Let's Talk About: The No-Shampoo Method

Fresh Eggs, Image by Modern Scribe Photography

Every now and then, my sensitive skin gets the better of me, and I can't use scented soaps or store-bought shampoos without breaking out all over.  When my scalp feels this way, I revert back to my no-shampoo hair-washing method for a month or so.

I started toying with using no-shampoo hair-washing methods years ago, and have worked out the best routine for my hair and scalp.  Here's the basic procedure, and thenreview of the experience!

In Advance of Showertime

• If you wish to condition your hair with an herbal rinse, make that infusion up in advance by putting your choice of herb in a jar and pouring boiling water over it, capping it, and letting it sit for at least an hour or two. Overnight is best! If you aren't sure what to use, here's a couple of examples:

• Rosemary - good rinse for dark and curly hair, but strong! It can dry your hair. Use lightly, and rinse with plain water after applying.
• Lavender - good for any hair, could be drying to thin or fair hair.
• Chamomile - smells so good, and along with a touch of lemon juice, it helps blonde hair develop strong highlights!

• Beat up an egg in a dish, or jar, or cup; anything you want as long as you won't lose hold of it in the shower! Add just a smidge (less than 1/8 tsp) of baking soda to the egg and whip it until it is nice and light and frothy. 
• Set the frothed egg mixture, your strained herbal rinse from step one, and a bottle of apple cider vinegar outside your shower, but within reach.
• Light a candle in your bathroom, or do whatever you like to do to pamper yourself. You aren't just washing your hair...you are cleansing your head! Use it as a chance to really relax and enjoy the steps. I turn the ringer on my phone off, set up a good play list of music, and then...

Showertime

• Bathe yourself as usual. The hair washing is the last step of your shower.

• When you are ready to wash your hair, turn the water temperature down cooler, then cooler, then a little cooler...basically, you don't want a head full of scrambled egg, do you? Then you'd better turn it down a little more...plus, cold water is good for tightening your skin and cooling the inflammation from that hot shower!

• The last step of the egg-shampoo making process is to splash just a bit of that apple cider vinegar into the egg mixture - just a bit! A bloop! A splut! I don't know how else to measure it...sorry!

• Remember the old "exploding volcano" science project? Yeah. The egg-shampoo will foam! Give it a good stir, rinse your head once more in the cold water, and start to dribble the shampoo onto your head. Odds are, it will be cold, and you'll wrinkle your nose and screech like me! It's also awfully offsetting to pour egg onto your own head on purpose. But enjoy the experience! It is really fun!

• Alternately pour and dribble, working it into your scalp and through your hair with your fingertips. Don't use your nails...use your fingertips and give yourself an eggy scalp massage for a minute!

• Rinsing is easy for me because I have a removable shower head and can get a good strong water blast on my head! I hope the water was cold enough, or you might have little half-boiled eggy bits when you get out. If you do, they can be picked out...merely an inconvenience. The cold water is good for your pores, anyways. Repeat that as a mantra while you spray your head to get out all of the egg-shampoo.

• Here's where that herbal rinse comes in. Lean your head back and pour the yummy herbal tea over your head and hair. The fragrance of the infusion should take out the last of the egg-shampoo smell, if there is any left. I tend to rinse once more with cold water and then I'm done!

Me and my hair!
Image by Modern Scribe Photography

I know. It sounds like a lot to do. And honestly, when you are used to squirting this opalescent, flower-smelling goo out of a bottle as your only step, it IS a lot to do. But I went from having to wash my hair daily to only needing to wash once or twice a week, I had less dandruff, and overall, felt more pampered because of all the attention I was giving myself.  Pair this with a honey facial, and you will end up feeling decadent and nourished!

Want to give it a try sometime? I can't guarantee that what works for me will work for you - my hair is curly and wavy and tends towards dry and frizzy. I can't brush it, only comb and fingerpick through the curls. If your hair is more oily or fair and thin, my method might cause more harm than good! It has taken me two decades to learn how to work with my hair.

To be honest, most days I use the plastic bottles of normal shampoo that most people use (though I refill them from the bulk section to save on waste).  Now that we don't have chickens, the cost of eggs is a factor, and the amount of time it takes to prepare for the routine can be overwhelming with a full time job.

In the meantime, give it a try! Tell me what you think! Do you have a similar routine or beauty tip?

May and June 2011 Growing Update...

Lavender in May, Image by MSP

Ok, so we put our tomatoes out way too early...but we were given leggy tomato starts early in the season, and they just couldn't make it indoors anymore!

