Want to spruce up your life? Start diffusing spruce essential oil! This expression – ‘to spruce up’ meaning ‘to make trim or neat’ – doesn’t come from the essential oil but it well could. It actually harks back to the 1500s when spruce leather was popular for making smart-looking jerkins. Personally I think we should bring [...]
We live in a mobile world. From portable devices to portable jobs and online shopping, most of us expect ease and simplicity and the ability to do lots of things while on the go. I’ve tried to dig my heels in and stem the tide – slow food, minimal social media, growing my own fruit and [...]
If there’s anything better than cheese, it’s cheese in the form of a cake! While I love essential oils and I’m vigilant about removing toxins from my environment to the best of my ability, I have a huge confession: when it comes to the dietary side of things, I am not as pure as the driven [...]
Are you sage about sage essential oils? Today, let’s take a look at three of them: common sage, clary sage and Spanish sage. All of them are members of the very large Lamiaceae botanical family, which includes many culinary herbs like basil, rosemary, sages and thyme. Walk through a garden of these plants brushing past them [...]
Dew of the sea. Rosemary's name came about through the latin for ros (dew) and marinus (sea). Hardy and tenacious, this beloved herb is symbolic of remembrance. And its essential oil helps impart this trait to those of us who use it. Going back to ancient Greece, rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis CT cineole) was burned as incense [...]
Where there’s manure, there’s a pony! Is this bright optimist you? Or are you already heading off for a shovel, cussing and wondering why you wanted a horse in the first place? Even if you’re of the ‘glass half full’ nature, what if you’re closely involved with a negative neddy or nelly and their constant ‘glass [...]
"One for sorrow, two for joy ..." Does this old nursery rhyme automatically tumble out of your mouth when you see magpies? It does mine! But if you see just one maggie in your travels today, don’t worry: you can use your essential oils to find your joy. Inhalation of these beautiful gifts of nature – [...]
When it comes to pine essential oil, the Scots would say "Guid gear comes in sma' bulk" – as in, "Good things come in small packages." Pinus sylvestris is also called Scots Pine and is the national tree of Scotland. Very fitting, given they need good sets of lungs for making their bagpipes sing. Diffusing this [...]
Journeys. We talk about life being a journey but maybe it’s a succession of them. Either way, we need to make peace with the idea that we will have to leave things behind in order to move forwards. It could be a concept or dream we’re leaving behind. Other times, it’s possessions, or people we love [...]
Kids will be kids and kids should be kids. But exuberance can turn to upset in the blink of an eye. So can peace. So can low energy and no big surprise: so can high! If the scales have tipped and tantrums or tears are on red alert, it’s awesome to have natural help on hand [...]
