Ragweed plants (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) cause allergy
Allergy Season Recipes
Allergy season is here! Are you confining yourself to the indoors, avoiding the Great Outdoors, because of allergies? Allergies can be debilitating, and contribute to depression, anxiety, and stress. If you have allergies, try these allergy season recipes for the aromatic tools that you need to beat them and set yourself free again!
For Frontline Support
When you are already under attack, and need help now—try dabbing a drop of Allergy Freedom Essential Oil under your nose, or placing a drop on a tissue and putting it in your nostril. It can also be diluted and applied to the lymph glands before getting into a shower.
For skin allergies, rashes, and irritations; try spraying Allergy Freedom Spray on skin.
For extra heavy duty clearing, you can spray it into the back of your throat, and inhale it into your nostrils, to relieve the itching, and decrease mucus production.
Prevention
In order to get a long term protective effect, remember to drink nettles tea beginning about a month BEFORE allergy season starts. You can build immunity before hand to have a different experience of the season altogether. Simply steep the dried stinging nettles in water to make a tea, taking one cup daily until allergy season is over.
For a ready made herbal supplement that can neutralize allergic symptoms, try our One Source Allergy Relief with Jade Elixir, available online.
Moroccan Chamomile is a powerful anti-histamine. It is one of the strongest anti-allergenic essential oils known. It works by inhibiting the original release of histamine, so the whole cascade of inflammatory processes is not initiated.
Peppermint helps to clear the sinuses. It is cooling and comforting.
Goldenrod has anti-allergenic properties, and is especially helpful for reducing the reaction to animal dander, dust mites, and other respiratory system irritants.
St Johnswort is highly anti-inflammatory, slightly sedating, and acts as a tonic for the liver, endocrine & immune systems. It is especially good for rebuilding the immune system.
Cypress is relaxing, soothes pain, opens bronchial tubes, and clears congestion.
A recent comment came in regarding an issue experienced by many women. She wrote:
“Do you have any recommendations for vaginal itch? I’m not sure if it’s a yeast infection. There is an ongoing itch that hasn’t seemed to improve with homeopathic remedies”.
For treating vaginal itch, many people use lavender, or tea tree essential oil. It is best used neat (undiluted), but I have found that some people are too sensitive to use it without dilution.
How do I use the oil? Using a tampon (pure cotton if available), apply 7 to 10 drops of oil onto the tampon. Insert the tampon and leave it over night. It will likely have a mild burning sensation for a few minutes–but for most people it subsides pretty quickly, and will make the itch go away. Ordinarily it does not come back. If you are extra sensitive, you may want to either try diluting the oil to 4%, OR try putting a drop on a Q-tip and swabbing just a little way inside the opening of the vagina. If the sensation is too strong, you can dust it with corn starch which will help remove the oil. This exercise can help you decide if you can handle the internal treatment for vaginal itch or not. With the extreme anti-bacterial properties of these oils, there is no danger in leaving the tampon in over night. Do not leave it longer than 8 to 12 hours. This is a well known protocol among aromatherapists and herbalists.
Causal factors?
And wouldn’t we all love to know what causes vaginal itch in the first place? Candida albicans is a fungus that can easily get out of balance in our bodies. When it does, we may experience repeated yeast infections and irritation. Although it seems to originate in the vagina, as that is where we have symptoms, it is actually much deeper than that. Candida is the most prevalent of bacterial and fungal infections that cause vaginal itch.
Candida albicans begins as a yeast, a normal part of our digestive flora in stomach and intestines. When we eat a “normal” diet, we run a high risk of developing an overgrowth of Candida, called Candidiasis. This overgrowth overwhelms other necessary and beneficial probiotic bacteria in our digestive system. Soon, the Candida takes over, and turns into a full fledged fungus. At this point, it not only exists in our digestive system, but now will show up in our blood and many other areas of our bodies–including vagina, anus, ear canals, sinuses, even on the skin. This has been linked to many diseases including cancer and diabetes.
What foods contribute to this imbalance?
