Processing Pine Pitch for Use in Personal Care & Health Products

One of my favorite things I learned this year in my herbal apprenticeship with Cedar Mountain Herb School was how to harvest and use pine (Pinus spp.) resin — aka pine pitch — from the abundant conifers we have growing all around us in North Idaho.

Pine pitch is stimulating, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory and is well suited to all sorts of topical applications. It speeds the healing of inflammatory skin irritations, rashes, burns and wounds. It also has astringent properties that make it useful for drawing out splinters.

Practicing Nasya at Home

The Ayurvedic practice of nasya (pronounced nah-si-ya) is the therapeutic ritual of oiling the nostrils and administering herbal therapies via the nasal cavity. The oil nourishes and cleanses the tissues, helping them to remain moist, healthy and balanced. The oil also acts as a protective physical barrier against allergens and environmental pollutants, reducing inflammation and preventing mucus from reforming.

Making a CBD Salve with St. John’s Wort

A good CBD salve can be an indispensable tool in your pain-management arsenal. The trouble is, CBD products can be so darn expensive — particularly if you’re a salve snob like yours truly and want an organic, clean, high-quality salve infused with botanicals.

Fortunately, high-quality salves are easy to make, and investing in a jar of CBD concentrate makes it FAR more affordable to keep CBD salve in the budget!

Working with St. John’s Wort

St. John’s wort is one of the best known and most used herbal medicines in the world. And like so many of our medicinal wild plants, it’s considered a noxious weed in much of the western US.  In my county, we’re actually required to eradicate all trace of the plants on our property within 10 […]

Making a Healing Scar Salve w/ Gotu Kola & Comfrey

It’s not such a coincidence that many of the same herbs that are beneficial to keeping aging skin healthy and happy are also useful for healing wounds and minimizing scarring — it’s all about skin repair!

Simple Garlicky Goat Cheese Nettles​

jump to the recipe Thanks to an unseasonably cold, wet spring, my nettle patch was starting to get very leggy, reaching skyward for every little bit of sunshine they could grab onto. You know it’s been a damp spring when your vegetable garden is starting to resemble Super Mario Brothers: Cutting back plants is an […]

Make-Ahead Fresh Garlic-Infused Olive Oil (Minus the Botulism)

As our days get busier, we are far more likely to reach for pre-packaged mixes and other convenience foods to lighten our load and make dinner prep a bit easier. These are some of my favorite homemade kitchen helpers you can make in advance and keep handy for those extra-hectic evenings… or even the non-hectic ones. Work smarter, not harder! Fresh […]

“All the Lipids” Facial Oil with Sea Buckthorn

Awhile back, I was given a sample of Skin Active’s Every Lipid Serum to try out and really liked it. So of course, I immediately set out to make my own version. It started out as a pretty solid dupe, but true to form, I ended up going a bit rogue. (*squirrel!* *shiny ball!* *herbs!*)

Making Herbal Oil Infusions

Infused oils are a foundational cornerstone of herbal-powered wellness products such as salves, creams, lotions, serums and other topical formulations. Oil acts as a solvent (aka menstruum) to capture oil-soluble plant constituents such as alkaloids, gums, resins, volatile oils, and certain oil-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), allowing the plant’s therapeutic compounds to be delivered to the skin.