mint and roses

June 27, 2019June 27, 2019 ~ Gillie ~ 1 Comment

At last, we have sun! I have been itching to harvest the herbs and flowers in the garden and hedgerows but it has been far too wet. So today I am in overdrive and the house smells divine.

First was the rosewater (recipe here)

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The roses are heavy with flowers and there are plenty more buds so I picked about 200g and the kitchen is filled with Radio 4 and the smell of rose petals!

Next was the mint. I have peppermint, spearmint, apple mint and chocolat emint. First was the peppermint

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I have already made a large jar of mint sauce and have one jar dried. But that won’t last the winter so in went another batch and I had a cup of tea as well.

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The meadowsweet it out, there are fresh nettles growing around the hen house and the lemon balm is going wild as well …

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…but there is only so much I can get in the dehydrator. However lemon balm is a good insect repellent, as is basil, which is also going rampant. Their insect repelling action is due to the presence of citronellal (in lemon balm) and citronellal, estragole, limonene and nerolidol, all of which affect the pesky little biters’ sensors and their ability to find their target – namely us.

So while I wait for the mint to finish in the dehydrator here is my very simple insect repellent recipe:

jar
vodka (or witchazel)
Lemon balm leaves
Basil leaves

This is just a basic tincture recipe, and I would normally used vodka to make tinctures and make separate tinctures (simples) and mix later. However, as this is a predetermined mix which will be sprayed on the skin and witch hazel has a soothing effect on the skin I have opted to used it instead of vodka and mix the herbs in the jar.

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Pack the herbs into the jar, cover with witch hazel, seal and label and date (you will not remember what it is, I promise you) and leave for two weeks in a cool dark cupboard. Then strain and keep in a dark jar. When needed fill a small spray bottle half full with the herb tincture, top up with water, that is it!

Love Gillie x

the solid shower

November 7, 2017 ~ Gillie ~ 1 Comment

I was reading a satirical agony aunt page in the Sunday papers and a young man was concerned that following the arrival of his girlfriend into his flat on a “try before you buy” basis, a total of 52 beauty products had turned up in his bathroom. The agony aunt assured him that the girlfriend had not moved in permanently as 52 items was most certainly only a small selection of her collection. Amusing, but there is an element of truth in that.

I have never been a massive beauty product shopper. I will confess to being seduced every now and then, well perhaps quite a few times, but I have never had the time or energy to undergo a mini spa routine every day. Furthermore, deep down inside I didn’t really think they were up to the job and bearing in mind it was only as recently as 2010 that some shops unilaterally decided to ban parabens from the products on their shelves I was always uneasy about precisely what it was I was putting on my hair and skin. My mother brought me up to wash with a cloth and water, remove makeup with olive oil and tone with rosewater and witchazel. We made rosemary vinegar hair rinses and raided the fridge to make facemasks for a girly night in.

Since then I have flirted with commercial products but then another factor came into play. Packaging. Not only was I concerned by the content of the product, I was downright irritated by the packaging it came in. Rethink required. My paraben free EWG approved shampoo and conditioner came in a plastic bottle. The bottle can be recycled, but it can’t be refilled and in my opinion recycling should be the last option before landfill, not the first.

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This is our shower shelf now. From left to right, salt and almond oil scrub (home made), rosemary infused apple cider vinegar hair rinse (home made), cream block – solid conditioner (comes wrapped in paper from Funky Soaps), white block – rosemary Marseille soap (bought unwrapped from producer), dark brown block – solid shampoo (Funky Soaps again).

The salt scrub is merely almond oil mixed with sea salt. You can add essential oils if you like, I don’t bother. The ACV rinse is merely ACV in which I have infused fresh rosemary for a couple of weeks. Simples.

The proof of the pudding – does it work. Well my husband voluntarily commented how soft my hair was this week. Praise doesn’t come higher than that.

A final comment. I know that a lot of zero wasters swear by Lush solid shampoo. Personally, quite apart from the fact that I can’t pass by one of their shops without feeling a little queasy, any company that has only this year decided to use a seaweed based glitter in their products whilst spending the previous decades waxing lyrical about their eco-friendly approach and using plastic glitter in their bath products, is not going to get my pennies. We do not need glitter in our baths. In all honesty do we really need glitter at all?

Love Gillie x

fragrant fun at Fragonard

September 20, 2017 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

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All the girls are now at university so we are officially empty nesters. With that in mind we decided to take a few days off and are currently enjoying warm weather and the local rosé in the south of France. St Paul-de-Vence to be precise, and very lovely it is too.