Sugar is the number one contributor to Candidiasis. Even if you think you don’t eat much sugar, when you start reading the labels of all the foods that you purchase (and eat), you will find that there is added sugar in everything. Sugar may be listed as:
Barley malt.
Brown rice syrup.
Corn syrup.
Corn syrupsolids.
Dextrin.
Dextrose.
Diastatic malt.
Ethyl maltol.
Check this link to find 60 different names for sugar, used in the food manufacturing industry! Manufacturers want us to eat sugar–it is inexpensive and the taste makes us want MORE. Addictive? Yes I believe it is.
Other foods that contribute to this condition include Alcohol, Carbonated drinks, many low quality Meats & Dairy foods, Gluten, Refined Grain Products (bread, pasta, cereal, baked goods, pastries, etc.).
What can you do about? The best program I have found (and I have used many with clients and family!) is available here. The Ultimate Candida Diet has helped thousands of people get well, change their gut flora, and let go of the excess sugar addiction. And the bonus–it eliminates vaginal itch!
The Ultimate Candida Diet involves a eating a very precise diet for up to 3 months; eliminating all added sugar; using certain supplements at specific times in the healing process; and taking anti-fungals (I prefer internal use of specific essential oils and herbs). It provides the way to bring your body back into vibrant health, and eliminate vaginal irritation for good!
It is possible to work successfully with essential oils from a purely academic mindset. In this instance, one uses information based on the science and chemistry of aromatherapy, to select essential oils for different conditions and purposes. I have seen this work well for many people.
But this was never enough for me. Having spent years immersed in Native American culture, I knew about the Great Mystery. The Great Mystery is the field of pure potentiality, which contains all things.
Some things are manifest in the physical world, but many more are not presently manifest. Yet all things that ever existed or ever could exist, are already present in the field of potentiality, or Great Mystery. This field is completely conscious, as is the whole of creation.
Earth is conscious, spirits are conscious, plants are conscious, rocks and stars and insects are conscious, inanimate objects even have a form of consciousness in them. From this shamanic perspective, everything is conscious.
For a shaman or indigenous medicine person–all things, all information, all memories, energies, places, beings–can potentially be accessed by those who intentionally engage and communicate with the field. This is is the foundational belief behind energy healing, shamanic paths, spiritual reading, and many religious and spiritual paths.
Though the training methods vary greatly, and the language may be different from one path to another, the underlying truth is the same. Human consciousness is altered in some way so that a different (yet connected) reality is accessed in order to shed light on our ordinary reality, or mundane level of consciousness.
A multitude of possibilities exist for activating this shift in consciousness. It may be accomplished by drumming, singing, toning; by meditation or prayer, in dreams, astral journeying, or by communicating with helping spirits or beings who assist the medicine person.
Many tools exist to facilitate this communication, including hallucinogenic plants, rituals, reading energies or divination, prayer, and meditation.
One form that helped me immensely in my own journey as a medicine person, is dowsing. Dowsing is done with rods (as in the case of locating water or minerals, etc.), or with a pendulum.
Pendulums and rods are energy amplifiers. They simply amplify the energy that is present in a person’s nervous system circuitry. With great commitment and practice, dowsing can be a highly accurate way of accessing information for healing that would not otherwise be available.
One can begin by inhaling each oil several times through a 30 minute dry down to discern the aromatic differences. Though they are both distilled from genetically diverse or “wild” lavenders, the aroma of each one is unique. In my opinion, the wild French lavender is slightly more balanced and softer, and the lavender fine is slightly more activating, spicy, and herbaceous.
Of course, both lavenders will have similar healing properties based on the chemistry of lavender essential oil. Yet each oil, in the shamanic perspective, is a living, conscious being. They will interact differently with individuals on a spirit level.
Through accessing another form of information, such as dowsing, wild French lavender essential oil may prove to be much more effective for a person who is healing a skin condition related to stress, for example.
Another person, who is also healing a skin condition related to stress, may dowse positive for the lavender fine. Both lavenders are super effective for this condition, yet one will dowse positive for one person, and the other will dowse positive for another.
