This herbal formula can be employed to moisturize and soothe the skin. Always remember to put on rubber gloves for washing up and rub hand cream to your hands if they have been soaked up in water or exposed to intense weather. Below is the recipe to enable you to create your personal hand cream.

Hand Cream
Glycerin 50g
Elderflower water 75ml
Essential oil of lavender,
roses or bergamot 12 drops
Lemon juice 8 drops

Blend together the glycerin and elderflower water. Stir in the herbal oil and lemon juice and put in a screw-top jar. Fresh or dried herbs may be utilized in the preparation of hand creams and bath oils.

Herbal Foot Bath
An infusion of marigolds or lime flowers or lavender leaves added to a hot foot bath could be beneficial to your skin and serve to soothe aching and tired feet. After the foot bath dry out your feet and rub them with the essential oil of marigold flower petals to get rid of any soreness.

Herbal Soother Bath Soak
Feel up the bath tub with the required hot water and ad the following.
1/2 cup each: Lavender, Rose Petals, Sage, Rosemary
3 drops of essential orange oil.
1 cup Epsom salts, dissolve.

Note: Don’t infuse the herbs in an aluminum pot.

Herbs can help give luster and body to the hair and may be incorporated into both shampoos and conditioning rinses. One of the most natural and refreshing ways of washing your hair is to use a home-made herbal shampoo.

Herbal shampoos are created quite plainly by pouring boiling water all over fresh or dried herbs allowing them to steep for 24 hours and filter out off the liquid. The customary amount is about one heaped teaspoonful of herbs (or more when using fresh herbs) to one cup of water, but a somewhat stronger brew will do no harm at all. Add the infusion to a gentle good shampoo.

However, if you prefer to make an altogether home-made herbal shampoo, you will need another herb the soapwort. This common and appealing perennial grows close to streams and on damp waste ground. For centuries prior to the advent of commercialized soap, this plant was employed by country people for all washing uses.

The strongest concentration of the soapy substance is in the root, however it is not very pragmatic to use since you will ruin the whole plant. The leaves and stems should be ample. Although herbal shampoos can now be purchased it is much more affordable, fun and more satisfactory to create your own and contrary to commercial shampoos they contain no detergent.

When making a shampoo keep off using metallic containers as these will blemish the fragrance. Use rather pottery or china vessels with a tight-fitting cork lids, a wooden spoon and a plastic strainer. You must make certain that you purchase purified borax (from a pharmacy) and not the sort used for washing and cleaning.

A Basic Herbal Shampoo

Dried soapwort herb 2 Tbs
(or one handful of fresh leaves)
Chamomile flowers 1 Tbs
Borax 1 tsp

Divide the ingredients into two pottery or china jars. Fill each jar with 300ml boiling water. Squeeze the corks in tightly and allow the mixture to soak up for 24 hours. Give the jar a good shake up from time to time. Poor the mixture through the plastic strainer and throw away the herbs.

Bear in mind that this natural shampoo won’t be near as soapy as a commercialized shampoo. People think that a shampoo will only clean their hair properly if it creates a great amount of lather, which is the reason why all commercialized shampoos contain detergents to do just that and little else.

A gentle, gentle herbal shampoo cannot compete so far as froth goes but its cleansing and fragrant qualities are indisputable.

Having cleaned and toned up your skin, you should put on a herbal moisturizer. Any plain, unscented cold cream could be easily turned into a scented herbal cream by simply adding chopped up herb leaves to the cream. However, using this method you may find it hard to take out any little pieces of herb from your face! As an alternative you could heat the cold cream up lightly in a pan and add a little herb oil to it. Or for those more venturous you should try the following formula.

Nighttime Moisturizing Cream
Apply only a very small amount and leave it on your face nightlong.

Beeswax - 50gr
Cocoa butter - 25gr
Distilled water - 5 Tbs
Avocado oil - 5 Tbs
Wheat germ oil - 1½ Tbs
Borax - ¾ tsp

Melt down the beeswax, cocoa butter and avocado oil in a double saucepan over low heat. When all are totally liquefied and well combined, stir in the distilled water, wheat germ oil and borax. Whisk the concoction until it cools down to prevent granules forming.

Eyewash Lotion
Eye baths are restoring to fatigued eyes and useful in instances of conjunctivitis and eye strain. A cold infusion of any of the following herbs will assist clear bloodshot eyes; elderflowers, parsley, dried cornflowers, verbena, fennel and eyebright. If you could find to purchase eyebright herb, this will be by far the most effective.

The most basic steps in order to maintain a firm, supple and healthy skin are cleansing, tonic and moisturizing. Cleansing implies the removal of grim and dirt from your skin, which collects every day, particularly if you live or work in a city. Cleansing will somewhat open the pores. Therefore, the next step is to tone the skin. Toners are gently astringent and assist to close the pores up once again and firm the skin. Unavoidably both cleaners and toners tent to dry out the skin slightly and take away some of the natural oils.

