New Scent Themed Gift Sets from Aquarian Bath: Lavender, Patchouli, and Lavender-Rose

Aquarian Bath is happy to announce we have new scent-themed gift sets.  All of our products are scented with only pure essential oils, botanical resins or waxes.  We never use chemical fragrances.  The sets are packaged in ecofriendly Kraft gift boxes with krinkle paper and two handmade cedarwood soap decks which help to extend the shelf life of your soaps.  The soap decks are made in the USA by a North Carolinian craftsman.  Our first set, shown above is our Lavender Lovers Gift Set.  It is plastic-free and includes a Lavender Oatmeal Soap, a Lavender Rosemary Mint Aloe Shampoo bar, a Lavender Cedarwood Deodorant, and a Lavender Peppermint Lip Balm.  

Our Patchouli Lover's Bath set makes a great gift for the patchouli fanatic.  The products are made with pure dark patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) essential oil.  This gift set includes a large Patchouli cold process Soap and Patchouli Hemp Shampoo Bar, a unisex Patchouli roll on perfume.  Did you know that our Patchouli Hemp Shampoo bar is our top selling shampoo?

Our Lavender Rose Bath and Body gift set includes a Lavender Rose Geranium soap, a Bulgarian Rose and Lavender Shampoo Bar, a Lavender- Rose Geranium roll on perfume a Lavender Rose Geranium lip balm and 2 cedar soap decks.  

We have also brought back out "I heart MOM" gift set which features a Lavender Soap, cedarwood soap deck and a Lavender Massage Oil.   We will have these sets available until the end of the year.  For the I Heart Mom sets you can choose from Lavender-Rose Soaps, Lavender-Tea Tree-Spearmint and Lavender-Vanilla is curing and will be ready this month.

We have 2 other new gift sets coming soon.  One is for hemp product fans, and the other is for gardeners.  Have a great week!

Easy DIY: Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe

Yesterday I made my first guest post at the Norwegian nature photography and simple living blog Kanelstrand.  The post includes an aromatherapy ear drop recipe that I have been using for many years.   How simple?  It just has 3 ingredients: Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lavender essential oil and Tea Tree Essential oil.   Easy DIY: Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe | Kanelstrand  I will be writing simple home remedy posts at Sonya's blog once a month, and I'll be sure to reshare them here.  

During cold damp winter months, it is important to keep your ears covered with a hat or a scarf. Exposure to wind can quickly lead to a chill.  When the body is chilled it is more susceptible to infections. This is something that has been understood in Traditional Chinese Medicine for many generations. It is always advised to protect the upper back or "Wind Gate" to avoid wind chills. Also importantly, do not go to bed or send children to bed with wet hair. It is too hard on the body to sleep with wet hair and it can often lead to stuffiness in the ears or head. After swimming one should take care to clear the ears of any water that has gotten stuck. This can be done after swimming by tilting the head to the side and filling the ear with a small amount of rubbing alcohol (Isopropanol) and then lifting the head to let the water drain out. If you are not comfortable using rubbing alcohol, then plain water can also work. Now that you know a few things you can do to prevent ear troubles, what can you make to have on hand just in case for ear aches?

Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe

• 1 oz Extra Virgin Olive oil 
• 18 drops of pure Lavender* (Lavandula angustifolia) essential oil 
• 18 drops of pure Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) essential oil

Add Extra Virgin Olive Oil and essential oils to an amber glass bottle.  Label the bottle with the ingredients and date and store in a cool dark place out of reach from children. I use this oil around 3-5 times a day if I have an ear ache.  If it is cold out, one should warm the oil bottle in the hands first before adding drops to the ear.   To apply turn the head to the side, add a few drops of oil to the ear canal until the drops are felt to 'fill' the ear. Put a piece of cotton gently outside the ear to prevent the oil from leaking out. Avoid stuffing a small piece of cotton into the ear canal where it could become stuck.

*It is important to choose pure esentials oils that have not been adulterated or extended for this recipe. There are many disreputable sellers who extend their oils with chemicals. You can test for purity of an essential oil by adding a drop of oil to a piece of paper. After 24 hours there should be no residue visible on the paper.

New Lavender and Flaxseed Microwavable Heat Packs

Cupcakes seem to be all the rage lately so I couldn't resist this fun print.
These pillows are available in Lavender and Flax

I have lots of new Flaxseed Microwave Heat Packs in my shop this week. I've been gearing up for the holidays, as these have been popular gifts for the last few years.  It's about time to order more Organic herbs from Mountain Rose for these pillows, so I can start a (hopefully) final round of sewing for 2012.  It is always such a pleasure to receive a shipment of such powerfully fragrant herbs in the mail.

