Thoughts On Health… Aromatherapy

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Wow folks. I just had an amazing experience (which I can’t wait to blog about in detail next Monday) I had my aura photographed! One of the coolest parts of this is I was able to see what types of things had an immediate effect on my aura… I had a huge response to rose quartz (a long time fav of mine!) and to scents.

Now the scent thing I would never have guessed. I’m not big on scents, to be honest… they usually give me a headache after a while. I never wear perfume, no artificial scents of any kind for me… no artificial house cleaners or fabric softeners.

My life is quite bland, scent wise! The only scent-related thing I do is I walk around my home with an incense or sage stick every few weeks to give the energy in our home a fresh slate. So I was very surprised to see what an immediate and large response I had to breathing in different essential oils.

My new commitment is to remember to light a pure EO candle at my desk when I am working. And also to just be more aware of the lovely scents around me every day. I am likely turned off to (and get a headache from) artificial scents precisely *because* I am so affected by them. But instead of nixing scents from my life and not focusing on it, I’d like to harness this gift and specifically breathe in the scents in my life that I love love love.

 
My children’s natural hair and scalp smells… yum.

My husband brewing coffee… delish.

The smell of crisp fresh winter air blowing across my front yard… yes!

The smell of a crackling fire in my wood burning stove… ahhhh.

Recently my daughter made me a candle that was scented with bayberry, and I am so excited to burn this more often.

We read that bayberry candles were treasured in colonial times because they were rare. We felt so fortunate to be surrounded by wax myrtle trees all throughout our property. Wax Myrtles are native to the entire east coast and are the bayberry plant most often used in creating *real* bayberry candles.

Most bayberry candles on the market now are made of paraffin and bayberry scent. But you can make your very own, authentic bayberry candle today!

Anyone living here in the lowcountry likely has one in their very own yard, and if not, right down any road you walk in any direction. They are abundant, growing all over and free for the foraging.
Here is all you do:

 

 

1. Pick as many bayberries as you like. We got about 1 1/2 cups of berries in about 15 minutes…

 

 

 

2. Boil them in a small pot of water until the wax is released from the outer coating of the berry. I boiled my bayberries for about 30 minutes, which was probably overkill 🙂

 

3. Let cool, then lift the wax rim from your pot and let dry.

 

 

4. Don’t worry if it isn’t too much wax… I got this thin rim of wax from the cup and a half of bayberries… and it is plenty to create several scented candles. Just break off a chunk to add to your beeswax as desired. Here I am melting about half of our bayberry wax into beeswax beads.

 

 

5. Affix a wick into a recycled glass jar (I’m using an old jar that had our bread-making yeast in it) and pour the bayberry scented wax in.

 

 

6. Trim the wick (if needed) and enjoy!! Light and inhale deeply… ahhhh….

 

xoxo, Laura