The application of moisturizers will aid to keep the skin supple and prevent the establishment of wrinkles. You should clean your face thoroughly once a week. This could be done by applying a facial steam bath, a face pack or a mask. However, you should not practice these methods unnecessarily, unless you have some persistent facial skin problems, as they will dry the skin.

Facial Steam Baths

Place two cupfuls of herbs in a bowl with 1L (5 cups) of boiling water. Hold your face 30cm over the bowl and blanket your head with a large towel that makes a kind of a tent. Steam clean your face for 5 to 8 minutes. Elder flowers, chamomile, fennel, lime flowers, yarrow and sage are appropriate fort his role.

Face Packs

Method 1
Place three or four fistfuls of chopped up fresh herbs into a pan and just cover with boiling water. Simmer for around 10 minutes or till herbs form a thick mash. Set it away to cool down a little. While still warm outspread it over a cotton pad and apply this to your face but keep off the eyes and mouth. Allow for 10 to 15 minutes. Rinse with tepid water. Sage or a mix of nettle leaves and dandelion are both especially good. However, any of the herbs used for a facial will be as good.

Method 2
Combine 150ml (1/2 cup) of yogurt with 1 teaspoonful of infused fennel seeds and one teaspoonful of fresh chopped up fennel leaves. Spread over your face keeping off eyes and mouth. Allow for 10 to 15 minutes then rinse off with lukewarm water.

Cleansing Cream

This should be applied in the evening. The cleansing agent in this cream is lanolin and beeswax. Put on a small quantity, massage it well into the skin and then remove all traces with a clean tissue.

Ingredients
Beeswax - 1 Tbs
Lanolin - 2 Tbs
Avocado oil - 75ml
Herbal Water - 2 Tbs (herbal infusion with a suitable herb)
Essential oil - 2 drops (for scent)

Melt down beeswax with lanolin in a double saucepan over low heat. Once they convert into a liquid fuse in the avocado oil. Withdraw the saucepan from the heat and mix in the herbal water and essential oil. Stir constantly till cool. Place the cream in a clean sterilized screw-top jar.

-When using any form of face mask or pack protect your eyes with cotton wool balls soaked in cold water.
-A good basic cleaner is an investment.
-Fennel acts as both tonic and wrinkle smoother.

Herbs have been employed in cosmetics for thousands of years. However, for a long time they were suppressed by synthetic factory-made cosmetic products. It is only the last few years, attributable to the demand for pure natural cosmetics, that a number of manufacturers commenced to incorporate herbs and herbal extracts into their merchandise.

While it is at present possible to purchase many herbal beauty products, it is likewise easy and efficient to make them yourself and worth trying out a few formulas. If you grow your own herbs or purchase them will make no difference, though the fresher the herbs they are the more effective the outcome.

Wherever a concentrated oil is called for, you must purchase it from your herbalist or through your health food shop. While at first this could appear to you costly, the truth is that the amount needed in the formulations is so small that the oil turns in to a long term investment.

It is worth recalling that herbal cosmetics only work externally. Eating the right way including good fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs in your diet and daily physical exercise, will assist you to advance beauty from the interior which is as important as the use of cosmetics.

In the coming pages I will provide numerous herbal preparations from original recipes that you can follow to make the product yourself. You might even, in time, devise your individual mixtures that exactly suit your individual requirements and may wish to share with us.

Herbal Infusions

Pour boiling water all over the appropriate herbs and allow infusing as you would if making a tea. The proportionality should be either 3-4 tablespoonfuls of fresh herbs or 1 teaspoonful of dried out herbs, to 300ml (1 and 1/4 cupfuls) of boiling water.

Utilize a china or earth ware pot but not metallic and let the herbs immerse for at least 30 minutes prior to filtering out and bottling in screw-top jars. An infusion will preserve in the refrigerator for a week. If you made more than you need for a particular recipe don’t discarded it, you could use the rest in your bath water.

For all those people without a garden it is possible to raise most of the herbs in pots or window boxes. Growing herbs indoors has the added up rewards of enabling some herbs to grow all year round which in colder climates will simply do well outside in the summer months. Though the case-by-case demands of each herb regarding soil type, watering, fertilizing and position might somewhat differ here are some all-purpose tips.

Suitable Herbs

The most suited herbs for pots and window boxes are low-growing herbs such as mint, oregano, basil, chives, parsley and tarragon. Bigger herbs such as sage and borage will incline to become dwarfed naturally once grown in confined areas. Those herbs with a spreading root system such as mint and lemon balm will require to be grown in separate pots which then could be placed in a window box.

Planting of Herbs

These days you can purchase ready to sprout herbs in small peat pots which make gardening easier. Aside from checking that temperature is within reason even and they are well aired the additional crucial points are watering and feeding.

