Not for Wussies

Check this out.

I received a sample of a new product today, something I want to test out in my massage practice. It’s an Ayurvedic muscle balm.  To quote the supplier’s website: “Essential Oils of Camphor, Peppermint, Ajowan, Eucalyptus, Nutmeg, Wintergreen, Clove and Cinnamon in a base of Beeswax.” Sounds good already!

It looks fairly innocent.

But looks are deceiving!

Wow, just wow. 

This stuff is strong.

It makes Tiger Balm look like Kitten Rub.

And it leaves you smelling like a yummy Indian restaurant.

I can see this as being useful not just for muscle aches, but also as a chest rub for relieving the congestion associated with colds and flu. 

This won’t be for sale in the Etsy shop because it isn’t handmade by me and doesn’t quite fit into the “Supply” category either.  It will be available by “prescription” to my in-person clients, though.

I’m Feeling A Bit Dear Abby-ish

I’d like to start up an advice column feature on this blog.  How often the column will be published depends on the response from you, my wonderful readers.  So please send me lots of questions!

Obviously, your name won’t be published unless you want it to be.

I prefer the questions be about essential oils or aromatherapy, but if there is some other matter that is really burning a hole in your head, go ahead and throw ‘er at me!  Hey, I did take an introductory course in Counselling!  (I’m just kidding!  Not about taking the course, but about being able to offer real psychological advice.  You need a professional for that.)

Who wants to be the first to give it a try?  Just e-mail me your questions!

You can also use my submission form.

Getting in touch with my inner Martha

I like my studio to be organized.

 

I like everything to have its own place.

I like surfaces that are free of clutter.

I like all those things.

That does not mean that I actually have any of those things.
(You didn’t really think those pictures were mine, did you? Puh-leeze!)

I do enjoy implementing tidy storage systems, so I always start out with those aforementioned things.

Then somehow the place ends up looking like Fred Sanford’s front yard.

Barmp-barmp-BAR-nar

Barmp-barmp-BAR-nar-bar-nar-bar

Oh, Elizabeth!  I’m coming to join you!

Er, anyway.  Where was I?

I am constantly sorting, purging, re-arranging and re-organizing all the stuff in my studio. You can see what I mean by clicking here.  And here.  I just get bored after a while.  Moving is out of the question, and painting is too much work (and that could get expensive).

So I re-organize and re-arrange.

It’s a compulsion, really.

And now I’m at it again.  This time I’ll call it “Fall Cleaning”.  The people I’ve lived with over the years just call it “annoying”.  (Don’t think there is any room in the house exempt from my condition!  My poor husband never knows where to find the cheese grater, since I’m always re-locating its assigned storage spot.)

I got these beautiful jars from Value Village and filled them up with all my raw materials. Salts, powders, sugars, clay.

Rose petals.  When I saw this jar on the shelf at the store, it actually said, “Please fill me up with rose petals!”

These are so cute.  Not vintage, but only a buck a piece.

Various sundries for my clients to use after a massage.

And some fortune-telling books.  Just for fun.

The rest of the room isn’t ready for you to see yet.

But when it is, you won’t be humming the theme to Sanford & Son.

You’ll be humming the theme to The Martha Stewart Show.

Or something like that.

A Cry For Help

I have a confession to make.

I’m a bit of a whore.

A book whore, that is.

It’s not like I don’t already have shelves full of books about aromatherapy, essential oils, herbs, homeopathy, reflexology, acupressure, massage therapy, energy medicine, Ayurvedic, yoga and tarot.

(Including this awesome new book that I got at the CFA retreat last weekend)

 

But I still felt the need to order these three books yesterday:

Somebody stop me.

Spotlight On: Nutmeg

Botanical Name: Myristica fragrans

Botanical Family: Myristicaceae

Type of Plant: Tree (the nutmeg is the pit of the tree’s fruit)

Method of Extraction: steam distillation

Nutmeg is probably best know as a culinary herb or flavouring agent.   The inside of the fruit is known as Nutmeg, and the outside is known as Mace, which has its own culinary uses.

