The summer grilling season is here! Although there are many of us to who love to grill year-round, there is nothing like cooking outside on a beautiful, warm summer evening surrounded by loved ones. Try out this spicy barbecue sauce recipe we’ve created with all sorts of good-for-you herbs and spices. As always, feel free to customize to suit your tastes!

So you decided to get a tattoo—now what? Back in the day, care for a fresh tattoo was minimal at best. Many tattooists recommended air drying (i.e., using nothing), or they gave their clients a petroleum-based product to rub on the new ink. Thankfully, the Stone Age times of tattooing have passed, and with tattoos now being socially accepted and even embraced in many cultures, people are looking for updated tips and organic aftercare products for body art care. These days, there’s much more knowledge being shared about how to properly look out for your ink—and its canvas!

From charging our phones to switching on the kettle for our morning tea, using energy often seems like an inevitable part of life these days. However, understanding and accepting this fact doesn't mean we can't take responsibility for the energy and fuel we use. Whatever your motivation, be it saving money or reducing your environmental impact, it can feel overwhelming to tackle a big goal like curtailing energy consumption. But there are ways to reduce your impact, either as an individual or as a business like Mountain Rose Herbs. Additionally, even though energy use is sometimes unavoidable, there are ways to offset the carbon emissions from that power production to help balance the scales.

Whether you’re hiking, camping, backpacking, or floating the river, you’ve got to fuel up while you play, but how can you do it in a sustainable way? While there are tons of dehydrated “backpacking food” options on the market today, their single-use packaging can add up to a pile of unrecyclable waste. Perhaps you never meant to leave a wrapper behind, but I can assure you, it’s bound to happen! That means your trash trail will either need to be packed out by someone else, or worse (and more likely), left to pose a choking hazard to wildlife. Luckily, there are many ways that you can immerse yourself in nature without waste—they just require a bit of planning!

With each new trip around the sun, I find myself paying more attention to skincare tips from experts and other folks around me. Applying oil to the skin has been a common theme throughout the Ayurvedic classes I’ve been able to experience. As the Ayurvedic doctors would say: If you can take the time to change the oil in your car or condition your leather possessions, why neglect your own body?

Spring is here, and we can feel the summer sun hot on its heels! What better way to toast the arrival of these warmer months than with cool and delicious iced teas? (June is the month for National Iced Tea Day, after all!) I like to keep a pitcher or two in my refrigerator, both for flavor variety and so that I opt for caffeine or caffeine-free, depending on my needs. 

We travel to our farm partners' fields across the world to maintain close relationships with our growers and learn from one another.

The older I get, the more I realize that what my Dad really wants for Father’s Day is for me to show my love in ways that prove how much I know him as an individual and how much I want him to be happy and whole. The gifts that he most appreciates are also usually homemade, practical, and showcase the skills and knowledge I have acquired through the years.

Facial toners have come a long way since the 1990s, when the most common commercial varieties (often marketed to teenagers) used high concentrations of alcohol to help remove oil from the skin. Purported to reduce acne, they were purposely drying and too astringent for most skin types. Today’s facial toners with natural ingredients, on the other hand, provide benefits that can help to maintain the normal pH and hydration of our skin, both of which are essential to maintaining the moisture and elasticity that gives our complexions a smooth, healthy appearance. 

Salads are the perfect spring and summer fare—light, crisp, seasonal, and nutritious! But let's face it, we've all grown bored with salads at one point or another. Like many things in life, it's important to have variation, and when it comes to cuisine, sauces and dressings are a great way to quickly mix things up a bit. 

Lavender is one of my favorite herbs for a busy, worry-prone brain. This fragrant member of the mint family helps to calm the mind and make space for a nervous person to sort through their thoughts and set aside unproductive ones—an important first step toward making a lasting mindset change.