How to Make Vegan Wax Melts + Stress Support Essential Oil Blend
Since I started sharing recipes for my aroma melts, people have asked me for a beeswax-free version. I was initially reluctant because the vegan wax alternatives can be a bit finicky, and I have always had great luck with beeswax. I finally decided to accept the challenge and took a retreat to my creative space to formulate a vegan wax melt recipe. After a few dozen rounds of trial and error, I discovered that carnauba wax is my preferred beeswax alternative. It has no aroma and is a much harder wax, so I don’t have to use as much of it as I would in a typical wax melt.
The hard part was finding the golden ratio to get the melts to stay solid at room temperature while also having them melt in store-purchased wax melters! And by golly, I have done it! It took hours of testing different ratios and combinations, but I finally came up with a core recipe I feel good about.
If you think “watching grass grow” is hard, you should try “watching carnauba wax melt.” Luckily, I have done lots of that for you so you can just jump to the fun part!
DIY Dry Shampoo Recipes for Dark & Light Hair
There has been a lot of buzz lately around DIY and natural hair care. In the previous weeks, we’ve shared no-poo recipes, DIY hair rinses, and fermented rice water treatments. A perfect pairing to all those homemade hair care products is having a dry shampoo to get you in between “washes.”
Dry “shampoos” are created to work without water, and there has been a long history of people using powdered herbs, grains, and natural cosmetic clays to remove excess oil and dirt build-up. These ingredients naturally absorb oils and can then be brushed out without causing damage to the hair or scalp. Dry shampoos can also be a good option for folks who want to shampoo once or twice a week, using powders between washings to keep hair fresh, full, and manageable. They also come in handy when packing for camping trips and outdoor festivals!
We’ve created two different powders, one dry shampoo for dark hair (made with cocoa or carob powder) and another for lighter hair colors, but you can adjustment ingredients to suit your needs. Both shampoo blends are built around a base of organic tapioca powder, a super lightweight starch that becomes pretty much invisible once applied.
Interviews on Herbal Radio with Thomas Dick | Featuring Ruby Daniels
This week’s episode of Herbal Radio features the botanical spiritualist, conservation-focused farmer, and owner of Creasy Jane’s herbal remedy store, Ruby Daniels. As a young girl, Ruby spent many of her summers in West Virginia roaming around the outdoors and crafting herbal concoctions with plants she’d find along her adventures. Inspired by her grandmother, a wise herbal healer in her community, Ruby was intrigued to unlock the spiritual connection between humans and the botanicals surrounding us. Today, Ruby is an advocate for sustainable farming and wild harvesting practices through her soil conservation work with USDA, along with sharing Afrolachian history and herbal remedies through her business, Creasy Jane’s, which was inspired by her grandmother and many other herbal healers in her community.
Sprouts: Growing Sustainable Food On Your Countertop
Eating sprouted seeds is a relatively recent culinary trend in the U.S., even though they are ridiculously easy to grow and can be an excellent source of potassium, magnesium, folate, beta-carotene, calcium, vitamin C, and vitamin K. These days, bean sprouts, grain sprouts, and salad sprouts are readily available at farmers markets, natural foods stores, and in the produce section of many grocery stores. But I grow my own because it’s easy to do, saves me money, and I like to keep control over the process to ensure that the sprouts I feed my family are safe and at the peak of flavor and nutrition.
Sprouts: Grow Sustainable Food on Your Countertop
Eating sprouted seeds is an easy, delicious way to capture a botanical’s nutrients, minerals, and vitamins at their peak. Depending on the sprouts you choose, they can be an excellent source of potassium, magnesium, folate, beta-carotene, calcium, vitamin C, and also vitamin K, which is a key vitamin for bone growth and blood clotting. They add flavor and texture to a wide variety of foods: salads, sandwiches, bagels, stir-fries, soups, frittatas, scrambled eggs, and more! These days they’re easy to find at farmers markets, natural foods stores, and in the produce section of many grocery stores, but did you know they are remarkably simple to grow right on your kitchen countertop? All you need is a jar, a sprouting screen or cheesecloth, seeds, and water.
