"Make It Take It" Spa Party

We had our first spa party of this year for Memorial Day weekend!  We had so much fun making natural products for our bodies like relaxing oil, sea salt body spray, lavender dry shampoo, cocoa body butter, and facial toner.  Everyone walked away with healthier, less processed body products.  They also walked away smelling like they rolled around in a flower garden from all the different scents they had tried.

Herbs for a Healthy Mane

 by Kelsey Ligon

When you walk down the street and the wind gently lifts your hair up behind you and swirls it around, you probably imagine looking like someone in a shampoo or conditioner commercial.  In reality, your hair probably looks something like this:

There’s a lot to hair health to take into consideration, and even then you might not have hair worthy of a shampoo commercial.  The goal is to make your hair feel and look beautiful. 

                                                                                                                                                                      

Herbal hair treatments have been around for thousands of years and have been used on some our most celebrated beautiful women: Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Queen Elizabeth. The benefits of treating your hair with natural herbs are stronger hair, restored shine, and flaky scalp relief.

As always, when considering an aspect of your health, it’s important to ensure that you are taking good care of your body.  This means exercising, eating well, getting plenty of sleep, and drinking lots of water.  If you’ve taken care of your body, the next step is treating your hair.

Herbs, similarly to traditional hair care products, work on both the scalp and the hair shaft.  The difference between using herbs and using traditional hair care products is the extra layer of protection you give yourself.  Your hair has a natural pH level of 4.5-5.5, and this level of acidity is intended to prevent bacteria from adhering to your scalp.  However, the alkaline materials found in traditional shampoo and conditioner products can interfere with the natural process and cause more damage.

Taking all of this into consideration, your next step is to determine which herbs work best for you.  You can mix and match the following herbs based on your hair care needs.

Dry hair:

If you have flaky, itchy hair that sometimes results in dandruff, the following herbs work well to provide relief and soothe your scalp:

·        Olive oil

·        Rosemary

·        Burdock root

·        Eucalyptus (always good for anything soothing)

·        Parsley (particularly good for thin and dandruff-prone hair)

·        Tea tree

Oily hair:

Oily hair can look dirty and can feel slimy.  Besides brushing the oil evenly throughout your hair, the following herbs help restrain oil production:

·         Lemon

·         Sage

·         Marigold

Hair loss or fragile hair:

There have been all kinds of magical remedies for hair loss or weak hair, but there are several herbs with different properties to help you keep your hair healthy:

     

·      Aloe for new hair growth; it retains water, plumping up the hair shaft and making it appear thicker

·      Burdock root can stimulate hair growth

·      Nettles stimulate growth and increase circulation in the scalp

·      Rosemary for hair growth

·      Witch hazel

·      Cayenne for increased blood flow

References:

Strausfogel, Sherrie.  “Herbal Hair Therapy.”  Better Nutrition.  Apr. 2015, Vol. 77 Issue 4, p. 28-30.

“Help for Hair Loss.”  Natural Health.  Aug 2002, Vol. 32 Issue 6, p. 22.

Turner, Lisa.  “A look at some ‘mane’ herbs for hair care.”  Better Nutrition.  Oct. 98, Vol. 60 Issue 10, p. 40

Orr, Tamra B.  “Mane attraction.”  Better Nutrition.  Jun 99, Vol. 61 Issue 6, p. 38.

Natural Remedies for Menopause

By Kelsey Ligon

Does this sound like a normal day to you?  Hot flash as you make breakfast, a mood swing before you even get into traffic, drowsiness at the office because of your frequent insomnia, and anxiety that everyone else is very aware of what you are going through?

The good news is that there is a lot of research on all these symptoms of menopause, and there are a lot of simple, natural ways to counteract these symptoms. 

Black Cohosh Root

The first thing you can do is to improve your lifestyle by taking better care of yourself.  Get plenty of sleep each night (if possible!), exercise frequently, and eat right.  Already doing all of these things?

The next thing you can do is find herbal remedies to treat each symptom.  Since every woman’s body is different, every woman’s treatment regimen is going to be different as well.

