Thank you

Thank you everyone who purchased soap this year -- selling out this quickly has me making a note to my future self next year to double my batches. Happy Holidays!

Healing Soap - almost sold out!

[LINK to my Etsy Shop.]

I am happy to say my soap is almost sold out! I only have 7 bars left. (I guess my family is not getting soap in their stockings this year. . . .) Thank you all for being enthusiastic supporters of this amazing product.

I was a little worried about needing to increase the price to cover my costs and higher shipping fees this year.  I know that you can't get soap anywhere else with this much shea butter and this much organic hand-harvested and grown calendula, as well as organic vervein from France.

I use all my herbs, butters, and oils in abundance to make each bar as powerfully healing as it can be. I think my return customers speak to how it works.

Have a great holiday - thanks for buying artisanal products made with real ingredients and loving care.

A LINK to my Etsy shop if you want the last few bars.

Let's talk about Red Clover

My daughter recently gave me a jar of red clover buds she had gathered.
I did some research and found out this:

The common names are red clover, trefoil, wild clover, and purple clover.

Red cover: Relaxes nerves and the entire system.
Can be used as a sedative.
Has been used to fight cancer.
Found in herbal combinations used for cancer.
Wash for sores.
Can be drunk freely.

Red Clover Herb is often compared to alfalfa both for its nutritional value and appearance. They are reported to have diuretic, expectorant, antispasmodic and estrogenic properties.
Red Clover herb is a blood purifier that increases the body’s production of urine and mucous and promotes menstrual flow.
Contain bitter compounds that increase the production of digestive fluids and enzymes, especially bile. These compounds also shrink inflammation and relieve pains. Red clover is an excellent herbal source of calcium, chromium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.

Red Clover Herb is high or very high on the following nutrients:
• Calcium
• Chromium
• Magnesium
• Niacin
• Phosphorus
• Potassium
• Thiamine
• Vitamin C
Excerpts from Practical Herbalism
In 1896, King said that, “Red Clover is an excellent alterative, and one of the few remedies which favorably influences pertussis.
After another quarter century of experience with the herb, the Eclectic Materia Medica of 1922 recommended it for the specific indications of, “irritability of the respiratory passages, with dry, explosive cough; carcinomatous cachexia,” and gave the following information: 
“Trifolium is alterative and anti-spasmodic. It relieves irritability of the respiratory tract, alleviating dry, irritable and spasmodic cough. Whooping cough is especially moderated by it, and it is frequently effective in lessening the distressing cough of measles. It also modifies cough in bronchitis and laryngitis. Its alterative powers are underrated, and it should be given where a general deobstruent effect is desired in chronic skin problems, and unquestionably has a retarding effect upon malignant neoplasms.”

Not a bad list of ways this powerful little flower can improve our health.

and the Etsy shop is open!

Your microbiome, and how to strengthen your good bacteria

We live in a new age of weird diseases and symptoms -- many traveling under the "auto-immune" banner. People by the droves go to their primary care doctors and complain of stomach and digestive ailments (bloating, food allergies, abdominal pain), light-headedness, fatigue, skin rashes, eczema, rosacea, and worse. Their doctors, in turn, follow the protocols of their training and order up standard tests in search of something physical. The tests come back negative. Now the flummoxed doctor is beginning to wonder if he has a hypochondriac on his hands, and the patients either persist or resign themselves to pain and misery, becoming depressed as symptoms continue to plague them. Sometimes more tests are ordered, but seldom is a solution found. It's a bad scene all around. Welcome to the world of microbes, the artful dodgers (at least when it comes to standard medical tests).


As patients feel sicker, doctors unknowingly feed the flames by prescribing more pain medication, antibiotics, etc., to try to alleviate symptoms and show their patients that they are "doing something." Vicious circle. The misery continues.


Well, if all politics are local, all health is in the gut and the skin. We are the microbial profile we feed on a daily basis. And while "feed" mostly means the mouth, it also importantly includes the skin. A good bit of advice is to live dirty and eat clean. That means we do ourselves no favors by constantly cleaning our hands with hand sanitizers, applying skin products and soaps with anti-bacterial elements and good-bacteria killing chemicals (go ahead, read the ingredients, see if you have the slightest idea about what you are slathering to your skin and scalp on a daily basis... didn't think so).


