Herbal Skin Care

Calendula salve is a handy herbal first aid product, easy and inexpensive to make. If you have garden space, calendula is easily grown and makes a fabulous skin herb. The salve is useful whenever calendula would be used for the skin. A salve is also called a balm or an ointment. It is a slightly hard texture and the hardness varies depending on how much wax is added. Salves are a combination of liquid oil with a wax, hard oil or butter or animal fat. TheContinue Reading…

Using green tea for skin health is effective as a protector against cancer as well as an overall toning and astringent antioxidant. Being high in antioxidants, green tea is highly useful for sun protective formulas to prevent damage to the skin. I have used green tea extract in cream formulas, as part of the water phase, for the sun protective effects and as an overall antioxidant for preventing premature aging, lines and wrinkles. There are several studies detailing green tea’s significant preventative effect against eachContinue Reading…

Below are 7 calendula recipes for skin care uses. If you want to learn more about the particular uses for this herb, check out Calendula for Skin. I just love herbs that can be used in so many ways, for so many reasons! There are a variety of ways to use this sunny herb. I use the flower mostly; though I like to use the leaf as well, it is not commercially available. But if you grow it feel free to use both. If I wantedContinue Reading…

Uses of calendula for skin range from beauty to first aid. Calendula grows with the sun-that is, it has a long growing season if started from seed and will be ready to harvest in late summer or early fall, as the sun starts to lessen. Calendula is used in everything from lip balms, tinctures, wound washes and oils. This affinity for the sun shows us that calendula embodies certain qualities. It shines light and warmth where it is needed. Energetically, it is warm and bothContinue Reading…

There are many differences between essential oils and herbal oils. Matter of fact, the only real similarity is the plant from which they come… oftentimes, I see the two totally different products being confounded into one. It is important to distinguish between the two. Many times I encounter people saying that they tried to make an herbal oil and it didn’t turn out how they expected. I suspect this is because they are imagining an essential oil as the final product. The two are completelyContinue Reading…

Most folks know of the most common use of aloe vera for skin: treating burns. Did you know that there are many other applications for aloe? I’ve used aloe vera in creams, toners, blended with lavender essential oil and straight! I find it has an astringent, toning and tightening nature which makes it an excellent toner on its own, to be used under a skin oil. Being water-based, aloe can hydrate and moisturize. It is also soothing, cooling and extremely healing. It is used inContinue Reading…

Comfrey oil and comfrey salve have basically the same medicinal properties. The differences are 1) in the addition of beeswax in the salve and 2) the end use for the creation. Beeswax is a binder, a thickener, and a skin protective substance. To make a salve, it is a third or quarter of the final product (recipe below). A salve makes for easier application. I also prefer salves for on the road and for many medicinal applications. For instance, myself and others that have usedContinue Reading…

Comfrey oil (Symphytum officinale) is another potent herbal remedy for skin care. It is high in allantoin, a mucilaginous healing substance that causes cell growth. An old European folk remedy, many uses of comfrey abound. Being mucilaginous, common uses of comfrey include healing wounds, preventing scars and treating existing ones, decreasing dryness and flaky skin, and soothing irritated skin. Comfrey also has mild astringent and drawing qualities, making it useful for alleviating cysts, toning a loss of texture/firmness on the skin and increasing movement ofContinue Reading…

Herbal oils are fantastically useful and practical to have on hand. I’ve used them as an emollient for the bath, as a body moisturizer, for all dry or irritated skin, on the hair and scalp, fingernails, for massage, as a base for creams and salves, face moisturizer, as cleansing agents…hmm, any other ideas?? The gist is, as a great natural skin care aid! Herbal oils are also called infused oils, or herbal-infused oils. They are a mixture of herbs with a natural skin care oil,Continue Reading…

Herbal skin care is an ancient way of tending the largest organ of the body- the skin! It involves the use of plants for daily maintenance of the skin, treating particular skin conditions and beautifying the body. Before we go into the details, you can get all of the herbs and ingredients listed in this article through this company. They are ethical, high quality, and renowned for their selection. Divine Daily Maintenance with Herbs On a daily basis, we use products to care for ourContinue Reading…