If you’ve ever dried herbs in your home, or arranged aromatic resins in an incense dish, or placed a jar of lavender stems on a shelf, you know that herbs and spices—as well as adding compelling flavors to food and providing healthful benefits to our bodies—bring a natural beauty and delicious fragrance to our homes. And when you put those natural ingredients into the hands of a master crafter, you can end up with unique herbal decorations that are simple to do even for those of us who aren’t so “crafty.”

Natural wax candles are delightful accessories and tools for creating radiant spaces, especially as fall and winter bring chilly darkness to our days. These warm, flickering lights add natural ambiance and a calm, cozy feeling to any room. And while they serve a lovely mood-setting purpose in their own right, they can also be used to heat essential oils in a diffuser to fill a room with your favorite grounding fragrance, creating the perfect space for relaxing self care rituals.

Mountain Rose Herbs’ guiding principle is that people, plants, and planet are more important than profit. That translates into supporting organic agriculture, ethically-harvesting plants, fair trade practices, charitable giving, and community involvement.

Let's face it, essential oils are not cheap! They require a lot of plant material to produce a small amount of oil, so it's important to get the most out of your little bottles of aromatic goodness.

I absolutely love our organic sage hydrosol! This delightful aromatic is water-steam distilled from fresh culinary sage. It is uplifting, energetic, and grounding — all at the same time! It smells a lot like fresh sage leaves and is primarily made up of 1,8-cineole and camphor.

Considered a balancing astringent, organic sage hydrosol makes an excellent base for deodorant sprays and facial toners. It can be used as a single ingredient spray or blended with citrus notes, other culinary spice notes, or herby green notes.

Once I reached a certain age, it seemed that the majority of my friends started having children. This exciting and pivotal time of life is often also overwhelming for new parents. Between lack of sleep and the responsibility of caring for a tiny human, most new parents need a little extra self care support from their friends and family. I love to give the gift of time—whipping up a favorite nourishing dinner recipe, helping with the (seemingly never-ending) laundry, or watching their little one so the parents can get some sweet, uninterrupted sleep.

In midsummer, our fields of certified organic Echinacea purpurea are a purple blaze as far as the eye can see. The nearly shoulder-high flowers that take root in these Pacific Northwest soils are a pollinator favorite, and native bees and butterflies flock to the fields in droves. The sheer multitude of winged beings that encircle each bloom is an impressive sight to behold—visual proof of the power of organic agriculture.

The other day, my six year old daughter, Amelia, asked, “Why don’t they have a Kids’ Day?”. This was in response to the fact that Mother’s Day had just passed, and Father’s Day was coming up. I suppose every kid asks this question, and I remember having the same curiosity. In response, like a knee-jerk reaction, I gave the cliché parental rebuttal, “Because every day is Kids’ Day.” Cue the eye-rolls.

The sun was shining and the bicycle wheels were spinning during the 2018 Mountain Rose Herbs Earth Day Celebration. Employees were in an especially festive mood because they were getting free, professional bike tune-ups as a gift from Mountain Rose Herbs!

I developed my work ethic at the knee of my single father, who regularly worked 12-hour days and then, like every good single parent, came home and cooked dinner, went to teacher conferences, and helped me with homework. I learned to think of “self-care” as something one did as a reward, those minutes you might give yourself only after all the work is done.