Our Blog

Massage oils are one of the easiest DIY preparations to craft, which is especially helpful when you consider the host of health benefits that a massage has to offer. While commonly associated with relieving tight or sore muscles, its benefits reach much deeper than that. Massage helps improve blood flow and circulation, bringing fresh oxygenated blood to the body while pushing toxins out of our tissues. Massage is also a great way to ease our over-active minds, offering us the opportunity to breathe deeply, let go, and just be.

Essential oils are growing in popularity. With uses ranging from green cleaning to DIY skin and body care, it’s no wonder they are becoming a staple in cabinets and home apothecaries around the world. One of the uses that I have been appreciating lately is the incorporation of these precious oils in hair care. In addition to helping with the maintenance of healthy hair and scalp, they also provide an aromatherapy experience during self-care time. Plus, I take the opportunity to swap synthetic fragrances for pure oils any chance I can get.

Of all of the DIY skin and body care products I love to make, share, and write about, lip care products are easily my favorite. It sounds trivial, and it might be, but I have a lip balm recipe for just about every season, mood, and occasion. It’s something that I use so often, it brings me great joy to create new, unique ways of delivering it. And since lip products are so easy to make in bulk, they are always great gifts to share with family members or friends.

In my early 20’s, I began to experience blemishes, breakouts, and red, splotchy skin. This turned into a difficult and embarrassing time for me and I became increasingly self-conscious. In an effort to take control of the situation, I tried many different soaps known to be “good for acne”, tea tree spot treatments, and other things that I thought were supposed to help. At my wits end, I scheduled an appointment with a local esthetician. During my initial consultation with her, she informed me that my issue was dry skin, and all of the things I had been trying were actually driving me further down the rabbit hole instead of giving my skin the help it was asking for. I learned that dry skin can lead to occasional blemishes just like overly oily skin does! This revelation saved my skin and my sanity.

Bath Bombs can be a soothing addition to the bathing experience, and I’ve always wondered how left out people without tubs must feel. As the empathetic person I am, I started to ponder ways in which everyone could enjoy the wonders of a fizzy, aromatic bathing experience. That’s when I dreamed up the idea of shower bombs. As it turns out, however, there were many others who’d had this dream before I did. In the past year, I’ve seen “shower bombs” begin to make their way on the shelves of my local grocery and natural food stores. Yet, my passion for DIY was too strong to simply buy one. I was on a quest to create the perfect shower bomb!

Laundry time is supposed to elicit feelings of cleanliness. However, a few years ago as I began to take a closer look at the ingredients found in my conventional laundry care products, it made me feel far from clean. It became apparent that the “laundry list” of unpronounceable ingredients could not be good for my skin or even going down my drain, for that matter. One thing was sure, my laundry room was a chemical-laden nightmare, and I was in desperate need of an overhaul!

No matter how fulfilling or joyful our lives are, experiencing sadness and grief is a natural part of our being. When we have the blues, it shows us that we care enough about something to give it our energy. Experiencing this also exercises our ability to navigate through the full range of feelings that we are lucky to possess as humans. As a wise woman once told me, “Not everything is rainbows and unicorns all the time.” At first sound, the statement sounded cynical but the more I pondered it, the more I realized that I was wrong. What it really means is that sometimes it’s okay for things not to be okay. And while the blues can be unpleasant, there are ways to naturally work through them.

Moon milk is one of my favorite beverages for eliciting feelings of peacefulness and serenity. Each sip of this herb-filled heated milk fills my belly with warmth and contentment and acts as the perfect vehicle for me to work in the herbs and spices my body craves. Over the years, I’ve created many moon milk recipes, and have also found some wonderful gems from other genius content creators. One of my favorite moon milk mavens is Stephanie from MyTinyLagunaKitchen. She even has a free ebook with some of her amazing adaptogenic creations that I highly recommend!

There are two times of year that I feel inspired to do a bit of tidying and organizing—at the turn of a new year and in the first days of spring. These different seasons call for different types of cleaning. I love doing a deep green clean in the spring when I can open my windows and hear the birds serenade me as I reinvigorate my space. But winter inspires more organization and the urge to purge the things that are no longer serving their purpose for me. One of the annual new year traditions I have found beneficial for my herbal practice and happy homestead is refreshing my spice rack and home apothecary. I clean out the older materials so that I can open up space for fresh new ingredients that are better able to serve my body and my mind.

Clean hands are the guardians of health. And while washing your hands with warm soapy water is always best, sometimes life doesn’t allow for that luxury. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where right after you touch something, you have this inexplainable urge to wash your hands? Sometimes you can just feel when something is icky. Having found myself with this reaction more in the past few months, it solidified my practice of carrying homemade hand sanitizer everywhere I go.