• To reduce those out-of-control mood swings and hot flashes that take you by surprise before you even make it in to the office, try to limit caffeine, sugar, and alcohol.  These changes to your diet should help your body to regulate its hormone levels naturally and get rid of processed stimulants.  You can also try black cohosh to balance your hormones.  Black cohosh has been approved by the German Commission E as a capable treatment for menopausal symptoms.
• Another less discussed symptom of menopause is the fluctuation in weight.  The awesome fix for this according to researchers is one tablespoon of cinnamon a day.  The cinnamon works to improve insulin sensitivity, causing your body to process fat in a more natural way.
• For that tiresome insomnia that seems to aggravate all the other symptoms, try decaf herbal tea such as chamomile. 
• Changes in hormonal levels during menopause can also create anxiety and tension, both of which are twice as common in women as in men.  You can make simple diet adjustments to reduce anxiety, such as consuming more plant foods in your diet.  Researchers believe that the phytoestrogens in plants reduce anxiety.  This means consuming more carrots, fennel, celery, parsley, etc.
• Another major symptom that we don’t like to talk about as much is vaginal dryness, which occurs as estrogen levels drop.  To counteract this painful symptom, try fish oil supplements or flaxseeds.

Keeping all of these lifestyle changes and herbal remedies in mind, it is also important to realize that these changes will not work the way that over-the-counter drugs work.  According to researcher Barbara Hey, herbs are not as fact acting as over-the-counter drugs, and she recommends allowing a month to assess the effectiveness.  The same can be said for diet and exercise changes.  As with all natural things, changes take time.

o   Murray, Michael.  “Menopause and Anxiety.”  Better Nutrition.  Apr 2015, vol. 77 Issue 4, p. 34-35.

o   Patz, Aviva.  “Hormone Control.”  Natural Health. Jun 2009.  Vol. 39 Issue 6, p. 46-52.

o   Hey, Barbara.  “Safe and Sound.”  Vegetarian Times.  Nov. 2002, Issue 303, p. 45.

Distilling oils: Basil

Essential oils can be expensive! A tiny vial of oil can be $8-10, so I decided to look at making my own.

I bought a new stock pot from Amazon in order to make the perfect home distillery for my oils. It consists of a base pot, a steamer pot that fits into the top of the stock pot and a lid. I thought I'd give this a try since it is way less expensive than glass beakers, copper piping, gaskets and all the paraphernalia required for a "scientific" still. Those cost around $300 or more.

A week or so ago I bought some edible herbs in little pots, and I'm starting off with Basil. For more on the usefulness of basil and the chemical compounds, look up Basil Essential Oil and chemical compounds of basil.  

Usage:

1. Basil has antioxident properties and helps with blemish control, as it is a natural antiseptic. As an astringent, this hydrosol refines the pores and helps to control sebum. Basil will energize your skin and help to start your day off right. This is great for any skin type, especially oily, aging, or acne prone skin.
2. The price of 1 fluid ounce of Basil Hydrosol on one website I found is $6.50; on another it is $4.70.   So my little Basil plant (cost $2.99) has yielded a good $38- $48 worth of hydrosol. Not bad! And I only cut off the top of the plant to use so I can grow more!
3. It may be used as a substitute for distilled water in recipes. Try it in creams and lotions and in dry or wet clay recipes.

Procedure:  
Distillation is very simple (apparently) and has been used for centuries, especially in those alcoholic beverages we all enjoy. So I naturally assumed it would be really easy to execute!

1. Cut off the tops of the basil plant and cut up the leaves and stems. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Distiller Base:  Fill pot with 1-2 inches water. 
3. Collector: Put the Collector (a glass bowl), in the middle of the pan and add the plant material to the water in the bottom of the pot.  This is to catch condensation and essential oils dripping from the Condenser.

5.Condenser: Place pot lid upside down with ice in top.  (I tried the stock pot lid, but I don't think it was a good fit so tried another lid I had that was made of glass. It seemed to fit better.)

6. Boil water in bottom of pot which will then steam through the steamer basket and through the plant material.  Do not boil the water at full blast because we want a slow boil - just enough to make the water steam.  Get the water to a boil and then turn the temp down immediately to low.

7. Steam for 20- 40 minutes and keep the ice on top iced. You will need a lot of ice to keep refilling the lid. Use a turkey baster to siphon off the melted water- don't remove lid.

8. Turn off the heat and let it all cool down. The result will be a small amount of oil floating on top of the water in the Collector.

It took me two attempts to get this right, but I'm hoping that on your first attempt you will end up with a cup of basil hydrosol. Because hydrosols need to be refrigerated, store it in the fridge.  Happy mixing!