DIY Sheet Mask Recipe for Dry Skin
Sheet masks are one of my favorite at-home spa skin care recipes to make. For those of you who may not have heard of them before, sheet masks are a skin care treatment that uses a piece of fabric soaked in a solution that is intended to bring a host of benefits to the skin. They can be found in just about any store that sells skin care products, but they come at the price of additional preservatives for shelf stability and single-use packaging. They also range in price, with the inexpensive ones including less than natural ingredients and the expensive ones being well…expensive! This is why I opt to make my own.
They are shockingly easy to make and are customizable for all skin types and needs. Sheet masks often feature hydrosol, herbal infusions, skin care oils, vegetable glycerin, and in my home spa, raw honey from my apiary. The key to a good sheet mask is to craft it so the mixture of water-based ingredients and oil-based ingredients is balanced.
Watery ingredients like hydrosols, herbal infusions, and vegetable glycerin are light and help to evenly coat the cloth. They are also easily penetrable and absorbable in the skin. In this recipe, I called upon rose hydrosol which is gentle and refreshing. I will also sometimes use cucumber hydrosol if I’m seeking an even gentler mask experience. I also added vegetable glycerine because my dry skin likes this inclusion. Vegetable glycerine is a humectant, meaning it helps the skin retain moisture.
Understanding Aroma Notes for Essential Oil Blending: Base Notes
The art of essential oil blending is a delicate and thoughtful process that I often compare to the individual layers added to a painting. Just as each brush stroke on a canvas gradually builds on the layer of paint underneath to create a harmonious result, crafting essential oil blends applies the same principle. In the world of perfumery and essential oil blending, the three commonly recognized “paint” layers are known as fragrance notes, which encompass top notes, middle notes, and base notes. At the foundation of these blended layers, you will find base notes.
Also referred to as the fixative note, dry out note, or bottom of the aroma, base notes are the rich scents that linger the longest in an essential oil blend. Typically, base notes make up between 5% and 20% of a blend. Although this percentage may sound small, base notes truly make the age-old saying “a little goes a long way” live up to its name.
Brightening Berry and Honey Face Mask & Exfoliant
This year, I set out to create a natural skin care treatment for my dull and dry winter skin. So I took to my crafting space to work on a mask and scrub that was brightening and cleansing. After several iterations, I created one that I’m quite excited about, and I think you all are going to enjoy it, too.
When creating new skin care recipes, I generally formulate them with ingredients I can use for other things. I especially like it when the core ingredients can be used internally for health and wellness, as in this recipe. Here are the ingredients that inspired this recipe, along with reasons they are good for the skin and other ways to use them.
Exploring the Senses Through Aromatherapy
Our senses tell us about the world around us. One of the most interesting sensory explorations is smell because our olfactory system sends signals directly to our brain and is one of the most immediate ways to trigger emotions. As you may have seen in the “blind tea tasting” video we shared a few weeks ago, blind tasting and smelling offers insights into how we can connect with plants before putting a label or perceived function on them. With that in mind, we’re excited to share this video of our friend, Erika Gentian of Sovereignty Herbs. Erika recently visited our headquarters in Eugene, Oregon to show us how blind hydrosol smelling can help us get to know our herbal allies. Learn more about how the power of smell can help you work with hydrosols for gentle, effective support.
DIY Sweetgrass Vanilla Body Lotion
Humans have been cultivating sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) for over 6,000 years. Sometimes called the “hair of Mother Earth,” it is said to please the spirits and is an excellent choice to prepare spaces for prayer, ritual, and meditation. In its hydrosol form, sweetgrass brings this same sense of “clearing” in its subtle, honeyed aroma and offers a green-earth undertone that makes it a perfect ingredient in a wide variety of skincare formulations including facial toners, body sprays, and lotions. We wanted to give people an easy way to experience sweetgrass hydrosol for themselves, so we whipped up a new homemade lotion recipe we think you’re going to love!
