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
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.
The new year and new decade weren’t quite enough for me, I needed a new name too. This website has bid farewell to its overly wordy title of the past, and is now named “Blossom Herbs”. I resonate with that word ‘blossom’ on many levels right now, and it seemed appropriate for what I try to do here with herbal tutorials, videos, and such. It’ll take a while before I get all the URLs changed and other places BA&A is hanging out, but the new year and decade seemed like a good time to start and if I waited until I was ready to tackle everywhere at once, I’d never do it, so here’s to baby steps all around.
A consumer advocate group asked me to post a link to their research on essential oil companies. I looked it over and it seems to be a good overview, so I agreed to share the link (below). They took notice of Aura Cacia’s sustainability record which is one reason I choose to use their essential oils and other products often. That and they are so accessible since they are at pretty much every natural foods store, and of course of high quality. They also gave a good review to Mountain Rose Herbs whom I also buy from quite a bit, and if you do any kind of herbal crafts I’m positive you do too! I encourage you to take a look at the list and see if your essential oil company of choice is on there and what kind of review they received. Here’s the link: https://www.consumersadvocate.org/essential-oils
I hope your first week of 2020 has been a superb start to the year. Thank you for joining me here whether it’s your first time or you’re a regular~ I am so grateful for the connections. By the way, that picture has a recipe serum to go along with it. You can find it on my instagram page if you are interested.
Peace, magic, and all the best to all of you for the next 51 weeks and beyond.
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.
Measure sea salt, baking soda and essential oils into a small bowl and mix until blended. Sotre in an airtight container.
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:
Measure baking soda, salt, citric acid and essential oils into jar, replace lid and shake until well mixed.
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.
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.
This Saturday I’m giving a DIY class on using French lavender and French green clay to make bath and body treats to celebrate Bastille Day (a day early). I thought I’d share a bit of the history and folklore of lavender here that I’ll be sharing in the class before we start crafting.
Lavender first originated in Arabia, then spread to the Greeks who considered it sacred. Egyptians used it in mummification process and were the first to make it into perfume. The name lavender comes from the Latin word lavare, “to wash” because the Romans used lavender to scent their baths. It was expensive at that time and only used by the wealthiest Romans. Lavender has long been used for cleansing purposes, and it was even used to ward off plague in the middle ages. By that time it was more common and less expensive, so even poor villagers would tie lavender around their wrists in hopes of keeping the plague away.
Lavender’s essential oils are antibacterial and it is used externally as well as the herb being used internally in tea, tinctures, or eating the flower tops on salad. The essential oil is sometimes used internally but only do so on the advice of a trained professional. Taking essential oils internally can be dangerous, even deadly, and they have a drying effect on the internal tissues, plus it is not a sustainable use of the herb. Keep in mind, the essential oils are present in the herbs themselves, (that why they smell the way they do!) whether using fresh or dried herbs, so those e.o. qualities are there without the potency of just the essential oil alone.
There are four categories of lavender with many hybrids and species. Lavandula stoechas is the category sometimes known as French lavender. They all more or less have the same characteristics and can be used interchangeably, but French Lavender has long been prized in perfumery for its strong scent.
Lavender in general has also been traditionally used for its therapeutic benefits and actually is known for beginning the research into the medicinal qualities of essential oils. The story goes that a French chemist and scholar named René-Maurice Gattefossé had an accident in this laboratory which resulted in burns. The story says he plunged his arms which were on fire into a vat of lavender oil “accidentally” although some say after he put out the flames he intentionally put lavender essential oil on the burns. Even though the specifics of the story are unclear, either way, he had such great results and so little scarring that he continued to study the medicinal qualities of essential oils and used that knowledge of lavender on WW1 burn victims. This is said to be the real beginning of the study of essential oils for medicinal use.
Essential oils are 99% of the time, not to be put directly on the skin without a carrier. Lavender essential oil is one exception to this rule as it is tolerated ‘neat’ by most people, and can be therapeutic in cases of burns, bug bites, cuts, and acne.