Unfortunately, only the 2 Oregon Spring tomatoes look like they'll do anything - the 3 remaining are miserable, and we already lost one of the Cherokee Purples. *sigh*  Oh well, we have new tomato babies waiting to take their places!

Tomatoes:
1 Cherokee Purple
2 Oregon Spring
1 Anna Russian
1 Jeune Flaume

We also put into the dirt near the tomatoes an onion that had sprouted in our pantry, as well as fennel seeds that are sprouting beautifully...we've amended the clay with sand and some nice chunky soil, but it still hardens on the surface and pools the water. *also sigh*

In pots, we have:

Aci peppers - Capsicum annuum, 'Aci Sivri' is an old Turkish variety that can be mild to burning hot, can produce up to fifty 5-9 inch cayenne-shaped fruits per plant. They are currently bursting into flower...we are super excited!


Also in our front yard, we have a pallet that has been filled with good soil and we used as a sort of raised bed for herbs and shallow rooted plants like lettuces.  In this lovely garden grows:

Our lovely lettuces - Image by Modern Scribe Photography

Comfrey - she returned from last year! Huzzah! Poultices and oils and salves there shall be!

Lemon Balm - a lovely clump that is quickly spreading, oh, sweet Melissa, you are delicious.

Soapwort - she overwintered in the house, and is now growing merrily. I haven't played much with her yet, and will update when I do...we are new to each other.

Motherwort - given to me by a friend last year, she lived outside in a pot all winter. I assumed I had killed her, until spring began and small leaves broke the soil. She is now blooming!  I love Motherwort!

Spearmint - happy, vibrant, green and icy, sweet spearmint was purchased at the 2011 Asheville Herb Festival and has quickly taken hold of the soil and is an astoundingly healthy plant.

Corsican Mint - this tiny-leaved clump looks more like a moss. This mint is sweet and potent, and is the flavor used to make Creme De Menthe.  It makes a fabulous groundcover for scented walkways.

Lettuce - This has been a wonderful experiment for us...once we got rid of the groundhog, that is.

Another little sunny, dry plot in the center of our front yard has yielded some results from last year:

Lavender - she's up, happy, a lovely green, and spouting out a ton of new stems and starting to flower now that is it June! Yay!
 

Yarrow in May, Image by MSP

Marigolds - these spreading masses have returned and are bound to be lovely in summer and fall.

Yarrow - there's a bit here that I got last year, mislabeled as Chamomile! Ah well, yarrow is my new best friend and I can't get enough of her. Which is good. Keep reading.

The Iris -  My husband's mother sent us a box of bulbs last fall whose lineage can be traced back to three or four greats on the matrilineal side. Only one bulb made it, and it's foliage is gorgeous, but it hasn't bloomed yet. I can't wait to see what color she is!

In the kitchen window:

Basil - crazy, hasty, excited, healthy basil. I foresee pesto in our future....

Parsley - a couple made it through the basil, and will likely have to live outside before long.

Thyme - fought past the basil and parsley, and we are excited!

We've got seedlings started:

Cucumbers - going into their new big home tomorrow (container gardening)
Golden Watermelon - they are gorgeous, and getting bigger!
Pimiento Peppers - FAILURE!  They just didn't come up!

We've put dirt into tubs in the yard.  Inside that dirt lay some seeds:

Golden Beets - all died after too much sun and heat when their lid got left on. *sigh*
Black Radishes - they are struggling, but coming up! We should have three radishes if we are lucky!
Bunching Onions - again...this heat surprised us. We fried these guys too...

On our lower lot, there is a strip of nice dirt along our stone wall which is home to:

Yarrow - this one was transplanted from elsewhere in our yard.  It grows here as a native, it is strong, resilient, and higher than my knees!  I will likely be selling/trading a lot of yarrow this year as I have more than our household's needs require.

Violets - as I mentioned earlier this spring, I received violet rhizomes from freecycle. These beauties have taken over their patch of dirt, and I have violet flower tincture and have been consuming flowers and leaves all spring. *happy sigh*

Wormwood - Artemisia is new to my garden, although I am familiar with her shady history. I have three lovely plants that are big and hearty and will make flea powder and maybe even some infused vodka in the style of absinthe (true Absinthe is distilled, and I don't have a copper kettle OR coil).

In the wilds of our yard, the hillside is pushing up the baby Evening Primrose.  The blackberry brambles have dropped their flowers and are rich with green berry-babies.  Yarrow, burdock, red clover, and other useful nummy plants are weaving up through the warming soil.

Gosh, but I love Spring!  Summer, here we come!

Circle and Circle and Circles again...