Guasha Massage Tutorial with Jiling Lin
Have you ever had the opportunity to experience guasha? This traditional East Asian practice is sometimes used as a complement to massage, acupuncture, herbalism, moxibustion, energy work, lifestyle medicine, and more. Practitioners draw a guasha ban (刮痧板) (guasha tool) over the skin with varying degrees of pressure to elicit different effects on the body.
Although guasha is used to treat complex bodily issues, one wonderful way to experience this age-old art is a gentle facial guasha. We’re excited that our friend, herbalist, and East Asian Medicine practitioner, Jiling Lin, has a new blog with all the information we need to do facial guasha at home!
Homemade Deodorant: How to Make Natural, Herbal, Roll-On Deodorant
Summer being what it is—with all the extra sunshine and outdoor fun—our deodorant choices start to matter in a bigger way. Consumers have become increasingly aware of the potential issues that can come with using deodorants with ingredients like propylene glycol, aluminum, and triclosan, and have been turning more and more to natural deodorants. Unfortunately, while over-the-counter natural deodorants are a safer and more earth-friendly option than those loaded with parabens and chemicals, they are still packaged in mostly non-recyclable plastics that millions of Americans throw away every year. Happily, it’s an easy task to make your own natural, herbal, roll-on deodorant.
Just so we’re on the same page, it’s important to know that deodorants aren’t meant to reduce or eliminate sweat. No matter what those old antiperspirant ads used to tell you, sweating is essential for the human body. Its primary task, of course, is to help control body temperature, but sweating also helps moisturize the skin and increase skin hydration. The kind of sweat we produce when exercising or relaxing in a sauna is also evidence that we’re supporting heart health and mental wellbeing. Our bodies need to sweat, so it behooves us to find natural, safe ways to neutralize any resulting underarm odors from this necessary bodily process. That’s where our herbal allies come in!
This simple recipe for a liquid roll-on deodorant is a longtime, tried-and-true Mountain Rose Herbs favorite. It’s effective, wonderfully low-mess, and easily portable so we can take it with us and reapply as needed. Also, it is easy to customize to meet your unique needs and aroma preferences. Need more absorbency? Add a bit of baking soda or organic arrowroot powder. Want to customize the scent? Create your own blend of essential oils!
DIY Roll-On Lip Gloss for Summer
When I’m about to embark on a summer adventure, I always do the final check before walking out the door—keys, wallet, water, and lip balm. Being ill-equipped with any of these staples puts a real damper on my ability to take impromptu diversions on the roads less traveled.
I appreciate the ability to move with fluidity while on my outdoor excursions, but I don’t enjoy it when my lip balm embodies that sentiment, too—I needed a solution to prevent my beloved lip-assistant from melting in my car, backpack, or pocket. And further, I needed my non-melting lip balm to still work effectively! Then I had a light bulb moment; a roll top bottle would work wonderfully for this purpose!
Lemon Essential Oil: 5 Ways to Clean Your Home Naturally
We love lemon essential oil for its wellness benefits, its bright and sugary citrus aroma, and its uplifting and energizing constituents. It’s a wonderful oil in skin and hair care formulas and for diffusing in homes and offices. We also love that this cost-effective oil makes an excellent cleaning agent and leaves our homes smelling deliciously like freshly cut lemons. It’s the 76% (=)-Lionene in lemon oil that makes it so good at polishing furniture and cutting grease and sticky residues. We’re revisiting five of our favorite lemon oil-based cleaning recipes that are easy to make, safe to use, and leave our homes smelling citrus good.
Tips and Recipes for a Fresh-Smelling Home
When throwing a party, the bulk of my planning revolves around three main things: the tasty foods and craft cocktails/mocktails I will be serving; the parts of my home that need deep cleaning before the big day; and how to make the space smell and feel fresh and inviting. On this list, my favorite part is choosing my home fragrance! People often underestimate the power of scent or just don’t know where to start. With that in mind, I’m sharing some of my favorite tricks and recipes for freshening up a space.