Lavender essential oil is known to be a relaxing scent that blends well with all other essential oils. It is great for uplifting moods and allaying anxiety. A blend I recommend for anxiety and panic attacks is lavender and neroli, while a good blend to help fight depression is lavender and orange or lavender and grapefruit. All the citrus oils are anti-depressant and lavender adds in a relaxed component. BTW, if you clicked on those links and are surprised by the price of neroli, it’s important to know that neroli is one of those higher-priced precious oils but there is a less expensive option. You can get neroli absolute instead, which is already blended with jojoba oil.
I wanted to show you the end of the process since I showed you the beginning a few weeks back. This is the witch hazel after four weeks of infusion. The witch hazel has clearly been infused with all the beneficial qualities of the rose petals and calendula because the color of the liquid has turned from crystal clear to a deep, warm orange. I prepped some for a facial toner with geranium and carrot seed essential oils, and left the rest without any essential oils in case I needed it for an after sun spray, in which case I’ll use lavender and peppermint essential oils instead.
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Witch hazel is anti-inflammatory, soothing, cleansing, and balancing to skin alone, but infusing it with botanicals makes it a medium for adding more antioxidants, healing, and enhancing properties to your skin. It’s also just fun and so rewarding to see the color change that takes place when infusing it with herbs, so it makes for a particularly good green beauty craft for young teens/tweens and it’s also gentle enough for them to actually use.
Thank you for reading and watching! I also added a couple of other new videos on YouTube on making natural perfumes if you are interested in actual recipes. Watch the alcohol based version first because in the oil based body perfume video I tell you how to (somewhat) alleviate a problem with essential oil perfumes that I bring up in the first one~ the fact that products made with essential oils just don’t stick around as long as chemical fragrances due to their ‘alive’ and volatile natures.
Happy holiday week to all the Canadians and Americans and anyone else out there who has a holiday this first week of July :0).
This is somewhat counter-intuitive, but bugs do not like essential oils. That always struck me as odd since bugs and plants seem like they should be natural friends, but I guess the strength of essential oils is off-putting to them. This works out really well for us because we can lather ourselves up with essential oil laced products and smell divine while playing in nature, without having to endure the nasty smells and questionable ingredients of over the counter bug sprays. Citronella is an essential oil that is already commonly used in mosquito repelling products such as candles, but there are other essential oils that can be just as effective and perhaps more appealing to put directly on your body and/or your clothes.
One way to take a precautionary measure before even getting dressed in the morning is to apply a body oil with essential oils on your arms, legs, and stomach. To make a body oil, you just need a base oil or a mix of base oils such as sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, or jojoba oil, and add whichever essential oils you want to wear. Almost any essential oil or blend of essential oils will deter bugs, but especially good picks are lavender, peppermint, thyme, and lemongrass. You will want there to be 5-7 drops of essential oils per 1 teaspoon of base oil. (There are 6 teaspoons in an ounce, so aim for 30-42 drops of essential oils per ounce.) Make sure to shake the mixture before blending, and allow time for the oil to dry before putting your clothes on for the day to avoid oil stains. This can be reapplied throughout the day, but it is probably easier to make a spray for day time reapplication.
To make a bug spray, add essential oils to distilled water in a spray bottle (preferably dark glass) in the same proportion as above, 5-7 drops of essential oils per teaspoon of distilled water. You can spray this as often as needed on yourself throughout the day and it will help deter bugs and also provide a nice little scent pick-me-up when you do so. Again, any essential oils will be helpful, but the ones mentioned above would be a great place to start. Of course, citronella is always an option too.
She recommends putting a couple of drops of this blend on a cotton ball at night and placing near open windows or around your head or body, especially while traveling. Another technique for traveling is to add a couple of drops to boiling water and placing it by an open window or if you are sitting outside, right on a table next to you. Even very hot water in a mug will dissipate the essential oils, so as long as you travel with an essential oil or two, or a blend like the one she suggests above, you don’t need to worry about a diffuser.
I actually do like to take a little terracotta diffuser with me when I travel. They are quite small and do not require any heat, so it’s a convenient option. These make cute little gifts as well, and are one way to easily use essential oils in your car or in other places where you don’t have the option to light a candle or use an outlet.
