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.
What is a Hydrosol? + 10 of Our Favorites
Herbalists love hydrosols for their ease of use and versatility in aromatherapy, body care formulations, therapeutic applications, cosmetics, and more. They add variety and scope to our herbal practices and we appreciate the added safety they give us when working with children, elders, and pets. But what exactly are hydrosols, is one as good as another, and how do you use them? We’re excited to tell you more about these distilled botanical extracts, plus we’ve got good tips on best uses and some suggestions about which ones you might like best.
10 Ways to Use Hydrosols + Our Favorites
Hydrosols are high quality, distilled botanical extracts, not to be confused with the “floral waters” you might have seen for sale that are often just water combined with essential oils. Hydrosols are beloved by the herbal community for their ease of use and versatility in aromatherapy, herbal body care formulations, therapeutic applications, cosmetics, and household recipes. They add variety and scope to our herbal practices, and we appreciate the added safety they give us when working with children, elders, and pets. Although they are made using the same distillation process as essential oils, they are more sustainable because distillers get significantly more hydrosol per distillation. But not all hydrosols are created equally. We’re excited to tell you more about these lovely plant waters.
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap with Soap Nuts
I have to admit, it was really difficult for me to believe that soap nuts could actually work. My skepticism caused me to walk by them at my local natural grocery store for years. I liked the idea of an all-natural laundry solution, but I figured soap nuts would not be effective enough to take on the heavily soiled laundry from homesteading and an overall active lifestyle.
That attitude persisted until about six years ago, when I first started working for Mountain Rose Herbs. Colleagues and customers alike raved about these mystical soap nuts (which aren’t actually nuts at all), so I decided to finally give them a try. I’m really glad that I did, and my wallet and septic system continue to thank me daily.
While many people enjoy the common method of using deseeded soap nuts directly in the wash, I prefer to make them into a liquid detergent. It is an added step and requires a bit more forethought, but I have found that you have more control over the concentration of saponins and the liquid disperses more evenly throughout each laundry load.
