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Each year, when I make my holiday gift list, I aim to meet a set of criteria. Offerings that are thoughtful, personal, and useful are amongst the most important to me. I have generally found that homemade gifts are more appreciated than things I can find in mass quantities at any big box store. Small-batch DIY gifts also allow customization, making them personalized for your beloved recipient. It can also help to keep waste out of landfills.

If you’ve been perusing the Mountain Rose Herbs blog for awhile, you’ll know that you can expect a new lip balm recipe from me this time of year. It’s my annual tradition as we approach the holidays to create a fun new lip balm recipe to add to my DIY gift list, and I of course share it with my Mountain Rose Herbs “fam.” It’s one of my favorite traditions and my friends and family are always excited to see what blend I come up with to celebrate the year. This holiday season, my household is all about hot cocoa, so I was inspired to craft a hot chocolate recipe with “marshmallows.”

We all love a temperate and cozy home, but turning the heater on or lighting up the wood stove can be drying to our skin. Enter lotion bars! These delightful little skin-supporters add moisture and act as an emollient to protect the skin from the seasonal drying that happens this time of year.

I’m a sucker for seasonal scents. As soon as fall arrives, I begin making homemade wax melts, diffuser blends, roll-on perfumes, and natural skincare recipes to match the seasonal shift. I was recently inspired by my dear colleague Heidi’s autumn spice lotion recipe and I thought a foaming hand soap would make a great compliment.

It’s the season for everyone’s favorite autumnal spices. Crisp fall scents and flavors are in our lattes, our pastries, our diffusers, our perfumes, and more. They’re also in one of my favorite Mountain Rose Herbs lotion recipes! Although I love thicker creams and body butters for everyday moisturizing, I like to keep lotion in a pump bottle by the sink to use after hand-washing. This DIY lotion recipe is so easy to make, which means it’s simple to switch up the scent to match the seasons or my current mood. This time of year, it’s all about the satisfying aromas of autumn.

If I told you there’s a pantry staple that can soothe sore muscles and calm irritated skin, would you guess it’s vinegar? It’s true! From minor aches to dry or itchy skin, I turn to herbal vinegar baths. On its own, a cup or two of vinegar in the tub will leave skin soft and rejuvenated with a healthful glow. But herb-infused vinegars take this concept a step further, using plant constituents to boost the already impressive benefits of a vinegar bath.

Welcome to part three of my Elemental Perfume Blend series. What started as a journey to create fun DIY party favors for my upcoming wedding has turned into a rabbit hole of perfume recipe development. So far, I have shared an Earth Goddess perfume, an Aquatic Mermaid perfume, and now this wind-themed blend for my air sign friends.

With just three essential oils, this blend is made of top and middle notes to keep it as light as air.

Since time immemorial, people have looked to herbs to support healthy, beautiful hair. In the modern world, however, mainstream haircare products are typically made from chemicals: including sulfates, parabens, synthetic fragrances, formaldehyde, phthalates like DEHP, and other toxic ingredients. When we use these products, we increase our exposure to potentially harmful chemicals every time we wash and/or style our hair. It behooves us to take a look at natural herbal haircare practices. As well as being chemical-free, the best haircare herbs are time-tested; they have been used by humans for thousands of years. Herbal blends, infusions, extracts, and other botanical formulations bring the power of nature to nourish and stimulate the scalp, strengthen and moisturize follicles, soften hair, restore shine and bounce, help with manageability, and more.

Perhaps every herbalist or skincare formulator has a recipe that once wholly intimidated them. Homemade lotion was one of those for me. I had a pretty epic and expensive DIY lotion fail once, and it took me a long time to build up enough confidence to try blending water and oil into something usable again. Mountain Rose’s organic sweetgrass hydrosol was the impetus to suck up my courage and try again. Its subtle, honeyed aroma has a wonderfully green-earth undertone that makes it a perfect base for a variety of skincare formulations, from facial toners to body sprays to lotions. In this simple lotion recipe, I love it with just a touch of vanilla in the form of organic benzoin resin.

“Guasha” (刮痧) translates as “scraping petechiae.” Gua (刮) is scraping, the act of pulling a guasha tool across the skin. Sha (痧) is petechiae: pinkness or redness on the skin that can arise from scraping, a result of increased blood circulation to the area. Guasha is one of the many tools in our East Asian medicine toolkit, which also includes acupuncture, herbs, massage, moxibustion, energy work, lifestyle medicine, and more.

Many of us are ready for fall, but the truth remains that we are still in summer and it is hawt! With the heat and sun come sunburn, heat rash, heat exhaustion, and even heat stroke. There are things we can do to prevent these from happening and natural remedies for when they do.