Each herb has particular requirements but broadly feed your plants on a regular basis with liquid organic plant food according to the manufacturer’s instructions and never allow them permanently waterlogged, it is actually essential to aloud the soil to virtually dry between watering. Additionally, the soil in pots or window boxes need to be a good potting mix for herbs such as one made from same parts of sand, leaf mold and soil.

Herbs should be placed in a south or west fronting window that gets good deal of sun light. If you turn them on a regular basis around 45° you will prevent them from growing constantly towards the light and turn distorted in shape.

Harvesting of Herbs

Do not remove more than a one-fifth of the leaves from one plant at one time and make certain new leaf development has commenced before cutting again. The only exclusion to the rule will be chives of which all the leaves could be cut off at once. Healthy indoor herbs besides being of value they are pleasing aromatic plants.

Grow Herbs Indoors

The aroma of sweet-scented herbs and spices could be captivated in herb sachets. Little bags enveloping dry herbs used not just to perfume closets and drawers but as well as moth deterrents. The addition of a couple dried out stems of southernwood or wormwood is especially good as a moth repellent in addition to its aromatic fragrance.

Herb sachets could be made of small squares of silk, impressed cotton cloth fixed in to little pillows or they could be pulled together across the top and fastened with a ribbon. These methods imply that they could be filled again some time later on. Fill up either with a mixture of herbs of equal amounts or just with a individual herb such as lavender or lemon verbena or with a few of the following mixtures.

Herbal sachet mixture 1
Blend same quantities of rosemary, tansy, and southernwood or wormwood plus 15grams of crushed cloves. This is both sweet-smelling and moth repellent.

Herbal sachet mixture 2
Mix together same quantities of mint, tansy, cotton lavender and wormwood and add some broke up cinnamon sticks. Blend well and add up a little dried out orange or lemon peel. This is fresh-scented and also works as a moth repellent.

Herbal sachet mixture 3
Use same quantities of balm and southernwood, or wormwood and add up twice the same amount as the previous herbs of rose petals and again add twice as much as all the previous herbs of lavender. Finally add up some crashed coriander seeds, cloves or cinnamon.

Herb sachets

Sweet Cicely is a beautiful, easy to care, perennial herbaceous plant with large haired finely separated fern alike leaves and umbels of white flowers. Sweet Cicely has a mild Anise flavor and young sprouts, foliage and seeds supply sweetness when cooked with fruit.

Sweet Cicely needs a few years to achieve its full height of 1.5 meters. It could be used fresh for just about the whole year since it is one of the first, if not the first, herb to come out in spring and the last one to die out in fall.

Propagation of Sweet Cicely

Plant directly outdoors in very early spring or fall small plants, sow seeds with a light cover of about 2 cm deep or by root division. Distance plants about 45cm apart and pinch out flower buds to advance development. If flowering is permitted to go ahead the herb will rapidly go to seed.

Pick leaves as needed but for drying out pick them in spring. Roots could be cooked and used as vegetables. Fresh leaves can be added in salads or stewed fruit and since it is very sweet will cut back the amount of sugar ordinarily needed. As well for delightful citrus-sweet herb tea blends some leaves with mint and lemon balm can be used.

Sweet Cicely

Comfrey is a hardy, perennial herbaceous plant of the family Boraginaceae with a turnip-like root and large, broad hairy leaves. It bears small convex white, cream, purplish or pink blossoms.

It is endemic to Europe, thriving in moist, grassy sites. Comfrey has long been accredited by both organic gardeners and herbalists for its great usefulness and versatility. It has been employed for centuries as curative herb of excellence.

Comfrey is a quick growing plant, giving rise to large quantities of leaf during the growing time of year; very nitrogen hungry. Although it will carry on growing regardless of nitrogen availability, it will do well from the addition of animal manure put on as mulch.

Developed comfrey plants could be harvested up to four or five times a year. They are ready for cutting once about 60-70cm high. Cut back the plant about 5cm above the soil, taking care when handling it since the leaves and stems are covered up in hairs that could irritate the skin.

Propagation is by seed or root division during autumn. When parting comfrey plants take care not to disperse root breaks up around, or discard on the compost pile as from each one a new plant could re-root, and comfrey could be a very hard plant to get rid of.

Comfrey is a especially worthily source of fertility to the organic gardener. It is a very deeply rooted plant mining a host of nutrients from the ground. These are then made available by its fast growing leaves which, rapidly break down leaving all important plant nutrient needful for flowers, seed and fruit yields.

One of its country names for comfrey was ‘knit bone’, a reminder of its traditional employment in healing. Contemporary science substantiates that comfrey can act upon the course of bone ailments. The herb contains allantoin, a cell proliferant that accelerates the natural replacement of body cells.

Comfrey was utilized to treat a variety of ailments ranging from bronchial problems, broken bones, sprains, arthritis, gastric and varicose ulcerations, serious burns, acne and other skin conditions. Internal usage of comfrey should be avoided.