Candler in Spring, by Modern Scribe Photography

What a month it has been...camping, festivals, dear friends visiting my home and looking to put down roots in these sweet mountains.  There's been patterns woven, and circles coming 'round to completion. It makes me feel grounded, centered, and in tune with the world around me.

A part of being in tune with your world means walking in a balance between life and death.  There is never one without the other; life feeds on life feeds on life, and all life feeds on death to continue...you cannot have one without the other, and it is not something to be feared, in my book.

Life is beautiful:  I will be putting seeds into the earth tomorrow.  Peas and carrots, an onion that sprouted in my cabinets, some potatoes that decided to grow in my pantry.  I will watch these sprout, but will bring a difficult part for me...

Death is certain:  Of those seedlings that grow, some will die by my own hands as I thin the eventual green haze of fresh sprouts. I will be squashing bugs whose crime is only that they live, and want to consume the same leafy goodness that I wish to consume, and my only right is that I am larger. 

Life is astounding: My yard is bringing up it's own bounty: Yarrow, Violets, Dandelions, Sorrels, Heal-all, Clover, Plantain...last year's green friends are coming back: Chamomile, Comfrey, Marigolds, Lavender, and my Shehan Family Iris!

Death is sustaining: Our neighbor's yard is full of chickens, and a trio of goats who love to visit us at the fence to beg for scratch corn or tender honeysuckle vines.  The chickens there will soon have a coop, but until then, are relatively at the mercy of local foxes, and we often find a mostly fox-consumed chicken carcass being pecked at by the other chickens. Never forget, these egg-givers are tiny, feathered dinosaurs! 

Life is sweet:  And so is a yard full of clover and sweet green grass for our own two chickens to nibble on.  As of late, we've been letting them out of the pen to wander the yard for a bit while we clean out the coop and tend to our plants on the lower lot.  They have been having delicious dust baths and scratching through our compost, turning it and eating bugs and clucking merrily!

Death is merciful:  But the other day, as I stumbled down the hill to feed the chickens, feverish and barely awake, I noticed only one chicken freaking out as usual over her pending dinner.  I let her out, and peered into the coop to find the other biddie standing, puffed up and panting.  She wouldn't come out, but let me lift her out.  I could tell she wasn't in a good way, but wasn't sure what was wrong until I looked at her behind...without going into details, I can say that I knew quickly that the only cure I could give my poor egg-providing friend was a quick death.

Now, I've fished, and I've hunted squirrel. I've insisted upon knowing what it is to kill in order to consume - again, that balance of life and death.  But never before had I caused a creature to die by my own hands that I did not intend to consume, or for the sake of mercy.  It is far more difficult than one might imagine. 

Angel the Goat by MSP

Life is Changing:  More and more people are turning to the earth to provide for them, tilling their yards for garden space, picketing their city to allow urban chickens, and lacking that, supporting local farm markets.  I applaud the effort, and want to remind people about rain barrels, and compost bins, and container gardening, and encourage folks to jump in and TRY new things...it's the only way to learn.

Death is Change:  Next time you throw something into your compost bin, think about HOW it breaks down...your useless, discarded food bits and lawn clippings feed the happy little bacteria that consume, defecate, and thereby create fertilizer for the food that you will eat.  I will watch the plot of earth that covers the buried body of my chicken friend and see how bright the grass grows, and watch her death feed the earth.  I will throw squished bugs to the other chicken as I tend my plants, and watch her grow strong from their death.

We are all part of life, and all part of death. 

The greater circle encompasses us all, man, woman, fish, fowl, hooved, winged, whatever...

find your place and your center and grow from there. 

Let's Talk About: Smearing Honey on your Face

Image by Modern Scribe Photography

Ok, so we all know that I love honey for accenting foods and drinks as well as just on it's own by the spoonful.  But did you know that I also love it for use as a do-it-yourself spa treatment?  Honey can serve as a wonderful product to add to your beautification rituals!

Even if you don't use Pixie's Pocket honey, I encourage you to use local honey from a natural beekeeper so you can be assured of it's purity. Some of the big box stores carry honey that comes from China or Argentina, and they are often supplemented with High Fructose Corn Syrup and other less-than-ideal chemical treatments.

Simple Honey Facial:

• Tie back your hair and roll up any long sleeves.

• Wash your face with warm water and a gentle soap. Pat your sweet face dry with a clean towel. Look at how pretty you are!

• Dip your fingertips into a jar of honey, and apply small dollops of honey directly to your skin all around your face.  Use the fingertips of both hands to very gently spread the honey around, including on your lips and in the folds around your nose.