I have been eating a very low carb, organic grass-fed diet for almost five months, and my health has seriously improved. I have much more energy, don't have that brain fog, my rosacea has improved, my eczema has improved and certainly my moods have improved. I also have been using only products that support local bacteria, free of detergents and chemical additives, antiseptics and antibacterials.


Feed your good bacteria! My soap, full of coconut oil, shea butter, organic vervain and calendula will do just that.
I promise your skin will be amazingly healthy -- I do this for myself because I have to and now I will never go back to commercial skin products and the way they strip the good bacteria away.


Diet and skin products -- ask your gut what it prefers, and ask your skin what makes it glow.

Holy Basil

Today I am harvesting the holy basil (Tulsi basil) buds to save the seed.
The fragrance in the basil bed is just so amazing, I wish I could bottle that smell.
WAIT, I can!

I will be making basil infused oil this year. What a calming and still feeling this aroma imparts. . . .

Here is a little video of how a field of this plant looks, and how it is harvested.

We have soap!

So the soap making has started full force, and my studio is filled with the heavenly smell of vervain, calendula, shea butter, and lemon.

This is my favorite ritual of late Summer/early Fall, which gives the soap plenty of time to cure before I start selling it for the holidays. I am cutting the bars a bit thicker this year.

I am still using the end cuttings from last years' batch. Maybe I should be making them thinner!

But I just like the chunky feel of the larger bars in the hand. Keep a look out for when they are in my Etsy shop.

Calendula!

I have harvested this year's crop of calendula, petals from the flowers are very antiseptic and healing, used for millenia for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.

and aren't they beautiful?

I will be making my vervain soap this season with added calendula petals.

Calendula has tonic and antispasmodic properties, but it is mainly used for skin care and treatment. It has great anti-inflammatory action, making it helpful with stubborn wounds, acne, ulcers, bed sores, varicose veins, rashes, eczema, and related conditions, helping soothe sore, inflamed, and itchy skin conditions.

Combining the skin healing properties of calendula with soothing vervain - the perfect combination!

Look for this season's soaps starting the beginning of November.

I am very pleased to announce my new Pinon Pine Healing Balm

This healing balm is hand mixed by me, with all sustainable, natural ingredients, including wild crafted Ponderosa Pine resin, and Pinon Pine infused oil.

The base is shea butter and olive oil. Pinon Pine oil has been shown to have miraculous healing properties for cuts and skin conditions. Only one supplier in the country hand harvests and produces this amazing oil, and I was very lucky to be able to get some at the 2016 Mountain West Herb Conference.

Friends and family have reported amazing healing properties for this balm. You need only a very small amount, as the oils are very concentrated. The balm comes in a metal 2 ounce tin, with handmade label by me!

This balm has been infused with intention of love and healing -- when you send loving vibrations to the plants and trees being used for your medicinal and skin care, the plants and trees are very happy to connect with that vibration, and the harmony created activates the healing power.

I request that before you use this balm, you send gratitude intention to the Pinon Tree and Ponderosa Pine. I am certain that this energy multiplies the healing power.

Blessings to you, and all the plants and trees that make up our web of life!
To order from Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/454182102/pinon-pine-healing-balm

Vervain seeds are in the ground!

Let's hope they like our cold/hot sunny climate here in Colorado.

My new Owl banner

I am working on a triptych for an art show coming up, and thought I would use part of it for my new blog banner. Thanks to Barn Owl for the inspiration! and since the garden is under snow right now, I won't be harvesting new herbs for a while. . . . look for new soap as summer approaches.

Soap making time!

The air has been so clear and warm, the sun is out, and that makes me head out to the greenhouse.
It's time for a new Spring batch of soap!

I have enough Calendula from last year to make one good additional batch. That, along with the Vervain, and the antibacterial and soothing exfoliants in this soap will be perfect.
AND of course, the Shea butter, which my skin loves. I hope yours does, too!

 Look for this soap in my Etsy shop in about a month.