I know that when I use a tool such as dowsing or intuitive sensing to select essential oils for treating conditions, I generally have about a 97% effective rate (based on how satisfied people are with the results). When I just choose an essential oil to recommend with my mind–something I almost never do anymore–that rate drops significantly.
So my short answer to the question of what are the differences between these two very similar essential oils, is this. The oils are unique individuals that work differently on energetic and spiritual levels, with the people who are using them. Rooted in the Great Mystery, there is no way to define those differences concretely, other than to smell the two oils, open to experience their gifts individually, and access information from a higher level of consciousness.
This is the way of co-creation, the way of the shaman. It is accessible to anyone who wants to commit the time and attention to practicing this art, and a great place to begin is by simply smelling the oils and allowing your body’s response indicate which oil to choose.
Genital herpes is caused by two types of virus, Herpes simplex type I and Herpes simplex type II. It is estimated that one in 6 people in the USA between the age of 14 and 49 have genital herpes.
It is normally transmitted through sexual contact. Because most Herpes carriers do not even know they are infected and can be symptom free, it is easily spread.
Herbs and essential oils can reduce symptoms and discomfort of this viral condition. With radical commitment to a natural treatment plan, some people have even been known to eliminate all symptoms over a long period of time.
If one is seeking to eliminate this virus from the body, it would be very important to have a blood test to be certain that Herpes is indeed the cause. After concluding the treatment, when the symptoms have been gone for several months, another blood test would be valuable to see whether or not the virus is still in the body.
Herbs Essential Oils for Genital Herpes Healing Regime
Combine essential oils of ravensare, foraha, and melissa. Add 1.5 ml (about 30 drops) of each oil into a 5 ml bottle. Apply a few drops of this powerful anti-viral blend twice daily to to all break-out areas.
Make a couple quarts of lemon balm tea and store it in the fridge. It makes a great drench for cleansing the break out areas. Pour it on skin, or dab with a tea soaked cotton pad. It is mild enough to be soothing, and the anti-viral effects will accelerate what the essential oil blend is doing. Use these two anti-viral formulas until the outbreak is completely gone.
You will also need to deal with this persistent virus internally as well. A special diet must be used consistently. For a time, avoid eating or drinking coffee, soda pop, alcohol, refined carbs such as breads and pastries, and sweetened foods for a few months. Eat lots of fresh and steamed vegetables, fermented foods like yogurt and cole slaw, and small portions of high quality protein foods like eggs, grass fed beef or lamb, and wild salmon. This will enable your immune system to focus on eliminating the virus, instead of spending extra energy cleaning up the toxins produced from processing unhealthy foods. A wonderfully helpful way of eating to support this and other detoxifying programs is available here, at the Ultimate Candida Diet website.
Take Inner Rain (or an anti-viral detoxifying supplement) daily for up to 3 months at a time. Inner Rain formula will help cleanse and detoxify the body, and support the immune system so that it can do the work to rid the body of the virus.
Find someone who will apply essential oils to your spine once a week while you are using this program. Even if you have no symptoms or very little break out, the virus can go dormant for years and is known to hang out around the spine. The oils can address this and are an important part of the program. Use a combination of at least three anti-viral oils, including ajowan, spike lavender, melissa, ravensare, foraha, cinnamon bark, and oregano.
I have seen people heal this condition, so I know it is possible! It does take a lot of focus and a strong commitment to get the desired results. Sometimes it takes much longer than I have suggested, even many months, to become free of Herpes viruses. But in many cases the journey is worth it. The immune system will be stronger without that virus floating around in the body.
I had been “sudsing shampoo free” for years. One day I just got tired of putting chemicals on my head, and I began a long journey of exploring my options.
I found that so many “natural” shampoos were still laden with chemicals, phthalates, and a multitude of other chemicals. I found several non-sudsing shampoos on the market, but none of them worked for me long term.
Finally I resorted to using the coconut shampoo bar from Chagrin Valley. It worked very well, but sometimes I would feel like the soap was leaving a build up on my hair, so I would switch back and forth with my own suds-free shampoo recipe and the soap.