• Gently press your fingertips all over your face, lifting them up, and pressing back down.  As the honey dries a bit, you can feel this process pulling your skin. This brings blood flow and vitality to all of those tiny blood vessels!

• Keep patting your wonderful face until the honey dries. This should not take long at all, just about one minute. Rinse your hands, and sit down for a little bit.  This would be a great time to meditate, paint your toenails, or anything else calming and self-restorative. I like to jump into a nice warm bath, personally.

• After about ten minutes or so, run some water and splash your face clean. If you rinse with nice warm water, you shouldn't have to use soap. Let yourself feel clean and new.

• Pat your face dry again, and look at your glow! This simple ritual helps to remove blackheads and restore vitality to your skin when performed regularly.

I find it to be a totally enjoyable activity, and it truly works to help clean the skin and leave you feeling moisturized! Has anyone else tried this?

Scenes from my yard, or Why I Haven't Been Blogging!

Our new yard friends! Photo by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Our yard friends give us eggs, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Lavender, soon to be in bloom, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Akasha surveys her domain, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Chickens, Eggs, Compost heap, Cats, Gardens, Craft Fairs, Farm Markets, Honey Jars, 

Wildcrafting, Bumble Bees, Midnight Car Accidents on our Road, Entertaining Guests, 

Gem Mining, White Water Rafting...and I know there's more!

This sure is a busy spring! 

I hope to be chatting with y'all later, but for right now, I'm just going along with the tide! 

Much love to you and yours and...

May the Best Manifest!

Learning about Native Appalachian Plants and Herbs

Amber by Modern Scribe Photography

Howdy, everyone...I hope Spring's been keeping you as joyfully busy as it's been keeping me! Between building the chicken coop, filling honey orders, and jumping on the trampoline, I've been keeping the growing things tended.

Oh, yes...I've been exploring and cultivating my yard like a thing possessed... since I last checked in:

~We've succeeded in moving decorative boxwoods from the only flat, sunny, well-draining spot in the front yard up to the top of a ridge to help combat the erosion there. Sarah and I got all scratched up and dirty and sweaty and happy while accomplishing that task.

~We broke up the soil in the newly cleared spot (about 4x5) and added some composted cow manure and sand, and worked it into the clay. While pulling out weeds and roots and rock, we saw more worms than I could count! They are certainly welcome guests. May they continue to grow and prosper here!

~We transplanted our tomato starts into that new place - a Cherokee Purple, a Jeune Flame, and two Oregon Spring tomato plants. We made cages for the bushy plants and stakes for the climbers. They all seem to be doing well, but the Oregon Spring tomatoes are a little slower than the Cherokee Purple and the Jeune Flame, who are flowering to beat the band.

In the House of Herbs Greenhouse by Modern Scribe Photo.

~We got a Crookneck Squash, an Old Timey Kentucky Pumpkin, and a Pickling Cucumber vine from House of Herbs here in Candler, North Carolina. They are thriving and we already have a squash starting to swell! I did the happy dance when I saw it, and ran inside to tell the whole household. They know I'm a dork and love me anyways!

~The other side of our front porch also has good drainage, and gets mostly dappled sunlight and shade due to the ornamental cherry trees that shield that side of the house.  This is where I've decided to relocate our pallet-bed...the spot where I put it initially was too sunny and wind-blown. One quadrant of the bed has some struggling spinach coming up, and one little lettuce sprout. I think they've been too warm and dry, but they may do better in their new home.

~In the second quadrant of the pallet-bed, we have some freshly transplanted Basil seedlings, and a healthy and happy Oregano plant. I've also planted a Comfrey plant that I got from House of Herbs.

~Also on the herbal front, there are some happily growing peppermint plants and soapwort plants in pots on the porch, as they are both rather invasive. I've planted a native Elderberry bush and it is thriving on the hill under the Oak tree's dappled shade, and we have a German Chamomile and White Lavender plants in full sun alongside the Chrysanthemum that I thought had died last fall, but is now starting to make quite a show.

Pisgah Waterfall by Modern Scribe Photography

~Wildcrafting: So far this spring, I've learned quite a bit about native plants of the Appalachians. I've correctly identified Trillium, Mayapple, Wild Ginger, and Umbrella tree while slipping and sliding and busting my butt climbing around the wild slopes and waterfalls of the Pisgah National Forest. I think that I also saw Solomon's Seal and Bloodroot, but I'm not 100% and will bring a book next time!