Nutmeg is very stimulating and must be used with caution.  In large or long-term doses, it can cause neurological problems, even death.  Never use Nutmeg if you are pregnant or nursing and never administer it to children.  If you own Nutmeg EO, keep the bottle out of children’s reach at all times.  Note: consumption of the seasoning in normal food use is acceptable.

This herb is reportedly a hallucinogen in high doses.  However, anyone trying to use Nutmeg as a recreational drug will be sorely disappointed.  Before any type of ‘high’ will be achieved, the patient would be suffering from severe nausea, dizziness, heart palpations and paranoia. 

With all these warnings, why would one want to use Nutmeg?  Well, in small doses, it’s excellent for all manner of digestive problems, like diarrhea, flatulence or loss of appetite.   You can create a powerful blend for rheumatoid arthritis by mixing this oil with other woody herbaceous oils, such as Rosemary or Clove Bud.

Nutmeg has a warm, welcoming scent, sort of like Cinnamon or Clove.  It’s a very Christmas-y oil.  Try mixing it will a bit of Orange and diffusing it around the house during the holidays.  Alternatively, set a small pan of water to a simmer on the stove, and add whole nutmegs, cloves and cinnamon sticks.  Check periodically to make sure the water hasn’t all boiled away.

Cheap House Cleaning

I was going to call this series of blog entries “Green House Cleaning”, since a lot of these products are natural.  However, there are a few cleaning products that just aren’t going to be natural and harmless to the environment, no matter how much I simplify.  Take bleach.  It’s bad, isn’t it? I’m sure it does awful things to the environment.  But you know what?  Poop germs do awful things to my and my children’s bodies, so bleach will remain as a bathroom-cleaning staple in this household.

So the title has been changed to “Cheap House Cleaning”, since even if these products aren’t all “green”, most of them are all pretty inexpensive, especially when compared to the cost of store-bought cleaning products.

In this post, we’ll talk about what products we should always have on hand.  With the following products, you can clean just about everything in your house.

In the next post, we’ll talk about using our kits to clean.  If you have any tips, please feel free to send them to me or add them to the comments section and we’ll get them included in the next post.

Table Salt

Good old sodium chloride.   We use coarse sea salt to season our food, but for cleaning purposes you just want the cheap, finely milled stuff. 

Baking Soda

Also known as sodium bicarbonate, or sodium bicarb for those who are know it real well.  Go ahead and buy the 1kg box because you’ll be using this a lot.  Brand names make no difference, so just get what is cheapest.  Make sure you get baking soda and not baking powder.  I’m sure there is a difference, but no one really knows what it is yet.

Washing Soda

Sometimes this is called soda ash, or sodium carbonate.  This is not the same as baking soda, which is sodium bicarbonate.  There is only one carbonate in washing soda.  I don’t know what a carbonate is anyway, do you? I think that is the stuff that Jabba the Hut had Han Solo frozen in.

You can find washing soda in the laundry aisle.  The most common brand is Arm & Hammer So Clean! (That’s their exclamation mark, not mine.  Check out the picture).

Borax

This will also be in the laundry aisle, usually right beside the washing soda.  20 Mule Team is the most common brand.  Since you are already in the laundry aisle, why no pick up a couple of bars of laundry soap?  You’ll need it if you want to make your own laundry detergent.

Toothpaste

This needs to be plain, white toothpaste, not gel.  You needn’t worry about whitening power or any of the extras.  You can cheap out with this one.

White vinegar

Find the biggest bottle you can, and then buy 4 of them.  Seriously, you’ll use this for everything, so keep a lot on hand.  I’ve replaced my liquid fabric softener with vinegar – I put in right in the Downy Ball (I’m old-school – no fancy-pants dispenser on my washing machine).