This has worked beautifully for me over some years now, but every now and then I wish for a really truly natural sudsing shampoo base that I could use once in awhile.
Then we found a source that produces clean, certified organic sudsing bases. These bases are certified organic by EcoCert, an approved for use in Whole Foods products. We immediately fell in love with these products. We now offer them online for our customers. (Decyl Glucoside is available for skin and shampoo formulations; Laurel glucoside is better for household cleaning products, dishes and laundry).
I have already experimented with a couple of my own shampoo recipes, and I am sharing them now for you to experiment with too.
Natural Sudsing Shampoo Recipe
Note: This recipe requires the use of a hand held stick blender.
(If you need extra conditioning, add 1/2 teaspoon protein powder)
DIRECTIONS:
Stir the Xanthin gum into 2 Tbsp of the water. Stir very well until there are no lumps and product is smooth.
Place the rest of the water or hydrosol, decyl glucoside, and aloe vera into a 16 oz container for use with your stick blender.
Add xanthin gum mix and blend thoroughly, moving the stick blender up and down until the shampoo thickens and no lumps remain.
Add the rest of the ingredients and blend again.
Test with a ph testing strip. Ph should be between 5 and 7 for shampoo. If ph is too high, add more vitamin C.
Options
You can experiment with using soy protein powder, silk protein powder, hemp powder, etc. Many types of protein powder could be a candidate for nourishing and conditioning the hair.
If you want to add essential oils for therapeutic reasons or for scenting, add just a few drops to see how the formula handles it. Every oil addition will affect the sudsing quality of the base. You must find the balance between oils for conditioning and sudsing shampoo base for cleansing.
Essential Oils for Hair Loss
If you are experiencing hair loss, you may want to try these essential oils or a combination of several. These are the most recommended oils for restoring hair and stimulating the scalp.
Snoring is one of those issues that effects not just the snorer, but his or her partner as well! Snoring is associated with sleep apnea, which is a major cause of chronic fatigue, health issues, and even emotional and mental disturbances. And, well–it’s just not sexy.
So if there was an easy and enjoyable way to reduce or eliminate snoring, wouldn’t you jump at the chance to give it a try? I just have to share this with everyone I know, because it has made such a difference in the lives of some of my customers.
This recipe contains some of the most studied oils found to be effective against snoring and sleep apnea. If the recipe below is not quite strong enough, you can resort to the stronger version, which has even more clout, but also has a stronger aroma.
To enhance your potential for success, you can try the following things:
20 to 30 minutes before bedtime, diffuse Snoring Solutions Diffusion Blend (see recipe below) in your bedroom. Once you actually go to bed, you can turn the diffuser off, as the air should be saturated.
Massage neck, upper back, and chest with Anti-Snore Massage Oil (recipe below) just before going to bed. For an extra insurance, massage the oil onto the bottom of your big toes, which are reflex points to the head.
Use a wedge pillow, or two pillows so that you are on an incline when you sleep.
Another study found that sleeping on your side, with a full body pillow, works for many people.
Don’t drink alcohol–it causes the back of the throat muscles to relax enabling snoring. People who don’t normally snore will often snore after consuming alcohol before bedtime.
Use a neti-pot with saltwater solution to open breathing passages before going to bed.
Massage on neck, upper back, shoulders, and chest, just before you go to bed. Keep the bottle within reach so you can use it again if you should awaken from snoring in the night.
Mix and use the same as the first recipe. Rosewood, spruce,citronella, geranium,and clove have all been used successfully for sleep apnea and snoring as well. Please feel free to experiment with this!
Diffuse this blend for 20 minutes before you go to bed every night.
Some people notice a decrease in snoring in as little as 3 nights. Others may take up to 6 weeks to see results, so don’t give up too early.
Sometimes people can eventually go without using the essential oils after a period of time on this program. Others find that they need to stay consistent to keep sleep apnea or snoring from returning. Either way, it is a great tool for getting a good night’s sleep (and saving your marriage too!).
