Blending botanical perfumes using essential oils is one of the beautiful ways that we can incorporate pure oils into our daily lives. There’s nothing quite like blending a favorite floral aroma with a little spice or a little citrusy zest and grounding it with a rooty, earthy scent. But there are many ways that perfume blending can go awry! Just because we love the aroma of lavender, and geranium, and vanilla doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll love the three together. To keep aromatic perfume blends balanced, there are a couple of essential oil categories we need to keep in mind. As we say in the Herbal Academy’s Natural Perfumery Course, “Although training one’s nose to distinguish subtle nuances of scent takes years, there is always value in improving one’s scent awareness. One can identify note, fragrance intensity, fragrance category, and eventually, the subtle difference within a fragrance category.”

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how to reduce the presence of plastic in my life. With the recyclability of plastics becoming more and more of a question mark, and a disheartening one at that, the place that I keep arriving at is to just try as hard as I can to remove plastics from the equation altogether. The kitchen was the first place I started with my sustainability makeover. I slowly began to change my shopping habits so that I would wind up with less leftover single-use plastics at the end of the week. It wasn’t easy but it was incredibly liberating; it eased my conscience a bit to know that I was able to take steps toward a greener lifestyle. As my interest in living more sustainably snowballed, I began seeing problems everywhere I looked in my house, particularly with my cleaning products, and especially with my bathroom cleansers.

There has been a lot of talk about self-care lately, and with good reason. With this last year weighing heavily on many of us, there is a renewed focus on the ways in which we can offer ourselves some TLC. One of my favorite ways of having a quiet moment with myself this time of year is to go on long walks and hikes. Nothing brings me a sense of calm more than adventuring outside with my pup. Unfortunately, my feet do not seem to feel that same serenity after a long walk, and recently my attention was brought to one area of my body that I routinely neglect—my feet!

When I was a child, I was thrown from a horse and spent many years thereafter challenged by lower back and radiating leg pain. With time and maturity, as well as changes in my diet and appropriate exercise, I’ve put those pain-days behind me, but I’ve carried forward some of the best solutions that I learned from the experience. One of my favorites of these is the soothing comfort of an old-fashioned herbal sitz bath. Often used to relieve issues related to post-birth discomfort, etc., a sitz bath is also ideal for easing general lower-body soreness and fatigue.

Each year as Mother’s Day approaches, I start to think about what I can offer the women that occupy the mother role in my life. This year my thoughts keep coming back to self-care. Self-care has been such an important topic this year. Gentle care of the self is so paramount in times when life feels overwhelming or stressful, and yet those moments can be the hardest to find the time to do so. For those of us that have good mother figures in our lives, we’ve often seen their daily self-sacrifice. Whether they are our parent, partner, or friend, we witness many times when they make the choice to put the care of others ahead of themselves. Mother’s Day begs us to ask the questions, “How can we best offer our love and support? How can we show our appreciation?” This year my answer is self-care. So, with that in mind I decided that I would try my hand at putting together some personalized self-care inspired gift baskets!

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.

Roughly every 24 hours, we roll out of bed and ready ourselves to take on another round of life. We call this “facing the day,” and with good reason. We experience a huge portion of our lives face-first—the sun, wind, and wet of the weather; the scents, textures, and flavors of our daily meals; the touch of a loved one’s kiss on our cheek; the critical informational exchanges conveyed through our expressions—and each of these encounters leaves its mark of experience behind. That’s A LOT of responsibility for one small part of the body to handle, so it’s important to give your complexion the nutrients it needs to repair and fortify itself for the storms, sensations, and smiles ahead!

In the great words of Hippocrates, "All disease begins in the gut."  The digestive tract is not just for digesting and absorbing nutrients. A well-functioning digestive system will maximally absorb nutrients from our food to provide the energy and the building blocks for maintaining health, healing, and repair. Healthy digestion is not only the processing and assimilation of nutrients, it also involves regular elimination through healthy bowel movements, a balanced immune system, and mucosal barrier function. It is also involved in the proper function of our immune function. In fact, approximately 70% of the immune system resides in the gut!

Being a bona fide condiment collector and aficionado, I was stoked when my colleague Jessicka requested that I investigate and write about “hot honey”, which is making its rounds in the gastronomic blogosphere. I love the combo of both sweet and heat, so this incredibly simple recipe was a surefire winner for me. Simply put, it’s an infusion of chili peppers in honey (and a dash of vinegar), then strained.

Sooner or later, everything old is new again. This saying has been sneaking into our day-to-day a lot over the last couple of years as people are rediscovering “old” methods of being more self-sufficient and resilient in these challenging times. One of our favorite old-new “discoveries” is yaupon tea. When our Mountain Rose Herbs tea team was introduced to yaupon, we—like most Americans—had no idea that there was a naturally caffeinated tea plant native to North America. This fact is astounding when you consider that yaupon tea was the drink of choice for literally thousands of years. This delicious tea is supremely sippable and, thanks to plentiful theophylline and theobromine (as well as a host of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc.), provides a smooth caffeine boost and focus without the jitteriness that can come from coffee.

Before I moved to Eugene in March of 2010, I drove a car every day, everywhere. Living in the suburbs of Boston, it was necessary. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t drive to work, to the grocery store, or even to the gym. When I arrived, I brought my mindset with me and drove everywhere: to work (ten blocks from home), to the grocery store (twelve blocks), and the gym (just over a mile). In my first three months here, I clocked fewer than a hundred miles and made three car payments—clearly not an economical way to get around! I sold my car that June and bought a used bicycle.