People that enjoy making their own herbal preparations usually find pleasure collecting their herbs from the wild. If you have access to land away from highway fumes and farm chemicals, you can find many of the medicinal herbs you use in that location. Plantain leaves for insect bites, burdock leaves for burns, black walnut hulls [...]
Centuries ago all perfumes were made from natural elements such as plants; however today most commercial perfumes are made from synthetic ingredients. Since I began working with essential oils in aromatherapy I have found that I have become more and more allergic to synthetic perfumes and fragrances, perhaps my body’s way of rejecting anything that [...]
I’ve often thought that I can pursue my career for as many years as I want because it is not physically strenuous. However, with several weeks of low back pain, I’ve found that there is something that can prevent me from sitting at a computer for more than five minutes at a time. Perhaps you, [...]
Vacations and travel can bring up all sorts of unexpected health problems, depending on where you are traveling; however, you can prepare yourself for several common nuisances that may other wise disrupt your hard-earned vacation time by preparing an aromatherapy first aid kit before you leave home. Use essential oils, such as lavender, lemon and [...]
Cocoa butter and shea butter are two popular ingredients that are used as bases in many natural skincare products. Although people often confuse the two products, they are in fact extracted from two very different trees. The chemical composition and uses of the final skincare product are very similar but it is useful to understand [...]
St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is an ancient herb that was used extensively by the Greeks and the Romans, amongst other ancient civilizations. Today it is still used as a natural treatment for many conditions. However, overuse of St John’s Wort can cause some allergic reactions, so it is useful to understand what the plant [...]
Aromatic waters, more commonly known as hydrosols or hydrolats in aromatherapy practice, have a number of health benefits; most people associate the therapeutic practice of aromatherapy with essential oils, but interest is growing in the use of aromatic waters. Once considered the by-product of distillation of an essential oil, aromatic waters are actually valuable commodities [...]
