Earthly Delight Monday-Featuring Ingredients That Make Handmade Soap Special-Patchouli

Patchouli – (Pogostemon cablin) a bushy herb in the mint family. Patchouli grows well in warm tropical climates and originates from the tropical regions of Asia.

The heavy, earthy scent of Patchouli has been used in perfumes for centuries and it is now commonly used in incense, insect repellent and alternative medicine.

Patchouli is an excellent base note and fixative (a fixative slows the evaporation of other more volatile oils.) It is interesting to note that Patchouli improves with age, and that the aged product is what is preferred over freshly harvested. A little patchouli can be used to give other oils a mysterious earthy note. Patchouli blends well with almost any essential oil making it a must have for the blending of interesting fragrant essential oil blends.

• Patchouli is considered an important oil for bringing about the balance of relaxation and stimulation.

• Patchouli is said to bring the three forces of the body creativity, heart center and intellect into sync.

• It is also said that patchouli may bring about prosperity and abundance. Hmmm- really?

Earthly Delights Monday -Featuring Ingredients That Make Handmade Soap Special- Oats + Easy Oatmeal/Yogurt Facial Recipe

Externally – 

Oatmeal contains complex carbohydrates that when mixed with water form the colloidal part of oatmeal that softens, soothes and nourishes your skin.

Oats contain healthy fats that stay behind to repair and add moisture to your skin.

Oats help strengthen your skin’s defense against pollutants.

Oats contain Saponins (a natural foaming agent found in many plants.) that help remove dirt from pores.

Oats are a great exfoliator due to their slightly rough texture. Exfoliation= removal of dead skin cells from the skin’s outer surface.

Oatmeal/Yogurt Facial Mask

½ cup ground oatmeal – I grind mine up in a clean spice mill/coffee grinder

¼ plain yogurt or buttermilk

2 Tbs. of honey

Combine yogurt and honey with ground oatmeal to form a smooth paste. Gently pat mixture onto face and neck(leaving areas around eyes free of mixture) – let sit for 15 or so minutes and then rinse gently with warm water.

Earthly Delight Monday - Featuring Ingredients That Make Handmade Soap Special + How to Make Lavender Honey

 

Fun Trivia about Bees and Honey –

Honeybees

• There are 3 kinds of bees within the hive – Queen, Workers and Drones
• Honeybees fly at 15 mph
• Honeybees are the only insect that produces food for humans
• Honeybees are the only bees that die after they sting
• Honeybees are responsible for pollinating approx 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S.
• Bees communicate with each other by dancing and by using pheromones (scents).
• Honeybees never sleep!

Honey

• Honey is 80% sugars and 20% water.
• A single honeybee will only produce approximately 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
• A single honey bee will visit 50-100 flowers on a single trip out of the hive.
• Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
• A typical beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year.
• Honey never spoils.
• Flowers and other blossoming plants have nectarines that produce sugary nectar. Worker bees suck up the nectar and water and store it in a special honey stomach. When the stomach is full the bee returns to the hive and puts the nectar in an empty honeycomb. Natural chemicals from the bee's head glands and the evaporation of the water from the nectar change the nectar into honey.
• Out of 20,000 species of bees, only 4 make honey. 

On a different note - Honey and Insomnia

I am going to try this and let you know how it works – I have been having random intermittent bouts of insomnia for a couple of years – so at the onset of the next bout I will try this to see how it goes.

Insomnia: Honey can help you sleep. Eating honey raises your blood sugar level slightly. This results in a controlled increase of insulin, which then causes the amino acid trytophan to enter your brain. The trytophan is converted into serotonin, which promotes relaxation. Finally, in the pineal gland, with the aid of darkness, the serotonin is converted into melatonin, a well know cure for sleeping disorders. Honey also contains the ideal 1:1 ratio of fructose to glucose making it a super food for glycogen storage. Sufficient glycogen storage is necessary for restful sleep. When your liver runs out of glycogen at night, your brain starts to trigger stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin to convert protein muscle into glucose.

I wonder who was brave enough to try honey that was 2,000 years old?

• Honey stored in air tight containers never spoils. Sealed honey vats found in King Tut's tomb still contained edible honey, despite over 2,000 years beneath the sands.

How to Make Herbal Honey with Lavender

Sources; Utah County Beekeepers Association, Fun Facts about Honey, Health and Honeybees

Earthly Delight Monday - Featuring Ingredients That Make Handmade Soap Special

Rosemary – (Rosemary officinalis ) - a woody stemmed, perennial herb, with evergreen needle type leaves. Rosemary grows abundantly in the Mediterranean region flourishing on the coastal areas where the olive trees thrive. Rosemary is a member of the mint family.

 Rosemary officinalis has needle type leaves

Rosemary is derived from the Latin name rosmarinus with ros meaning “dew” and marinus meaning (sea) or “dew of the sea” aptly named this because; the rosemary plant needs little water and is in fact able to sustain itself from the mist of the sea.

Rosemary Lore

In researching rosemary, I came across some interesting mythological tidbits relating to rosemary – it is said that Aphrodite wore a draping of Rosemary when she rose from the sea ; The Virgin Mary is said to have spread her cloak over a white blossomed Rosemary bush turning the blooms a beautiful shade of blue ( a color most associated with Mary.)

Rosemary (Rosemary officinalis) with it's beautiful blue blooms

Rosemary has a reputation for improving memory and has been used a symbol for remembrance; mourners threw rosemary into graves to as a symbol of remembrance for the dead.

Rosemary sprigs also symbolize the remembrance of love, in the mid century brides and those attending the wedding would wear sprigs of rosemary as a symbol of love. The newlywed couple would then plant a sprig of rosemary; if the branch grew it was a good omen of their growing love.

 Source; wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary