If you are looking for a way to color your hair with absolutely no synthetic chemicals while simultaneously nourishing it, then organic henna hair color is for you! No other hair color on the market naturally adds radiant color, seals in oil, and protects your hair's cuticle—all while providing long-lasting shine.

Over the last decade, my kitchen has hosted a wide variety of cultures and home fermentation projects. Pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, milk-and-water kefir, and fermented garlic paste have all lived (and thrived!) atop my counters. However, only one culture has found a permanent residence: kombucha. If you aren’t familiar with kombucha, it is a fermented tea beverage that has exploded in popularity over the last few years. Kombucha can now be easily found at nearly every co-op or grocery store, but if you drink as much as I do, store-bought bottles can get pricey fast. Fortunately, it’s easy, inexpensive, and fun to make at home! Plus, you can flavor your kombucha and adjust its acidity or sourness to your liking.  

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.

Each October, I get to set up the Mountain Rose Herbs booth at the wonderful Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival here in Eugene, Oregon. I absolutely love this event! It typically brings out 3,000 mycophiles eager to learn about wild mushrooms and peruse the many species on display. Aiming to be festive with fungus, I’ll usually brew up a large batch of reishi chai. Chai is one of my all-time favorite teas, and adding reishi mushroom slices (Ganoderma lucidum) gives it the added perk of supporting immune health*.

My recent discovery of kokum butter set me ablaze in the kitchen! Happily experimenting with various ways to use it, I’ve concluded that it is perfect for dry skin.

If you’ve never used kokum butter, it’s similar in firmness to cocoa butter, but a little flakier. Many consider it a good substitute for cocoa butter because of its uniform triglyceride composition. It can be used to thicken many homemade cosmetics including body butters, creams, lotions, and lip balms.

Herbal infusions have been used for thousands of years. Many of us create them regularly when we brew tea (which is simply an infusion of tea leaves). However, while there's a lot to love about this classic teatime preparation, it's just one of the countless options you can experiment with when crafting your own sippable herbal preparations.

Recently, my husband and I were taking a training class with our puppy, Gracie Cakes. The dog trainer suggested that we class attendees head to the grocery store and buy jars of baby food as training treats for the dogs — apparently, dogs love the common pureed ingredients used in commercial baby foods. I say this to explain how I found myself standing in a baby food aisle for the very first time in my life. I realized, as I stood there not knowing where to even begin, that I had raised three babies to healthy adulthood and, until Gracie Cakes the terrier, had done so without ever twisting the lid from a commercial baby food jar.

A good Bloody Mary is a thing of beauty. Flavorful, colorful, and more substantial than your average cocktail, this sippable standard has intrigued and challenged many a bartender, myself included. As a fledgling craft mixologist, I experimented quite a bit with Bloody Mary formulations, working hard to get all the flavor points into perfect alignment. My roommates and I hosted brunches to showcase and refine our beverage inventions, always searching for ways to take this classic cocktail to new levels of deliciousness.

The folks here at Mountain Rose Herbs love to make our own natural body care products. These fun DIY self care projects allow us to ensure that we are using only the highest quality organic and natural ingredients to create safe and beautiful goodies for friends and family, proving that the journey to well-being can be both natural and stylish. There are lots of simple ways to jump into DIY makeup, but we're especially fond of one cosmetic category that's easy to make and apply: natural blushes.