Plant Stories | Featuring Kristy Bredin
This week’s Plant Stories episode features the marine herbalist, purveyor of seaweeds, and founder of Mermaid Botanicals, Kristy Bredin. With a passion for exploration, wildcrafting, and utilizing the medicinal plants of the Pacific Northwest, Kristy found herself drawn to the eldest marine ancestors of all botanicals we know today, seaweeds! We sit down with Kristy and learn about her journey that began through apprenticeships with wise herbalists who embarked her on her journey into the vast ocean of herbalism, wildcrafting, and seaweed activism. Kristy shares with us her profound knowledge of the ancient history of seaweeds, responsible seaweed harvesting practices, utilizing seaweeds as plant medicine, and even her recipe for kelp pickles!
Homemade Elderberry Gummies (Vegan)
We love elderberries for their nutritious immune benefits and delicious flavor, so we’re always excited for new recipes, and right now we’re all about elderberry gummies. Unfortunately, gummies are usually made with gelatin, which is a hard no for our vegan friends. We wanted to create an elderberry gummy that anyone can enjoy, but how do you get a gelatin-like gummy without the gelatin? The key is agar-agar powder! Agar-agar comes from the structure of cell walls in certain kinds of red algea, so this wonder of nature is vegan-friendly and makes a beautiful, shiny, delicious gummy that has a nice “squish” and works especially well in candy molds. If you’ve ever had a Japanese fruit jelly, you’ll recognize the consistency of agar gummies. What a fun way to get a little boost of immune-supporting elderberries!
Indigenous Burning Practices in Wildfire Management & Native Plant Propagation
On a warm October afternoon in 2021, roughly 40 personnel from Oregon forest agencies, area tribes, and conservation groups, including the Long Tom Watershed Council, gathered on the Andrew Reasoner Wildlife Preserve outside Eugene. Among them were a dozen Native American firefighter trainees who had spent the week learning the essentials of wildfire suppression. That the culmination of their training would be the deliberate burning of an eight-acre parcel of land might strike some as contrary, even outrageous. As a former National Park Ranger who served as a firefighter in the early 90s, this certainly flew in the face of the training I’d received.
Are My Herbs Irradiated?! Learn About Irradiation in Our Food System & How to Avoid It
Irradiation of food is a topic that is increasingly showing up as a point of concern for Mountain Rose customers, so I want to take a minute to talk about this timely subject. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of food irradiation in 1963 to kill bacteria, molds, insects, etc. in wheat and flour. Today, the FDA has approved irradiation for fruits, vegetables, eggs in the shell, spices and seasonings, sprouting seeds, poultry, crustaceans and shellfish, and red meats. Food irradiation involves exposing foods to one of three different types of ionizing radiation: gamma rays from cobalt-60, x-rays, or electron beams. The FDA uses this technology to improve food safety and extend storage and shelf life. Meanwhile, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organics Program (NOP), which oversees the nation’s organics labeling, prohibits the use of irradiation to treat organic products because the process alters the natural state of food. These two opposing views present consumers with something of a conundrum.
7 Best Herbs for Natural Hair Care
Since time immemorial, people have looked to herbs to support healthy, beautiful hair. In the modern world, however, mainstream haircare products are typically made from chemicals: including sulfates, parabens, synthetic fragrances, formaldehyde, phthalates like DEHP, and other toxic ingredients. When we use these products, we increase our exposure to potentially harmful chemicals every time we wash and/or style our hair. It behooves us to take a look at natural herbal haircare practices. As well as being chemical-free, the best haircare herbs are time-tested; they have been used by humans for thousands of years. Herbal blends, infusions, extracts, and other botanical formulations bring the power of nature to nourish and stimulate the scalp, strengthen and moisturize follicles, soften hair, restore shine and bounce, help with manageability, and more.
For many of us, the prevalence of chemicals in our hair and skin care products has become personal. Diagnosed multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) have increased by over 300% since 2008. Symptoms can include skin rashes, burning or watery eyes, increased or irregular heartbeat, migraine headaches, dizziness, asthma symptoms, breathing issues, swollen lymph nodes, muscle or joint pain, and more. Worse, some of the chemicals regularly used in over-the-counter haircare products are known endocrine disruptors and are linked to cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic issues, and problems in pregnancy. Regular use of these products exposes us bit by bit to chemicals that accumulate.