Bee, Closeup - by Modern Scribe Photography

~Even just while wandering our yard, I've identified:
Cinquefoil (Rough-fruited or Sulfur Cinquefoil, another "noxious weed" with medicinal uses. Stay Tuned for more.)
Red Clover (stay tuned for more)
Ox-eye Daisy
Dock, both Curly Leafed and otherwise
Wild Yarrow (Milfoil)
Bittersweet Nightshade
Plantain (stay tuned for more)
Japanese Honeysuckle (Invasive! I've trimmed it back quite a bit, and plan to use the flowers to flavor a wine) 
Dandelion (which is now a mead brewing)
Wild Blackberries (smells so sweet!)

So if I'm too muddy, tired, and sunbaked to blog about it as often as I did before, bear with me...I'll keep you posted as often I can!

Pixie's Pocket Spotlight: Mother Love Honey

Photo by Modern Scribe Photography, Sarah Thomas

A gift from the moon, Mother Love Honey is available for purchase at Pixie's Pocket.

This new electuary is for those sore of heart, exhausted from stress and grief and emotional trauma.

Motherwort is a gentle nurturer...holding you close while you weep deep, cleansing tears. Oatstraw is a strong nutrient, green like spring and bright. It holds you up when you are sagging down to your knees with exhaustion. Lavender is the gentle hand brushing your hair back from your face - soothing, sweet, and humming soft melodies to you while rocking you to sleep.

You can read about the birth of Mother Love Honey here.

The Birth of "Mother Love Honey"

The moon gave me a gift last night.

We'd gotten home last night just before dark, the snow blowing and wind howling. We just barely got up the hill that leads to the sharp turn onto our road. Trudging through the yard and up the slope winding up to the warm little house, the large snowflakes clung to our warmth. The sky was starting to turn blue; and so was the snow, and the air itself then became a cornflower blue around us as we made it inside the toasty house.

Later that night I found myself feeling anxious and jittery - it wasn't the now steady-falling snow that was bothering me, nor the movie I couldn't focus on, nor any one specific reason I could conjure. So I just made myself a cup of coffee and wandered aimlessly until I found myself in my quiet little bedroom.

We'd lit "just in case" candles earlier in the evening, having lost power during the last snow, and so my room was bathed in a warm and bronzey glow. The window curtain had been tied back to allow the recumbent cat's baleful glare to bounce off of the swirling white that she so despised. I pulled over a pillow to rest on next to her, gazed outside, and found myself lost in the light.

I couldn't see the moon for all the clouds, but I could feel the moon, full and bright.  The entire world was blue and white and silver, soft and rounded. Beams of glistening light reflected in every crystal prism drifting towards the ground.
 
I lay there for quite some time, staring and breathing silently and deeply. I drowsed, eyes open and blurred, waking to blink and yawn and disturb the warm cat curled at my stomach.

Shapes and spirals filled my mind's eye, sigils and runes written on the white of my vision. Symbols of ice and water and winter, symbols of mother and snow. I felt a steady heat despite the cold eeping through the glass - held in arms bigger than I could ever see and cradled in warmth, I fell asleep at the window.

I woke after an hour or so, dazed from the nap and from waking in the darkness. My thoughts  immediately began to run through the symbols I had drawn in my mind's eye, marking them for a future mosaiced in glass.  While looking for my sketchpad to document these designs, I discovered my favorite books of herblore and a notebook full of potential honey recipes and herbal remedies that I had misplaced months ago.

I poured a glass of wine and sat down to investigate. Wine always helps with divination, you know.  Bibliomancy. I started flipping through the books and my own written words. Page after page, scanning the words, I realized that three herbs were indeed grabbing my attention time and time again:  Motherwort, Lavender, and Oatstraw.

So I thought about what I knew of them, one by one:

Motherwort: sweet mother, loving intentions, good for nerves, calming palpitations, mild sedative, balances severe emotional swings due to stress, shock, and sorrow, directly invigorates uterine tissue, good for trauma recovery, good for pregnancy and post-partum depression

Lavender: good for relaxation, indigestion, nervous stress, antiseptic, good for insomnia, panic, helps with some migraines, helps control muscle spasms

Oatstraw:  tonic for the heart and circulation, highly nutritious, fights panic attacks, soothes nerves, esp. good for illness/trauma recovery, mild sedative


These three create a potent combination of nurturing herbs! This is what you give someone after they've been in shock and the emergency has passed. This is what you feed someone too steeped in grief to open the dams of repressed emotion and allow it to be purged. This is what an anxious stress-ball like me, a chronic fretter, needs to add to a cup of warm milk and water before bed on a cold and snowy night when it seems there is no Spring to be had! 

So armed with that knowledge, inspired with a sort of meandering moon gift, I made my first ever jar of Mother Love Honey today.

Mother Love Honey Photograph by Modern Scribe Photography, Sarah Thomas