Liquid Castille Soap

True castille soap is made from only olive oil, but some people accept versions made from other vegetable oils, such as coconut and sunflower.  It can also be hard to find in a regular grocery store.  You’d need to look at a health food store, and it’s a bit expensive, as is anything that is good for us or the environment.  Dr. Bronner’s is a popular brand, and it comes in a wide variety of scents. If you have trouble finding this, you can probably just use liquid dishwashing soap (not automatic dishwasher detergent), but look for one that’s phosphate-free (since we are trying to stay ‘green’ here).

Bleach

I don’t think this requires any further explanation.  It’s the only thing I trust to clean a toilet. Just make sure no one pees while you’ve got bleach in the toilet bowl, otherwise wacky hijinks (and toxic fumes) will ensue.

Lemons or Lemon Juice

You just can’t beat the scent of fresh lemons, so if you are the type to go to the market every week, keep some lemons on hand.  For the rest of us, a bottle of lemon juice in the fridge will suffice, or even some lemon essential oil.

I’ll mention here that it can’t hurt to keep a few packs of instant lemonade on hand. Get the kind you have to add your own sugar to. These contain citric acid, which is great for dissolving gunk. (And yet we drink it, how weird is that?)  I can actually buy citric acid in its raw form through one of my suppliers.

 

Essential Oils

My favourite part!  Now, which ones to recommend?  There are so many to choose from! All essential oils have some anti-bacterial properties, but some are better suited to this job than others.

For cleaning & disinfecting purposes, I’d go with Tea Tree, since it’s so easy to find in larger quantities. 

You may also like having a few citrus EOs on hand for freshening and deodorizing.  Citrus EOs (like lemon) are fairly inexpensive, and since they lose their potency quickly (about 3-6 months), you can use them freely around the kitchen and bathroom.   Just put a few drops down the drain every single time you do dishes (or run the dishwasher) and stop odours before they start.  Grapefruit is my favourite citrus oil.

Choose a couple of your favourite oils to scent the home-made cleaning products you are going to make. 

Cleaning Tools

Almost all of these products can be purchased at dollarstores.

• Vileda Scrunge sponges
• Cellulose sponges
• Rags
• Scrub brush with handle (see photo for example)Steel wool
• Microfibre cloths (You can use these on your Swiffer instead of disposable cloths)
• Washable & reusable mop heads for your WetJet, if you have one.  Search Etsy for these.
• Old toothbrush
• Old butter knife (for scraping gunk out of crevices)
• empty spray bottles and squeeze bottles (for your homemade products)
• Buckets or tubs

Aromatherapy Retreat

I am so pleased that I get to attend the CFA’s first ever Aromatherapy Retreat next weekend!

We will spending the weekend at the Loyola House in Guelph, Ontario.  Of course, I had to Google “Loyola” because it’s such an interesting name, and I found that the centre is named for St. Ignatius of Loyola, who is the patron saint of soldiers, among other things.

The grounds look beautiful.  It will still be a bit early for the trees to be fully turned to their autumn colours when we’re there, though.

The Agenda

{My personal comments are in brackets}

Friday - Sept 18

4:00 - Welcome, registration of all attendees.
- Social time with tea & coffee, and other refreshments {Pepsi is considered an “other” refreshment, right? Please?}

6:00 – Dinner

7:00 - Welcoming and announcements.
- Aromatic Introduction and Integration with Joy Watson {She is my teacher, and she is wonderful.}

8:00 - Drumming and African Dance with Goldie Sherman {Coolness!}

9:00 - Free time/Movie time  {Do you think the centre has WiFi?}

 

Saturday - Sept 19

8:00 – Breakfast {I don’t usually eat breakfast, so I’ll just sleep in if that’s okay with everyone else.  Kidding! Or not…}

9:00 - Morning Yoga with Stephie. Bring mats if you have them. {I have one, but it’s a little bit dusty.}