As we are only half an hour from Grasse it was not difficult to persuade the Boss that a little detour around the Fragonard museum and factory would be a pleasant way to spend the morning.

The museum was small but fascinating with fine examples of toiletry bottles and equipment from as early as the sixth century BC, the latter in such superb condition that at first I thought it was a copy. But the jewel in the crown is the factory tour.

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The bottles of essential oils alone were enough to woo me.

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The bottle went on and one. To be honest I am not sure what is in them, but they were so beautiful.

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Originally extraction was either cold press, where each flower was placed on a rack of animal fat (cow or pig) for twenty four hours and then replaced daily for a month until the fat was soaked with the flower essence. It was then washed with alcohol, the alcohol evaporated away and what was left was the absolute.

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Racks for cold press.

More robust plants were heated with the oil over a few days and then washed with alcohol as above. Today they have perfected a slightly more rapid option using alcohol directly, or the good old maceration and still method. (See my post here about how to make your own rosewater – but sadly not essential oil!)

The perfumes (at 76% these are the perfumes not the eau du parfum nor eau de toilette) are blended in these huge vats. Perhaps not quite as romantic as those rose petals we soaked in water to make perfume for our mothers, but a little more effective!

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I am wearing this particular perfume today/

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Some of the equipment looked like giant coffee machines!

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For reasons known only to Fragonard, you can buy egg boxes of soap.

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This process was a little more familiar (soap making not egg boxes – most of our egg boxes are full of real eggs from our real hens!)

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Lots of mixing, shaving and mixing again. Mind you their equipment is a little more sophisticated.

They also run workshops where you can mix your own perfume. Sounds fun at two hours and might give it a go. Particularly when I learned it takes six years to train as a Nose. That’s as long as a doctor! This is the play laboratory. Apparently a real one has 2,000 to 3,000 different scents to choose from! This Libran would find that a little overwhelming.

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And finally of course to the shop! The prices were actually quite reasonable (especially with my 10% discount voucher acquired earlier in the day!) So a few purchases were made.

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Today is Farmers’ Market day in St Paul-de-Vence so it will be cheese I will be smelling and tasting!

Love Gillie x

Wear the Wild

November 28, 2016November 28, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

Regular readers will know I am huge fans of Chris and Rose Bax of Taste the Wild. I have been on plenty of their courses from Herbal Medicine (where my recently macerated knee provided a live demonstration of how to make a poultice) two and a half days foraging in Staithes. We have also been mushroom foraging with them and Stuart learned how to butcher a deer. So you can imagine my glee on my birthday when I discovered I had a morning with Rose making cosmetics.

I make a lot of my own cosmetics and potions etc, but there is nothing more fun than doing it with other people and there is always more to learn. So last Tuesday I got up early, scraped the ice off the car and headed down to North Yorkshire. Boy was it cold so the cup of tea on arrival was most welcome.

Cop a look at this.

Infused oils and dried herbs and flowers all ready to be played with. First we made shampoo. Rose gave us comprehensive tables with the properties of the various herbs and flowers. She had already made a birch decoction which we would all include in our shampoo as birch is a wonderful all rounder for hair, then we chose three other ingredients.

We steeped our additional ingredients in the hot decoction and added it to pure castile soap.

And there you go. I don’t even use conditioner now, though do be careful not to get castile soap in your eyes!

Next up was a healing balm.

Melt pure beeswax into the infused oils of your choice. Note the clever homemade bain marie. When slightly cool add an essential oil of your choice.

Pour into clean pots and leave to set. Wait until it is almost set before putting on the lid so avoid contamination with condensation.

Next was lip balm, made in much the same way but this time with peppermint essential oil. We finished up with a bath bomb and some wonderful herbal bath salts which I used when I got home that evening and there were just the ticket.

Finally, as I was in the area I popped into Ripon for lunch on the way home!

Love Gillie x

Rosehips

August 31, 2016August 31, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

We have a huge Rugosa hedge and at this time of year it is bursting with hips, more than enough for me to pick my fill and still leave plenty for the birds. They are one of the richest sources of vitamin C (rosehip syrup was a popular means to keep vitamin C levels up, especially in children, during the winter months). We use it for rosehip jelly, rosehip syrup and also rosehip oil.

Rosehip oil is wonderful for the skin. Packed with anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory properties it is a permanent resident in my bathroom cupboard.