If you do happen to get bitten or stung by an insect, lavender can be applied neat to the area. Applying essential oils to the body without a carrier is 99% of the time NOT recommended, but lavender is one of the few that can be applied without a carrier and it actually is quite good for burns, bites, and other skin issues. Do use caution if you have sensitive skin though.
Thanks for reading and Happy May Day. The warming weather means more time outside and more potential encounters with insectss, so please share this article with anyone who might be interested in flower powered bug repellent.
*This website has links to affiliations with amazon which provide a small incentive back to me. This helps to keep the information coming in such a way that is free to the reader. I only talk about products or services I truly love and believe in and hope this information brings every reader/watcher closer to their optimal health and wellness whether or not they buy anything through these links.
Shakespeare probably didn’t know how appropriate this quote would be:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
There is a lot of confusion out there on what rose oil is compared to rose essential oil compared to rose hip oil. It surprises me every time someone says something like, “Oh I would never put undiluted rose hip oil on my face” or “What do you infuse in your essential oils?” or “Do you make essential oils at home?” I get these comments and questions all the time and it throws me, until I realize they are not talking about the thing that they think they are talking about. If those questions sound reasonable to you, rest assured you are not alone. I was talking to an aesthetician this weekend who is a brand rep for a natural beauty company, and even he was confused on what rose hip oil is. He thought it was an essential oil, which it is not. It is a highly potent base oil, closer in properties to olive oil or coconut oil, and can absolutely go directly on the face undiluted. Rose hip oil is full of antioxidants and vitamin C, in fact you will find it in vitamin C supplements, and has been used for its beautifying properties for ages. It is known to improve texture and tone of the skin, lightening dark spots and reducing fine lines and wrinkles, as well as firming and brightening the skin. It can be found as an ingredient in many facial creams and serums, but can also just be used as is, on your face, hair, and body. Rose hips, sometimes spelled rosehips, are the little fruits left over after the rose petals have fallen away. The oil should be cold pressed, as heat can damage the active constituents.
Rose oil and rose essential oil are made with the rose petals themselves. To make rose essential oil, you need a rather large steam distillation system and quite a few roses, around 60,000 rose blossoms in fact to make one ounce of essential oil. This is why rose essential oil is one of the most expensive oils you can buy. (This is also why I get taken aback by the question of making my own at home. Although that is possible with the right equipment and access to a lot of fresh flowers, it is pretty rare. I can only think of a couple of herbalists that have their own distillation equipment, and they are people who live on farms, not the ‘burbs.) Rose essential oil is also known to be great for the skin, but it should be diluted before going on the skin. It makes a great addition to a toner, serum, or moisturizer, and is especially good for mature skin. You cannot “infuse essential oils” with anything, though you can add essential oils to bath and body products, thereby infusing them with the qualities of the essential oils. In other words, essential oils cannot be a menstruum (solvent) for other products, but they can be added to common solvents such as a base oil or alcohol.
Here’s a quick video to show you how to keep your rosehip oil from going rancid, which essential oils can be added to your rosehip oil to take it to full serum status, and how to get the benefits of rose essential oil at a more affordable price:
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Rose oil is easy to make in any kitchen and far less expensive than rose essential oil. I’ve made it here a couple of times, once using the Folk Method and once using the Quick Method. This is a great way to use rose petals from your own garden because you can make as small of a batch as you want. Rose oil makes a great base for perfumed body oils, balms, and butters. It is easy and fun to make, and makes lovely gifts as well.
Rose water or hydrosol is another beauty staple for green beauty lovers. These are especially good in homemade toners. Roses have a long history entwined with beauty and love, and there are many ways to take advantage of the their traditional qualities. I hope this clears up any name confusion out there, and maybe entice some of you to look at including roses in some form in your face and body routines. We are in an age of self care and self love reminders, and roses do it all like no other.
Thank you for reading and please share with anyone who might have questions about how to use roses in their beauty regimes.
*This website has links to affiliations with amazon which provide a small incentive back to me. This helps to keep the information coming in such a way that is free to the reader. I only talk about products or services I truly love and believe in and hope this information brings every reader/watcher closer to their optimal health and wellness whether or not they buy anything through these links.