9:45 - Essential Oil refreshments with Fay Hiscocks
{From the CFA Newsletter:  A cold drink made of lemonade, pineapple and ice blended with Litsea cubeba, served with a savoury cheesecake with basil, sundried tomatoes and herbs in a whole wheat bottom crust. Then iced coffee with a blob of cardamom infused whipped cream and a hot green tea flavoured with essential oils.  Um, can you say yummy?}

10:30 - Art as self-expression: Connecting with your Root Chakra with Heidi Light.
Includes personal clay art piece to take home.  {I’m really looking forward to this workshop. Heidi is the lovely lady that I bought some yummy soap and a Chakra stone kit from at Aromafest this past spring.}

12:00 - Lunch

1:00 - Discover Your Intuitive Self with Atherton Drenth

3:00 - Aromatic Affirmation and Emotional Self-Discovery with Joy Watson

3:30 - Refreshment Break

4:00 - Healing Exchange or Independent grounds walk and/or quiet time

6:00 - Dinner

7:00 - Root Chakra Balancing with Aromatic Kinesiology. Creating a
Personal Chakra blend with Gayle Gage {I’m really looking forward to this workshop.  I love incorporating Chakra balancing into my treatments and welcome any opportunity to learn more.}

9:00 - Movie time/free time

Sunday - Sept 20

8:00 – Breakfast

9:00 - Aromatic Activity and Visualization with Joy Watson
followed by Aromatic Blessing while walking through the Labyrinth. {“The Labyrinth”.  That sounds intriguing and creepy at the same time.  Sorry, but images from the movie The Shining keep popping into my head.}

10:15 - Refreshment Break

11:00 - Belly Dancing with Marina Featherstone - “The 7 Aromas - Essential Oils as Music” {My belly dances every time I stand up.}

12:00 - Lunch and Closing remarks

3:00 - Enjoy the grounds after lunch, however, ALL participants must be checked out by this time.  {Wah…you mean I have to go home?}

Halloween Stuff I Like (from Etsy)

Since I can’t get a Treasury (and I don’t really know how they work anyway), I’ve compiled some neat-o (yes, I used that word) listings from Etsy to get y’all in a spooky mood.

1. This Crystal Ball pendant by TrashAndTrinkets is mine, you hear?  So don’t any of you go buying it, unless you plan to send it to me.

2. You all know how I feel about handmade soap.  Especially handmade soap that smells like yummy food, like this Candy Apple soap by BubblesUpByBethieB.

3. This Edgar Allan Poe inspired cabinet by kaleidoskopicromance will go into the dollhouse that I shall own one day.  There are several things in this shop that I need to own, in fact.  Like the baby Tarot deck.  And this desk.

4.  More miniatures!  I can’t help it, they are so dang cute.  How can you say no to this ‘lil punkin’ from Cloud9ClayCreations?  Especially since he’s all Jack Skellington-ish.

5.  This seller, missprettypretty, has creativity and talent in spades.   For those of you scratching your head and thinking, “What the heck is that?”, let me enlighten you.  It’s a playhouse designed to fit over a card table.  A-ha! Is that not the best idea anyone’s ever head?  Well, second best.  I think air conditioning was the first best idea anyone’s ever had.

6. How do people think of these things? Little felt monsters in an egg carton!  Who knew such a thing existed, and now I can’t live another day without them.  By asherjasper on Etsy.

7. My son loves soaps with toys stuck in them, like this pumpkin duckie by DuckySoaps.  He tries to chew them out sometimes.  I know, what can I say.  He’s three.

8.  Aw, look how sad this poor ghost is.  I wonder what happened to make him so despondent.  Is it because he is mourning his own death?  Whatever the reason, he can come live with me and at least one of us will be happy.  This ghost is made by mayvar, who has more talent than you can imagine.  Seriously, go take a peak at her shop.  You’ll be blown away.