True rosehip oil is made by cold pressing the seeds. Despite the fact I have succeeded in distilling my own rosewater (and broke a sink with the brick afterwards) I have yet to build a cold press in my kitchen. However, I have found an alternative. First of course you need to pick your rosehips.

750g of fresh rosehips

Remove the stalks and tails and any of the hairy seeds (great for itching powder). I harvest with a pair of kitchen scissors and cut the debris away as I pick. Next chop finely, I put mine in a food processor.

Finally you place the macerated rosehips in a heavy bottomed pan with the oil of your choice. I used 1 litre of Avocado oil this year, but any natural oil will do, avoid olive oil – it has rather a strong smell and can overpower the rosehips.

Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer on the lowest heat possible for about 6-8 hours. You could also use a slowcooker or yoghurt maker.

Strain through a jelly bag or cheesecloth and store in sterilised dark bottles. Store out of sunlight.

Love Gillie x

Save

Comfrey

August 29, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ 1 Comment

When the goldenrod starts to flower then summer is igoin out and autumn is icumen in. I am sure we will have lots more lovely sunny and warm days like today, in fact my birthday in early October has been a sunny day for as long as I can remember. However, now is the time to start preserving and drying to ensure the natural medicine cabinet can see us through until next summer. Today I have been out in the garden harvesting comfrey, lavender, rosehips and chamomile

Let’s start with the comfrey. Comfrey goes by many names Knitbone, Boneset, Bruise wort. You get the gist, it’s a healer. There is much discussion about the safety of comfrey due to its very high content of hepatotoxic pyrrolizideine alkaloids (PAs) wh rapich as you can guess from the name can lead to liver disease in high doses and it has been implicated in one death. Consequently I only use it topically, in a salve, tincture or fresh compress. See here to see it in action.

First collect your comfrey. This is remarkably easy around us as the Boss planted it some 10 years ago and it is very hardy! I collect both leaves and the root, there is a higher level of allantoin, which stimulates cell growth (and thus healing) and reduces inflammation in the root, but also a higher level of PAs. Again I only use comfrey products externally and would caution anyone who wishes to take it internally to seek the advice of a professional herbalist first.

I made two types of salve and a tincture.

Salve one was made using the oldest and most traditional method. Chop up your leaves and add them melted lard. I used 125g lard and four handfuls of leaves. Bring to a simmer, cover and leave to seep for a couple of hours and pour into a sterilised jar (you may need to warm it slightly to melt it sufficiently to pour into the jar.

Looks a bit poisonous doesn’t it?!

Salve two is the process I first learned when making salves. Instead of using lard I used coconut oil and cold pressed rapeseed oil. The first stage is the same as making salve one. 125ml of rapeseed oil and three tablespoons of coconut oil, four handfuls of leaves, chopped. Bring to simmer, leave to seep. What you have now is comfrey oil and you can leave it like that. It is a good massage oil for those broken bones that cannot be set (such as toes and shoulders). If you want to make a m ore solid salve you will need approximately 30g of beeswax (the amount you use will determine the solidity of your salve). Grate the wax and place with the comfrey oil in a bowl over a pan of boiling water and heat gently until the wax and oil are combined. Pour into sterilised jars.

Comfrey Tincture is the easiest recipe of all. Wash and chop 100g of comfrey root and place in a clean jar with 150ml of vodka (the highest proof you can find, I am kicking myself for not buying the 96% vodka I saw on sale in Romania for about £15/litre!) Leave it for 2-3 weeks and transfer to clean amber dropper bottles.

Finally I put the leftover root in the dehydrator and will grind it up to make tincture or salve later on in the year if we run out.

Next up rosehips.

Love Gillie x

Repurpose before you Recycle

August 1, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ 1 Comment

Thank you for all the lovely comments both here and on my FB page. It is good to hear from so many people who want to ditch plastic and other single use items. So in the spirit of reusing before recycling I have a challenge for you this week. A repurpose challenge.

This morning I lost an old stained bamboo tee-shirt and acquired some dusters. Very easy. I cut up the tee-shirt and have a nice new set of lovely soft bamboo dusters. The tee shirt wasn’t fit for charity but it wasn’t yet ready for composting. Win win.

So my challenge for you this week, and I’ll try to do it too and let you know how I get on:

Monday: Repurpose something you used to wear. It could be clothing, jewellery, a scarf or a hair accessory, anything you used to wear.

Tuesday: Repurpose something you made. It could be last night’s leftovers or a three piece suit! Please do not repurpose your children however irritating they are!