This is my favorite recipe for skin lotion. It is a bit lighter than salves and some of the other lotions that use beeswax to emulsify the fat with water. And the Aloe has a wonderful tightening effect on skin, wonderful for skin that is flabbier aging, or for people who have recently lost weight and have excess skin.
It does create a bit of shine on your skin when applied. I often apply it at night before going to sleep, and allow it to work deep into my skin over night. I have been so happy with the results that I could not wait to share it with everyone.
This lotion is a little more challenging to make than the simple 4 ingredient salve, but it is definitely lighter than any salves made with oils and beeswax only.
Aloe Vera Skin Lotion Recipe
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon beeswax (chunk or shavings)
Place beeswax, almond oil, and seabuckthorn extract in a pint mason jar. Put the open jar into a saucepan. Fill the pan with water, up to 2 or 3 inches up the side of the jar.
Heat pan over low heat. Stir frequently with a plastic or wood spoon or fork. Do not leave utensil in the wax & oil mix, remove each time after stirring.
When the beeswax has completely melted, turn off the heat and remove the jar from the saucepan. Place it on a trivet or hot pad to cool.
If you want to add optional essential oils, now is the time to add them and stir them in well. About 15 drops total is a good amount to add.
Allow mix (also called fat phase), to cool to room temperature. It should just begin to harden sightly around the edges. This will insure that it emulsifies correctly.
You can use a fork, whip, or an immersion blender for this step. Start blending vigorously, and add aloe vera gradually, just a little at a time. Stir after each addition until fully incorporated, then add more and repeat.
Wipe the jar sides down with a spatula and re-blend a couple of times after the mix is fully incorporated.
This Aloe Vera Skin Lotion recipe will store in a glass jar for up to 6 weeks. You may extend the shelf life of this product by adding essential oils.
Many “absolutes” that are available today are concoctions of synthetic chemicals and fragrances. There is no law that prevents companies from marketing their fragrances in this way. It is much more profitable to sell synthetics than to go through the expense and effort to make a real botanical product.
True modern absolutes are highly concentrated aromatic “oils” extracted from plants through a multi-step solvent method.
The process begins with extracting aromatic oils from the plant material with a chemical solvent such as hexane or benzene.
The solvent is then removed through distillation or chemical extraction. The substance left behind is a waxy substance called a concrete.
The aromatic oils are then extracted from the concrete with ethyl alcohol. After the ethyl alcohol is removed, the remaining substance is called an absolute.
Absolutes carry an aroma close to the plant from which they came. Absolutes are the most concentrated form of fragrance. Skillfully made absolutes are highly regarded in natural perfumery.
Note: Absolutes can and usually do contain traces of solvent; they are not suitable for internal use.
About Our Absolutes
Traditionally, absolutes were made using a method called “enfleurage”. This is a time consuming method where plant material–such as rose petals– is layered on top of lard (animal fat).
The fat absorbs the aromatic oils over time. Eventually the plant material is removed and replaced with fresh material. This is repeated over a period of weeks or months.
The resulting fatty aromatic substance (called pomade) can then be used as it is, as a hard perfume, or made into products for skin care and cosmetics.
Or the pomade can be alcohol extracted to create an absolute.
It is rare to find anyone making this type of absolute these days, as it is very time consuming. Yet there are still some rare individual artisans producing these traditional absolutes (in very small amounts).
We do our best to source absolutes of this old, traditional method. They are generally more costly because of the time and complexity involved in producing them. Yet they are of the highest quality known to us. We are proud and happy to offer these rare absolutes to all of our customers.
Blending with Natural Absolutes
Depending on what you are making, you can use oil or alcohol as a carrier for blending.
Alcohol Carrier
Alcohol is best for colognes, perfumes, and sprays. Almost all absolutes will dissolve in alcohol, although some will take time to dissolve thoroughly.
The type of alcohol that I prefer to use for this purpose is vodka. You can spend a lot on real perfumer’s alcohol, but really there is no noticeable difference in using high grade vodka as your carrier.
