones or twos in a glass jar or plastic bag. To be certain you aren’t buying old beans, make sure they are the texture in the video.

The basic recipe is at least 4 Vanilla beans per cup of alcohol. For the alcohol, vodka, rum, brandy, or bourbon will work, but I always use vodka because I use my extracts in perfume making and vodka imparts the least amount of scent. Let it sit at least 6 weeks but really 10-14 weeks will be better, and the longer it extracts the more the vanilla scent/flavor will develop. Be sure to shake the container each day for the first week, then at least every other day after that, and you want the alcohol to completely cover the vanilla pods so if they want to stick up out of the liquid, use a wooden chopstick to push them back down.

As far as making holiday gifts goes, this is about as easy as it gets. Put the finished extract in a pretty glass jar and it doesn’t even need to be finished~ just keep the vanilla beans in there and let the recipient know they can take them out in a month or however much longer they need. For real vanilla lovers, you could give them vanilla oil too for body and/or baths. Vanilla is a luxurious product in any form as the pods are the second most expensive herb (after saffron) and have a long history known as an aphrodisiac, so these herbal crafts also make a superb Valentine’s gifts! Keep that in mind if you start your extract too late to gift for the holidays and don’t want to give unfinished extracts.

May your November be full of gratitude and your holidays be full of peace. Every year I make an effort to not get caught up in the frenetic pace and overwhelm of the holidays and this year is no different. So far I have not made it through an entire holiday season without the stress seeping in, but I’m holding out hope that this year I can stay centered. Be well!

How to Make a Body Butter (Reblog)

by
I was in the mood to make a body butter and share it here, so I decided to look at the recipes I’ve made before and decided that I would just reblog the one I followed most closely, otherwise it’d just be a repeat anyway. I love making body butters because of the way they change from solid, to liquid, to a creamy consistency. It’s like true alchemy at work. They are decadent too, and so perfect for this time of year when heaters start cranking and skin starts cracking. These butters are perfect for the skin that gets driest, such as feet and elbows and hands, but I use these all over my body and my legs seem to especially love the highly moisturizing texture. They make lovely gifts too, just heed the warning below about using a tight-fitting lid such as a screw top if you or your lucky giftee have a prying pet. Below is my blog from February of 2018, and here is another one on making body butter complete with video.

Making a body butter or cream is an especially magical process because the mere act of whipping the concoction creates the luxurious feel of the product and also the opaqueness. It’s really easy to do and there are so many ways to do it that I very rarely repeat the same process twice in the exact same way. That being said, I don’t always get the proportions exactly right for a proper whip to the recipe so do follow the ingredient recommendations closely of whatever recipe you choose at least for the first time or two. Even if the whipping doesn’t make your butter quite creamy, you will still end up with a soft balm that is just as good for moisturizing, and considering all these ingredients are natural, healthy, and non-toxic, you can use them on any part of your body that needs a little lotion-y love. Use whatever essential oils you like, but just know if you are using the recipe below the cocoa butter gives the finished product a decidedly chocolate-y scent, so figure that into your scent profile. For example, orange and chocolate might be good, cedarwood and chocolate though….maybe not.) I used vanilla absolute to round out the chocolate scent and the lavender to make sure it didn’t smell completely like food, plus lavender has so many skin benefits.

25AACD8A-2C24-4EA7-8017-2F6C8FC2F792[1]

Body Butter

1/2 C Cocoa Butter

1/4 C Coconut Oil

1/8 C Shea Butter

1/8 C Rose Oil (Olive Oil based)

20 drops Lavender

10 drops Vanilla Absolute

Put all the ingredients, except for the essential oils, into a measuring cup that can go into a pot of water that will heat up to a simmer. 3756C7C8-FDB6-4FEB-B5E5-051F1F1C9E5A[1]Let the solids completely melt, then take the measuring cup out of the water and let the liquid cool. You can put the measuring cup on ice, or put it in the fridge or freezer with a clean towel on top of it. It takes a while to cool, anywhere between a half hour to an hour depending on how it is cooling (freezer or on ice or just sitting out or whatnot). If you lose track of time and find the measuring cup hours later rock solid, don’t worry, just melt it again. When the liquid feels room temperature to the touch, add the essential oils and start whipping it with an electric mixer or in a blender until it turns creamy and opaque. This could take 5-10 minutes, depending on how cool the liquid is upon starting. Pour the butter into a clean jar and keep it out of heat and light for storage. This is a very emollient body butter, good for hand or foot cream, elbows, or any part of the body that is very dry. It isn’t recommended for the face though because those hard oils and butter can be pore clogging. It smells decadent and it is really fun to make something that starts off mostly solid, melts into a liquid, then whips into a totally new texture.

45F09253-CA73-4ABD-84A3-CAE927C60A5A[1]

Store in a clean glass jar with a tight fitting top, in a cool, dark place. Preferably a cool, dark place up out of nosey doggie territory. I was going to give this body butter to a friend so I had it down on the bottom of my shelf of herbal things where I knew I wouldn’t forget about it, but see that cork there…? My dog took the cork out of the jar (it does smell heavenly, and very much like food despite the lavender, I have to admit) and the jar hardened to a decidedly non-butter state. Definitely not gift-worthy anymore although I’ll still use it. Now it’s back to the stove top to make another batch, this time with a screw-lid jar.

This does harden a bit over a couple of days even with a properly closed container, so don’t be surprised if that happens. It still melts right onto (and into) your skin. We have all heard how skin is our largest organ and whatever we put on it goes into the body, so make sure you are only using the best, purest, products. You are worth it and your body will thank you. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.

 

Herbal Perfume Base DIY Part 2

by

This is a follow up post to the one about making herbal perfume bases. After the tincture sits for about a month, it is ready to be strained and used as a perfume base. It can sit for longer than a month and potentially get a little stronger, but if you are like me and get antsy to get crafting, a month is long enough. I actually strained mine this time slightly before a full month was up, but I could tell from the scent and the color that it was ready. A note about the color~ when you make an herbal tincture it will inevitably take on the color of the herbs which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it may seem strange to put colored perfume on your body. The color does not show up on the body and I’ve never had it stain my clothes either so you don’t need to worry about that. If you do not like the idea of colored perfume, stick to essential oils in straight alcohol, or make an herbal oil instead because oils take on a lot less color. Here’s part two of making an herbal perfume base:

The final perfume I made with the 2 oz. spray bottle is the following:

50 drops ylang ylang

10 drops nutmeg

3 drops palo santo (because I’m out of sandalwood)

5 drops bergamot

This turned out to have a nice, fresh, gender-neutral, autumn day scent. If you watched the video you will know that I was thinking of adding jasmine but I’m just not really feeling jasmine-y this time of year. Nutmeg is a strong scent which is why there are only 10 drops while ylang ylang has 5 times as much, but the scent turned out to have a strong vanilla-nutmeg scent which just feels right for October. It could have really used some sandalwood but I improvised with the palo santo which is another essential oil that is extremely strong so only three drops of that one. The bergamot just gave it a light, happy finish as the only real top note in the mix.

Thank you for reading and please subscribe if you haven ‘t already for more herbal tutorials and wellness articles from the natural foods and products world.