One day I was in Goodwill looking through the kitchen supplies area when I saw a kitchen gadget I’d been wanting to buy for a long time—a tea press! I couldn’t believe it. I breathed a prayer of thanks to God and picked it up. It was a Bodum, a great brand. I had already purchased two glass Bodum teacups several years ago and loved them. I knew the quality of this would match the teacups.

Is a Tea Press and a French Coffee Press the Same Thing?

It may be that you are wondering how to use a tea press too. I recorded this short video to show you how simple it is. Incidentally, a tea press and a French coffee press do the same thing with one difference, so if you have a coffee press, you can use it to make your herb tea. The difference is that when you push the plunger down on the tea press, it stops the tea from steeping any longer. From what I understand, a French coffee press will allow the tea leaves to continue steeping, so you need to pour all of your tea out of the press at that point if you don’t want it any stronger. Also if you have already used your French press for coffee, be sure you wash it thoroughly so that the tea doesn’t taste like coffee.

In the video I mention nettles tea. Yes, this is the same plant that is known as stinging nettle (Urtica spp.). It is a nutritive herb and contains calcium, magnesium, and chlorophyll. It has a green, veggie flavor, but it’s an excellent base tea. You can blend it with other nutritive teas like oat straw, the mints, chamomile, rose, hibiscus, ginger, cinnamon, and so on. In the video, I also mention that it is excellent to add to soup bases. You can either make the tea ahead of time like I do in the video and use that as part of your broth base, or put a few teaspoons of dried nettle in a tea bag and let it steep in the soup while it’s cooking. Just remember to remove it when it’s done.

Let me know if you use a tea press and what type of tea you like to make in it. Have fun experimenting!

Enjoy!

Botanically me,

How To Use a Tea Press from Jane VanOsdol on Vimeo.

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It’s the month of February and Valentine’s Day, so that means love is in the air. What better representation of love than a rose?

Years ago I found a lovely little book by Kate Greenaway called the Language of Flowers. Kate was an artist and writer in the late 1800s with a distinctive style the French coined “Greenawisme.” Her artwork captured the things that were the epitome of childhood in that century: bows, ruffles, ringlets, cherubic faces, tea parties, flowers, and the like.

I turned to the page in her book that lists rose, and low and behold, she details 33 different types of roses and their meanings! The very first one of the list is simply rose, and it’s meaning is love.

Rose Essence Beeswax Perfume

As I sit here writing this, I am, quite coincidentally, wearing a heart locket filled with my Rose essence beeswax perfume. As I open the locket and smooth some on my wrist, I can’t help but smile at the happy fragrance. As an aromatherapist, I love to create fragrance with rose. It improves almost everything you blend it with.

Besides smelling heavenly, rose essential oil, Rosa x damascena, is a beautiful oil that is associated with the heart, compassion, love, and forgiveness. Historically, it is wonderful for mature skin and for the female reproductive system including everything from irregular menstruation to menopause. It also relieves anxiety and is a gentle antidepressant.

True rose essential oil is one of the most expensive oils on the market. One milliter can cost from $27 to $39, which makes it about $2 to $4 per drop. Because of the pricing, rose oil is often sold as a 5 to 10 percent dilution in jojoba oil. You can also purchase rose absolute, which is about half the price as the pure oil. It is still lovely, but not quite the same as the pure oil.

Create Your Own Rose Fragrance

Whatever type of rose oil you may have, it will make an altogether lovely cream, perfume, or oil blend. To create a light rose fragrance, purchase a 1/3 ounce glass roller bottle and fill it one-quarter of the way with jojoba oil. Add 20 drops of rose oil and then fill  the bottle up to the halfway mark with jojoba oil. Gently swish the oils together and sniff. Add more if you would like a stronger aroma. This is perfect for any occasion.

Love Poetry

As I turned to the back of Kate’s little book, I found a poetry section with a poem called “Go, Lovely Rose” by Edmund Waller. In this poem, Waller addresses the rose and tells it to speak to his love for him.

Go, lovely Rose—

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

 

Tell her that’s young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired:

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die—that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Yet, though thou fade,

From they dead leaves let fragrance rise

And teach the maid

That goodness Time’s rude hand defies;

That virtue lives when beauty dies.

 

Have a love-filled day!

eScentually yours,

 

 

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Recently I was spending a lovely sisters’ weekend on Mackinac Island. If you’ve never been there, it’s truly like stepping back in time. No cars are allowed on the island, so the main forms of transportation are your feet, bicycles, and horse and carriages. The rhythmic clip-clopping of horses’ hooves on the roads is a welcome relief from the noise of buses, trucks, and cars.

A Fragrant Treasure

An assortment of shops fills the downtown streets of Mackinac, and my sisters and I couldn’t wait to explore them. In a little store tucked away on a back street, I found a lovely treasure
— a bottle of Rose de Mai Beauty Oil. If you’re at all familiar with aromatherapy, you know that rose is one of the most expensive essential oils that you can purchase. One ounce of (true) essential oil of Rose Otto (Rosa damascena) can cost well over $1000.

I squeezed a drop from the tester bottle onto my hand and turned the box over to examine the contents. I discovered that this oil is actually a blend. It does not contain the essential oil, but rather contains the essential waxes of Rosa damascena and Rosa centifolia in a jojoba, borage, and grapeseed oil base. But it is altogether lovely!

Essential Flower Wax

Are you wondering what an essential flower wax is? I was too! After researching, I found out that it is a vegetable wax, somewhat like beeswax, that is left over from the process of making a flower absolute.

To make an absolute, the plant scent is first extracted with alcohol and then chilled. This process separates the rose wax from the absolute. The essential wax itself contains many beneficial properties, and it can be used in other products, such as my beauty oil. In an article called Essential Flower Waxes, aromatherapist Jeanne Rose lists the properties of rose flowers’ (Rosa centifolia and Rosa damascena) essential wax:

• moisturizing
• softening
• free-radicals scavenging
  

  My sisters and I on a Mackinac hike.

• soothing for itchy, dry, delicate, or teenage skin

Review of Rose de Mai Beauty Oil

I am enjoying my Rose de Mai Beauty oil. Note that it comes with a dropper top, but does not include a regular cap. I wish it had a cap on it to prevent any of the properties from evaporating through the rubber bulb of the dropper.

Even though it does not contain the pure essential oil, it is a beautiful product with a light rose fragrance. The oil itself sinks into your skin and absorbs nicely without leaving any residue.

If you desire to use it as a perfume, realize it’s not designed as a fragrance, so the aroma doesn’t have the staying power of a day-long fragrance. It is far lighter and unobtrusive lasting an hour or so, but delightful. So far I’m using it as a facial moisturizer, a cuticle repairer, and  a light scent. With just a few day’s use, my skin feels softer. It is one of my favorite finds from our trip to Mackinac.

If you’d like to try the Rose de Mai oil or the rose essential wax, I’ve found the products on Amazon. I’m planning on buying the wax myself to use in aromatherapy products I make, as I love the aroma and properties of rose, but buying the pure essential oil or even the absolute can be pretty pricey. I’m interested to see if the wax boosts the rose scent of my products as well as adding to the beneficial qualities of them. I’ll post about that when I try it.

How about you? Do you have any favorite aromatherapy finds? Be sure to share in the comments below. Always keep your eyes open, because you never know where or when you’ll find a treasure!

eScentually yours,

*This post does contain affiliate links. I do make a small profit if you purchase any products through my links. I only link to products I use myself, have heard are reputable, or are on my own want-to-try list. If you do choose to purchase a product through my link, thank you so much. This helps me as writing and aromatherapy/natural health are my business and passion.