My favorite is a grape vodka called Ciroc. It has virtually no alcoholic aroma to interfere with the perfume, and is a wonderful carrier. I have also used Skyy vodka with great results. Skyy is filtered through quartz crystal, giving a very clean energy.
Botanical Oil Carrier
Filtered coconut oil is my favorite for blending with natural absolutes. It is thin in consistency and highly absorbable. It even works in most sprayers in case you want to use it as a perfume spray base.
Other potential carrier oils are grape seed, jojoba, and sweet almond. All of these will create a slightly oilier consistency than the filtered coconut.
Absolute Dilution
Absolutes are typically so highly concentrated, that their true aroma is not evident until they are diluted. That is, the aroma is compressed, and needs to be expanded through dilution before its true aromatic nuances are evident.
A good starting place for dilution is a 50% / 50% blend (or 50% dilution) of absolute to carrier. Another option is a 35% / 65% dilution, which is still quite potent and can be used to create perfume blends and add aromas to body care products.
If you are purchasing absolutes in 1.5 ml bottles, you can empty the bottle of absolute into a 5 ml bottle, and add carrier to fill the bottle. This makes about a 35% dilution of absolute. This is one of my favorite dilutions to work with as a perfume ingredient.
If you are looking to make a single note perfume from one absolute, you can experiment with dilution rates to reach the best effect. Adding 25 drops of 35% dilution to a 5 ml bottle of carrier, is often a very nice dilution for a perfume. It is at least a good starting point.
Test the blend on your wrist to see if it is close to the strength that you are seeking. If not, add a few more drops.
Natural absolutes are often most alluring at a very soft, subtle level. Even if you think it is not strong enough, try wearing it for a day before adding more absolute to experience its true effect.
Natural Absolutes and Healing
In this day and age, it can be challenging for most people to make the connection between perfumes and healing. Our noses are constantly bombarded with chemical based “fragrances” that are added to everything from dish detergent to toilet paper to clothing to plastic products.
Marketers have made us suspicious of anything that smells real. Their synthetic aromatic imitations of strawberries consistently test “better” than the aroma of real strawberries in blind tests.
Add to this, the media is constantly insinuating that if we smell like a real person, we will be unable to get a job, a promotion, or attract a mate! We are constantly encouraged to cover natural aromas with synthetic fragrances.
No wonder most people can not tell the difference between a synthetic aroma and a real one. But there is a difference–and it goes much more than skin deep.
Early History
Once upon a time in areas of ancient Egypt, America, China, and India, people began extracting the aroma of botanical substances. These extraction processes were refined and soon became available to healers, shamans, and perfumers as absolutes.
In those ancient cultures, there was no distinction between perfume and medicine–both were considered to be healing substances. People understood that natural botanical extracts could have a healing action on the mind, emotions, and spirit of a person.
Today, it has been proven by science that the hypothalamus–also known as the reptilian brain–processes the sense of smell. It is also the seat of instinctual behavior, and emotion. It becomes very clear how aromas can have profound effects on our minds, and even create responses in our physical bodies.
The metaphysical effects of absolutes are even more profound. Aromas have spiritual aspects. They are present especially when produced consciously, in a way that supports the spiritual energy (or morphogenic fields–a scientific term that is roughly parallel), to remain intact in the absolute.
Metaphysical aspects can support change and healing through frequency and vibration. They can offer a multi-dimensional aspect to any healing process.
Wearing a perfume that vibrationally supports a chosen intention, can enhance one’s ability to integrate change. Each time a person inhales the aroma, a vibrational boost of support enters the brain and supports the new programming that is being embodied.
If the inhalation frequency is amplified with a healing affirmation, repeated when inhaled, the healing process is boosted exponentially. We can use the beautiful aroma of natural perfumes to create new patterns, alternatives, and responses to our environment. They can help us change our lives for the better.
None of our products are recognized or approved by the FDA. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. This information is anecdotal, and is provided for educational purposes only. It is not meant to be taken as medical advice. See a health care professional for medical advice.