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

Lately I’ve got it into my head that I need to make my own laundry detergent.  Why?  Well, I’ve heard it’s cheaper.  And it’s got to be better for the environment, since there is less manufacturing and chemicals involved.  And the main reason is that I’ve just been reading too many frugal mom blogs.

I decided to try Recipe #4 on this website.  I want a small batch because I have concerns about the powder dissolving in cold water, which is all we use to wash with.  If this doesn’t work well, I’ll try a liquid recipe.  Those are a bit more labour intensive to make and since I’m prone to laziness, I’d rather not go there.

The Recipe

2 cups Fels Naptha Soap (finely grated)
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax

• mix together and store in a closed container
• Use 2 tablespoons per load

The Process

First, I went out and bought all my ingredients:

Obviously, I couldn’t find any Fels Naptha, but I’m sure Linda will work just fine. After all, it’s the soap your Nonna used!  And Nonna’s really know best, don’t they? (Or it’s the grandmother of all soaps.  My Italian is rusty.  Anyone help a girl out?)

By the way, how cute is the little Borax girl?  Sort of like a baby Pioneer Woman. 

Now, let’s talk about money for a second since that’s part of the reason why I am going through all this trouble.  I never pay more than $6 for a bottle of liquid laundry detergent (I have no brand loyalty – I just stock up on whatever is on sale).  Each bottle is generally 32-40 loads, so I spend an average of  16¢ per load on laundry soap.  God, that’s nothing.  Why am I doing this, again?  Oh right, the environment.

Okay, the recipe only calls for 1 cup each of the Borax and Washing Soda, so that ends up costing only 69¢ and 46¢ respectively.  The bar of soap was $1.49, so we are looking at $2.64 to make 1kg of soap.  Using 2 tablespoons per load (which I’m going to round out to 30g for calculation’s sake) that works out to about…. 33 loads at 8¢ per load.  So half the cost, pretty much. 

Enough with the boring stuff!  Let’s get to it!

First, you need to grate the soap

I tried to grate it “finely”, by using the small hand grater, but really that was going to take all day.  And I’m not saving much money if it take me seven hours to make the stuff, am I?  So I switched to the big grater, and decided to try my luck afterwards at grinding up the soap in my coffee grinder (which I use only for grinding salt for my bath powder).

By the way, Linda is a very nice smelling  Nonna.  Not too overwhelming, but just soapy-clean enough.

It turns out 1 bar makes plenty enough for this recipe.  We’ll save the other bar for the next batch.

Look, cheese!  Anyone want to come over for dinner on April 1st?  I’m making tacos!

Then I decided to take a little break and let the soap dry out a bit.  I didn’t want to run it through the grinder if it was all sticky.

Guess what.  You can’t grind soap in a coffee grinder.  The blender worked okay, but it took a lot of scraping.  And the soap didn’t get as fine as I wanted it to be. Next time, I’ll just do it right the first time and grate it using the fine side of the big hand grater.

Mix it Up!

Next I added 1 cup each of the Washing Soda and the Borax to a big ‘ole bowl.

Then I mixed in the ground up soap, and ended up with the funky looking mixture below.

That soap looks so much like cheese, man.

Done!  Wait, put it in a nice container first, and then you’re done. 

Now when I have company, they will wonder, “Why does this woman have a jar of cheese mixed with salt in her laundry room?”

I’m washing the first load with this concoction as I type this blog.  We’ll keep y’all apprised on how clean my towels come out.

Tonight, I’ll be making dryer balls using this tutorial, and this pretty wool:

Using HTML on your Facebook Fan Page

I’ve just discovered this new app on Facebook and I’m a wee bit excited! There is a way to completely customize an area of your Fan Page using HTML.  Use it to create a landing tab that will encourage new visitors to click on the “Become a Fan” button!  Or you can use it to announce sales, share your favourite links, whatever you want.  It’s YOUR Page!

