aromatherapy recipes & remedies

Incense for the Longest Night

Incense for the Longest Night

Today’s recipe is the last for this winter series–it’s also the final item I’m making and sharing to use in my 2017 Yule ritual. This is incense for the longest night, essentially an aromatic altar offering for Yule. Stick incense using essential oils can easily…

Winter Winds Lip Balm

Winter Winds Lip Balm

With snow accumulating and winds whipping, it’s time to add some protective lip balm to our maker’s list–we’ll need enough for stuffing stockings and some for our own pockets, zippers, and mittens. WAIT. Zippers and mittens? Yep, zippers and mittens. That’s because we make our…

Siberian Fir Melt & Pour Soaps

Siberian Fir Melt & Pour Soaps

  Guests always comment on the quality and aroma of our hand soaps. Both the foaming hand soaps we have at our kitchen sink or the guest soaps we have in the guest bath garner all kinds of comments. People unanimously love well-crafted aromatic soaps.…

Cardamom and Sweet Orange Beeswax Candles

Cardamom and Sweet Orange Beeswax Candles

I’m on a bit of a tear with cardamom and sweet orange essential oils. For one thing, cardamom and sweet orange essential oils smell incredible together. For another thing, I accidentally have too much of each. What to do? Indulge some aromatic beeswax candles! Honestly,…

Whipped Vanilla Jasmine Shea Butter

Whipped Vanilla Jasmine Shea Butter

Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of whipped Shea butter myself–if I’m going to enjoy Shea I’ll typically blend it into a cream or body butter. (The one exception: I lurve whipped Shea butter on my dry, cracked hands!) But I have a dear friend…

Cocoa & Vanilla Tub Truffles

Cocoa & Vanilla Tub Truffles

What the hell are tub truffles? Tub truffles are basically candy for your skin. Tub truffles are tiny “bath candies” designed to add yumminess and skin-nourishing oils to your bath. We call them “tub truffles” because they smell like chocolate (thanks to the cocoa butter)…

Nourishing Face Serum

Nourishing Face Serum

Real talk: I’m thinking I could use some TLC for my face this winter. Between brutally cold winds and, you know, my age, I want more than just cream for my face in my natural medicine cabinet. It’s time for Nourishing Face Serum, y’all.  …

Midnight Sun Bath & Body Scrub

Midnight Sun Bath & Body Scrub

  It’s been a bit cold (and energetically frosty) here, y’all. With a construction crew tearing up my kitchen and the sun hiding all day after a late rise with an early set, I find myself hankering for some aromatherapy sunshine. My remedy? Heartwarming, uplifting,…

Fragrant Foaming Hand Soaps

Fragrant Foaming Hand Soaps

There’s something incredibly satisfying about crafting your own cleaning products. I vividly remember the first time I made a foaming hand cleanser–I felt like a sorceress when the fragrant foam came out. Considering how dirty our hands get doing all the things on our farm,…

Gifts of the Magi Resin Incense

Gifts of the Magi Resin Incense

The Christmas season inevitably raises awareness of two blessed aromatic gifts: frankincense and myrrh. Among the gifts that the Wise Men brought to honor the newborn baby Jesus, frankincense and myrrh resins were precious, sacred, and celebrated. It’s no wonder frankincense and myrrh come to…

Bug Off! Natural Bug Repellents

Bug Off! Natural Bug Repellents

  It’s that time of year again! Ten minutes on the trail and 100 mosquito bites later, I’m reminded I need to refresh our homemade bug repellents…. We had great luck with the blend I made last year–no skeeter or tick bites all season! (PHEW.)…

Healing Rays Soothing Calendula Salt Scrub

Healing Rays Soothing Calendula Salt Scrub

This is a wonderful relaxing, anti-inflammatory scrub for the tub that looks and smells like a bright ray of sunshine. Whereas the coffee and sugar scrub is designed to thrill with you wonderful fragrance, this next one is anti-inflammatory, relaxing, and ultra-nourishing for your skin. It’s…

creamy exfoliating facial scrub

creamy exfoliating facial scrub

While I love the wonderful facial cleansers I have on hand of my own making, I recently found myself hankering for a facial scrub without sugar, coffee, or salt that feels like the facial scrub I left behind years ago. The name rhymes with Ain’t Hives…. I loved that scrub for years…

fragrant herbal body powders

fragrant herbal body powders

As a treat for the holidays, I’m sharing some recipes to help you craft natural, handmade gifts for friends, loved ones, hostesses, and distant cousins… Today, it’s all about herbal body powders… First, your BASE recipe (aka natural body powder!):   Combine Arrowroot powder and…

sublime organic facial cleansers for all skin types

sublime organic facial cleansers for all skin types

So simple to make and so incredibly amazing. Hurray for wild and wise, natural and intentional, pure and simple goodness for our faces! Compared to over-the-counter cleansers laden with long lists of complicated, synthetic ingredients that tend to strip skin, the natural and organic facial cleansers offered…

aromatic melt & pour soaps

aromatic melt & pour soaps

Few DIY projects are as easy as making your own aromatic melt-and-pour soaps — just about anyone can do it, you don’t need many special supplies, and the resulting products are superior in quality and fragrance to most store-bought soaps. You can create unique blends…