I think the high quality herbs that I use is why people love them so much.  Here is September's feedback from my Etsy buyers of my pillows:

~ Love, love, love it! 

~ I am SO pleased with the neck wraps and super fast shipping!! I will be ordering again!!!

~ Perfect! Thank you. 

 ~So nice. A very nice gift to my husband with chronic neck pains. Thank you! 

I loved the vintage feel of this golden floral fabric.
 I also made up this fabric in Lavender and Flax.


 I hope you like the new fabrics I chose. Which is your favorite?

This fabric reminded me of Florida and fun tropical concoctions.  I made this fabric up in Lavender and Flax.

New Microwave Flaxseed Neck Pillows with Organic Herbs

I recently tripled my inventory of flaxseed microwavable neck pillows.  In addition to many new fabrics, I also made a new herbal blends.  So now there are 3 types of pillows available: 1) Plain Organic Flax seed, 2) Organic Lavender and Flax seed and 3) Organic Spearmint, Lavender, Chamomile and Flaxseed.  The blend with Spearmint is really wonderful hot for sinus congestion.  I used it almost exclusively recently when I caught a little sinus cold from the kids.  In order to make it easy to shop by type of pillow I added these 3 categories to the neck wraps  section of Aquarian Bath.  You can use them for heat therapy or cold therapy.  I store mine in the freezer and use them for bumps and bruises or to cool down.  These make wonderful holiday gifts.

Shampoo Bar Giveaway

Brenna at EtsyFix.com is hosting a giveaway for one of my shampoo bars. You can enter to win in one shampoo bar choice by commenting and clicking at her A Little Etsy Love Blog. Don't you love the collage she made for the giveaway with my product photos?

If you haven't heard I have a not of new Vegan Aloe shampoo bars for 2012. The newest 'flavor' is the Lemongrass-Lavender Aloe Shampoo Bar.



I hope you find something you like!

XO,
Cory
http://aquarianbath.com

Happy Mother's Day: Bath Salt Recipe for Mom

Happy Day to all the Mother's out there. I just made myself a big batch of bath salts today. Maybe you would like to make some for yourself or for your mom. The ingredients are not hard to find. This recipe will fit in a 1 quart mason jar.

Lavender Bath Salts:
1.75 cups unscented Epsom Salts (available at drug stores)
1.5 cups coarse or fine Sea Salt
0.5 cup Borax (or Baking Soda)
0.25 cups Bentonite or Kaolin Clay
1 tsp Lavender essential oil.

Stir together and add to your mason jar.

Enjoy! This is a better recipe than what you will find at the corner drug store. Bath salts at the average drug store may have essential oils, but I challenge you to find one that has not been polluted with cheap chemical fragrance oils. For a review of why we want products with essential oils instead of Fragrance oils you can review this older blog post Comparing Essential oils with Fragrance Oils in Consumer Products, How and Why to Spot the Difference.

There are a million and one variations on bath salt recipes do you have one to share? Please feel welcome to comment with a recipe.

Photo by Rowan.M.McDonald. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license.

Lavender Earl Grey Tea: A Favorite New Morning Tea Blend

During the summer (which seems to go on forever in Florida) I generally like to drink green tea. The green tea is very cooling. We brew it up daily and store it in the refrigerator in a glass jar. I also am fond of making vitamin and mineral rich herbal infusions of nettles, oatstraw, and red raspberry leaf. Recently I've been drinking Earl Grey Lavender tea in the morning. We have a great restaurant supply store in town called Sixth Street Sales, where I am able to find lots of fun boxed discount tea blends. The Lavender Earl Grey tea was one of the blends that I found last time from Revolution. Regular Earl Grey tea is a black tea made with Bergamot oil. Bergamot is a rich, sweet, fruity citrus oil used in aromatherapy and natural perfumery.



I love the way the addition of a small amount of Lavender buds adds a sweet herbaceous touch to the earl grey. When I run out of the tea bags, I'm planning to pick up some earl grey in bulk to which I will be adding home grown Lavender from my friend Michelle. Lavender is one of my favorite herbs for calming the nervous system and I enjoy making Lavender vodka/ tincture for use during stressful periods.

I'm looking forward to reading what others are drinking in the morning lately. This blog post is a part of an a November blog party about morning beverages hosted by Dancing in a Field of Tansy