If you really can’t wait to see what it looks like, visit either of my Fan Pages to check it out. Then come back here and I’ll tell you how I did it.

Heather Scent Aromatherapy’s Fan Page

Tarot by Hedder’s Fan Page

(P.S I need about 25 more fans on the Tarot page so I can get my custom URL.  No pressure or anything, though.)

Step One – Add the Application to Your Page

Click here.  You’ll see the following screen.  Click on “Add to My Page”.  A list of your Pages should pop up (if you have pop-ups disabled, turn them on for this).  Click “Add to Page” beside the Page you want to add this application to.  There.  Easy, huh?

Step Two – Create Your HTML code

Maybe you know HTML.  Awesome!  All you need to do is open up Notepad and whip something up!  If you don’t know how to write a web page, you need a WYSIWYG editor in which you can also access the code (so you can copy & paste it).  I used SeaMonkey, but I’ve also discovered that you can do this in Windows Live Writer as well. 

Really, I can’t go into a whole tutorial about how to write a simple HTML page.  There are several reasons for this, the least of which is that I don’t really know what the heck I’m talking about when it comes to HTML.  I just pretended I was making a blog post in Live Writer, and then I clicked the “Source” tab and copied what was there.

One thing I can share is that the box for the FBML Application works like the HTML/Javascript box on Blogger.  So you just need to add the code you use – you don’t have to put the opening and closing HTML tags.  You’ll need to delete those if you used a WYSIWYG editor like SeaMonkey.  I kept them in mine at first and couldn’t figure out why my custom tab wasn’t showing up properly.  Live Writer doesn’t have those tags on the source page, which simplifies the copying & pasting part.

Save your document!  We’ll be coming back to it later.

Step 3 –  Add your HTML to your Fan Page

Go to your Page.  Click on “Edit Page” underneath your Page’s Profile picture.  You’ll see the screen below.  Scroll down until you see the “Static FBML” Application, and click on the little pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner.  Select “Edit”.

Now you’ll see a page like this.  Type whatever you want your Tab to be called in the first box.  Choose something short and simple.  I used “Welcome”.  In the second box, you will paste your HTML code.

Click on “Save Changes”.  When it tells you your changes have been saved, click on your Page name at the top to take you back to your Page.

 

 

 

 

 

Step  – Add the Tab to Your Page

Go to your Page.  Across the top where the Tabs are all lined up, there should be a “+” sign at the far right side.  Click on this and then click on whatever it is you called your Tab.  This will add the FBML tab to the list across the top of the Page.  Now, I want you to drag and drop that tab so it’s the 3rd or 4th tab in the row, instead of the last one.  You want this tab to be visible to your Fans at all times.  If they have to click on those little arrows to see what other Tabs are available…well, they just won’t click those arrows.  I bet they don’t even know they can click those arrows.  I bet you didn’t know you could click those arrows to see other available Tabs!

Step Last – Make Your HTML Page the Default Landing Tab

When someone clicks the link to your Page, they likely end up at your Wall or Info Tab. You probably want them to arrive on your HTML tab now, especially if you’ve spruced it up to make being a Fan of your Page seem really enticing!

Go to your Page.  Make sure you are on the Wall tab.  Click “Settings”.  Under the drop-down menu for “Default view for everyone else”, choose whatever it is you called your HTML tab.  The changes save automatically.

There!  Now whenever anyone clicks the link for your Page, they’ll see your personalized HTML page, rather than the generic Wall.  When you visit your own page, you’ll land on the Wall.  Don’t fret; your Fans are still going to your special, personal HTML tab.  I don’t know why Facebook plays with our minds like that, but such is life.

Leave some links below so I can see what you did with your page!

Hmmm.. I wonder what other gadgets I can add to my page using this app?  You can have more than one HTML (or FBML as they call it) tab.  I’m going to go experiment with some Blogger Gadgets to see if they’ll work on the Fan Page.