Wednesday: Repurpose something you have put out for recycling. A plastic bottle, a jar, some envelopes. Get creative in your recycling bin.

Thursday: Repurpose something from your black hole. We all have them, the place where we put things we don’t know what to do with but can’t quite bring ourselves to get rid of. Some are as big as a garage or outbuilding. Some are as small as a kitchen drawer. You know yours, now go release something from it.

Friday: Repurpose something that is broken. If you can’t repair it can you turn it into something else

You get the weekend off!

Love Gillie

Plastic detox

July 28, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ 6 Comments

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I have been following Plastic Free July for several years now and have learned a lot and managed to cut our use of plastic considerably. However, it’s not just about refusing plastic bags and using glass or stainless steel for food storage. The real problem is the hidden plastic. The plastic you can’t see and don’t expect.

When you buy food at the deli counter in the supermarket you may have noticed that some shops (eg. Sainsburys) no longer wrap your ham in a plastic bag but a paper one. You duly put said bag in the recycling bin. But is it paper? No it’s not, it is “mixed materials not currently recyclable” The inside will be single use (i.e. non-recyclable plastic).

What about those teabags that you confidently put in the compost? If you buy organic teabags the chances are that they are 100% paper and are safe to put in your compost. However most teabags contain polypropylene which is not biodegradable. Which Magazine contacted major teabag producers to ask the polypropylene content of their bags. These are some of the results:

Twinings: 0% polypropylene YIPPEE
Sainsburys Taste the Difference English Breakfast tea (Fairtrade): 1% Not bad
Morrisons: English Breakfast tea has 10% Could do better
PG Tips tea bags have 20%: YUK!
Yorkshire tea bags have 25%: YIKES!

If you are stuck on bags rather than loose tea then try to use those with the lowest polyproylene content and tear them before adding to the compost.

Most of us know that microbeads are not good. They are clogging up the oceans and killing wildlife. There are plenty of alternatives for scrubs. Homemade using salt/sugar and oil, or scrubs from reputable organic companies such as Dr Organic from Holland and Barratt. But what about the hidden plastics in cosemetics you didn’t know about?

A research paper published by the UN last year found a worrying level of hidden plastic in a huge range of cosmetic products (UNEP report ‘Plastic in Cosmetics’, 2015)

“Microbeads and other plastic ingredients are present in products ranging from toothpaste and shower gel to eye shadows and nail polish. Their proportions vary in different products, from less than 1 per cent to more than 90 per cent of the content. In a typical shower gel analyzed in laboratory, there was roughly as much plastic material in the gel itself as in its packaging.”

You can download an app created by Beat the Microbead to check the microplastic content of a product before you purchase and look for the Look for Zero logo below to show that the product is 100% plastic free.

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I mentioned the cardboard take away coffee cups yesterday. Have you ever tried to pour hot water into a cardboard box! There has to be something on the inside of the those cups to ensure that you don’t end up with a hot soggy pile of cardboard in your hands as you walk through the park. Most of the time it’s polyethylene and renders the cups unrecyclable.

Likewise those cardboard juice containers, many tinned foods, some cigarette filters, till receipts, labels on everything from groceries to clothes. All contain plastic.

When I first started using my own shopping bags and refusing to put loose fruit and veg in a plastic bag but brought my own reused paper bags I got a lot of very funny looks. Now refusing a plastic bag is second nature. The way we win the war against plastic is to refuse it. Not just the plastic you can see, but educate yourself about that which you can’t.

Love Gillie x

home made facial moisturiser

June 21, 2014July 4, 2014 ~ Gillie ~ 4 Comments

Caraway, peony and chamomile.

One of the rosewater donors

There is nothing like a nasturtium 🙂

Part of tonight’s supper.

Happy Solstice. A few snapshots of my garden this morning and the next batch of herbs growing on my windowsills to celebrate the middle of summer. Tonight we will celebrate with a meal eaten outside, the table decorated with flowers from our garden and the hedgerows. However you plan to spend today, enjoy the outside, celebrate the seasons and give thanks for the bounty the earth gives up despite the fact we treat her so badly.

But as you can see this post is meant to be about moisturiser. So back on track.

I made rosewater the other day because I was running low on moisturiser and rosewater is one of the components. So I was marginally miffed when I assembled the ingredients for moisturiser and discovered I was out of shea butter. It didn’t matter too much as I have plenty of cacao butter, but whilst that does have a deliciously chocolate smell there is no point using rosewater as the water element as the delicate smell would be wiped out.