Thyme might not be one of the more popular essential oils, but it is a potent one to have and to use. Just as the herb is highly medicinal with recipes as old as Hippocrates’ using thyme for the respiratory system (see that recipe here if you missed it), the essential oil is an all around anti-germ powerhouse. In Valerie Ann Wormwood’s book, The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, she includes thyme essential oil in her travel kit in order to use it to wipe down the sinks and counters and such of the places where she stays. It is indeed a great one to include in cleaning concoctions because it is antiviral, antibiotic, anti-fungal, and anti-parasitic.
Thyme is great to inhale for its immune boosting and invader fighting properties. It is especially good for difficult viruses and superbugs such as the flu and MRSA. Diffusing the essential in the air is a great way to experience the healing benefits of thyme. In my ceramic diffuser which holds water on top, I add three to six drops of thyme and let the candle burn for no more that half an hour. In my water-less wood and glass diffuser, I add 15-20 drops of essential oils at a time.
Even better than just inhalation though, is to make a body oil with thyme and add that to your feet, or anywhere else on your body, so it soaks directly into your bloodstream.
Making a body oil is incredibly easy and really any vegetable oil will work, so if all you have available is olive oil, that’s completely fine, but jojoba and fractionated coconut oil are particularly good for soaking right into the skin quickly so you aren’t left with oily palms to deal with. You want about five drops of thyme essential oil per teaspoon of base oil. You can reuse a small glass bottle with the mixture and add it to your body three times per day, or add about a teaspoon of the mix to a hot bath. Thyme essential oil can also just be used in a bath straight, up to five drops in the tub, but do not use the essential oil directly on the skin (neat) without a carrier. Thyme can even be used in a shower by flinging a couple of drops onto the back wall of the shower stall, where no direct stream of water hits, and the steam will work with the essential oil quite beneficially.
Thyme essential oil is herb-y smelling and distinct, so it might not be one that a lot of people are drawn to right away when picking out essential oils, but it really is worth having around for it’s immune boosting and germ fighting properties. Perhaps that is why thyme has traditionally been associated with warriors and courage~ it is certainly an avid defender against invaders of all sorts. In fact, it is even a good one to add to blends for keeping away mosquitos and other bugs as well. Life circumstances have thrown me a bit lately and along with the jolt came a rather severe cold, so I’ve been very glad to have thyme around for both the fortitude and the immune boosting. My sister has been an even more important healer and helper at this time so I’ve been well taken care of during this rough patch.
Take care of yourselves, and of each other, and when you need a little extra green help, don’t forget thyme is on your side.
Today I’d like to share a few minutes of my workshop on making your own natural perfumes with essential oils. What I’m sharing below explains why it is important to be conscious of the fragrances we are inundated by, and also how beneficial essential oils are to our physical, mental, and emotional bodies and to the earth as a whole. There are two main reasons I make my own body oils, perfumes, and salves~ to avoid fragrances and to enhance my overall health with essential oils. The sad truth is, there is no way to avoid fragrances completely because they are everywhere, but you can absolutely very easily avoid them in your personal care routine. By not having artificial fragrances in the products you wear on your body all day/every day, you will be taking a huge step in a cleaner, greener, healthier body and environment.
This is what the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has to say about it: –“Fragrance”: Federal law doesn’t require companies to list on product labels any of the chemicals in their fragrance mixture. Research from EWG and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found an average of 14 chemicals in 17 name-brand fragrance products, and none of them was listed on the label. Fragrances can contain hormone disruptors and are among the top five allergens in the world. Our advice? Look for products that disclose their fragrance ingredients. From: https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/top-tips-for-safer-products/
I made the perfume pictured with vanilla extract that I’ve been curing for about four months. Once you know the proportions and the ingredients that can be used, it’s easy to then take it a step further with infusing the oil and/or alcohol with herbs for scent or other healing or aesthetic reasons, such as making rose oil for your base, or concocting a bay rum cologne. It’s extremely easy to get started right away though with simple ingredients you have in your kitchen right now. As long as you have an essential oil or two on hand, you can make yourself a perfume in less than five minutes. Here’s the quick and dirty on why limiting your exposure to artificial fragrances matters:
Happy New Year~ I hope it’s a healthier, happier, greener year for everyone. Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested, and please subscribe for weekly wellness posts.
