Un amour de lavande (A love of lavender)
Lavender, fresh lavender, is my favorite scent in the world. I have a favorite lavender plant that I love so much I have cloned it into a hedge by taking cuttings, and when it is flowering the whole neighborhood is delighted!
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For years, lavender was the only aroma that I used in my daily skin care. I had had migraines since childhood, and I found lavender helpful and calming. I had a favorite brand of lavender oil, lotion and shower gel, and when they stopped selling it to the public I was miserable until I found another brand I liked almost as well… |
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I believe the experience of suddenly losing access to my favorite brand of skin care contributed to my wanting to make my own! I had already, during my pregnancies, made myself an anti stretch mark cream that worked so well I didn’t get one stretch mark during either of my pregnancies! (Having been a skinny child, I had gotten stretch marks at puberty that I hated, and I dreaded getting more… ) Since I was already growing what I thought was the best smelling lavender around, it was a logical step to try to use that lavender and see what I could make with it. The first year or two, when I only had one plant, I just dried the flowers and used them as decorations and made sachets for my drawers. |
The first time I had a lot of lavender, I tried making lavender water… it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either, and I had to refrigerate it, and it spoiled… I tried distilling it, with a diy home setup, and I got a better smelling «hydrosol» but it was painstaking, and only produced small quantities… and it spoiled, and grew moldy…
I then thought about oil extraction, and looked for an odorless oil to use – by then I had used enough essential oils to be familiar with the concept of a carrier oil, so I started infusing my lavender in fractionated coconut oil. It worked! I was able to extract the same aroma that I found so delightful. I went on to dry and infuse my favorite rose, the best smelling one in the garden, and got a wonderfully scented oil, so I tried other flowers and herbs, calendula, borage, rose geranium and lemon verbena… My garden was also growing, and I was learning more about the properties of the flowers and herbs I was growing,so I began incorporating those infused oils into my basic anti stretch mark cream, and I was off! My first efforts included Aloe Vera gel that I scraped and blended before incorporating with cocoa butter and the oils… those grew moldy as well – anything containing water would get contaminated and require preservatives… I experimented with some preservatives, but I wasn’t having fun, and I decided to just scrap the aloe, and make a body balm with plant butters and infused and essential oils.
By then my daughter had gotten pregnant and that was added impetus to develop a better cream – I couldn’t use too many essential oils because they’re not safe in the early stages of pregnancy, and my daughter had a lot of nausea, so for her I came up with a cream that she loved, and she didn’t get any stretch marks either!
I began making my body balms as Christmas presents for my family, and developed a variety of oils and balms and scrubs as well as soaps, using infused botanical oils and essential oils, which my family loved.
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Of course I had to come up with labels for everything, and after a few iterations, I’ve now got “Moon Garden Botanicals”, a line of products that are entirely plant based, contain no petroleum products and no chemical preservatives. They have a good shelf life of at least a year, and I haven’t had any problems with contamination since I stopped incorporating anything containing water. |
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I have really gotten into blending different scents, and utilizing the properties of different plants and their extracted oils. My brother says I’ve tuned into an alchemist! My nieces and nephews swear my oils and balms make their hair grow and their skin glow – this year I shipped 15 boxes of creams, oils, scrubs and soaps for Christmas! It all started with a love of lavender…