This recipe is a mixture of ones I have found in books and latterly on the internet. They are all variations on a theme so if you fancy giving this a go, make a few very small batches until you arrive at something you like and suits your skin.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons avocado oil
2 tablespoons wheatgerm oil
2 tablespoons beeswax
2 tablespoons cacao (or shea) butter
25 ml water *
0.5 teaspoon honey**

Optional extras

Essential oil
Aloe vera gel
Vitamin E
Rosehip oil

* I usually use rosewater but you can use plain water or aloe vera. I have very sensitive skin and get urticaria at the drop of a hat and am a complete fan of oatmeal scrubs. So this time I used cooled oatmeal water (I chuck a handful of raw oats in a pan of water bring to the boil and then leave to cool and strain) and added a couple of tablespoons of aloe vera gel to bring it up to 25ml.

** Honey and glycerin are both humectants so help the skin retain moisture. Either will do. Don’t use too much or your moisturiser will become unpleasantly sticky.

Method

It really couldn’t be easier. Put all the oils, beeswax and cacao butter in a bowl over a pan of boiling water and melt together gently, then you need to incorporate the water. Unlike the balms and salves I make for medical purposes I want this to be lighter so I want to make an emulsion. If you have ever made mayonnaise or Hollandaise sauce it is much the same. I have a hand held blender (the stick variety) and this works perfectly. Let the oil cool a little and then gradually add the water drop by drop and mixing furiously after each drop. Once it has started to emulsify you can add more water each time and I will confess to having once just chucked the whole lot in at once to no great ill effect.

Now you can add your optional extras. I didn’t add any essential oil as I had used cacao butter and that will mask the EO (or certainly make it smell a little weird). Which oil you use is up to you. I love geranium and rose so tend to use those.

I use Rosehip oil as a serum on my skin every day (and have just found a recipe to make my own so watch this space in the autumn). It is a fantastic anti-oxidant so I always add it to my moisturiser as well. I add about 20 drops. To be honest I don’t know if it makes much difference at this dilution but I still add it. Vitamin E is a another anti-oxidant.

Pour into clean (I sterilise my jars as I would if making preserves). Leave to cool and put in the fridge. I keep mine in the fridge. Nobody has eaten them yet 🙂 They will keep in the fridge for about as long as you can keep milk say 7-10 days maximum.

A WORD ABOUT PRESERVATIVES

If you are not going to keep your moisturiser in the fridge and you want to keep if for more than 10 days or so you MUST add a preservative. Unlike balms which are pure oil and fats this moisturiser contains water and are thus at risk of microbial growth. Thus far I have not made a lotion with preservative, however, much reading of learned (and not so learned) papers on the internet leads me towards pheonip or germall plus. The choice as to whether you use a preservative is yours. I prefer to err on the side of caution if I am going to keep a lotion out of the fridge.

As for the rosewater. I mixed it up 2/3 rosewater 1/3 witchazel. I have used this as my toner since I was in my early teens. You can vary the ratio, witchazel is an astringent and good for oily teenage skins. At my age I suffer less from acne and so up the rosewater to the witchazel.

rose water

June 20, 2014 ~ Gillie ~ 9 Comments

In my aim to get back down to basics and exclude plastics and unecessary chemicals from our lives I have begun to expand my repertoire of homemade toiletries and cleaning products. I have used rosewater and witchazel as a toner since I was a little girl and I recently discovered the best make up remover EVER. Olive oil and witchazel, I have never seen anything remove so much grime and make up. I was about to order some more rosewater in order to replenish my moisturiser when I looked out at the garden, heavy with roses and wondered if I could make my own.

Reader I did 🙂

I collected about 4-6 pints of rose petals and placed them in my huge soup pan. I then placed a brick in the middle.

I placed a metal bowl on the brick and covered the petals and just over the top of the brick with water.

Then I placed my wok over the top and brought the water to a rolling boil. Once it was boiling I reduced the heat to let it simmer and placed handfuls of ice in the wok.

Ta da my home made still. As the water evaporated it hit the icey cold wok, condensed and then dripped into the bowl on the brick. I emptied the bowl regularly and let it keep simmering for about 30 minutes. Much longer and I reckoned the product would become too weak.

Unfortunately this is not a scratch and sniff blog, but I can assure you this smells divine. My first 3/4 pint of rosewater made with my own rose petals. Now I can replenish my moisturiser.