Mountain Goddess

Happy Summer! We've been busy in the Green Springs with the markets, gardening, and making new amazing products.  My latest soap is called Mountain Goddess in honor of the Cascade Siskiyou Mountains we live in and the Green Springs Community that is near and dear to our hearts.  

Mountain Goddess contains 100 % goat's milk, lovingly supplied by my daughter Brett who raises gentle Nubian Goats.  Nubian's milk has a high fat content which makes fabulous soap.  I used Aussie Beige Clay for color and skin soothing properties.  Scented with a combination of eucalyptus blue mallee, Peru Balsam, Pettigrain, clary sage and gingergrass essential oils it reminds me of the fresh mountain air, hence the name Mountain Goddess.  It needs to cure for a few more weeks so check back here or on Etsy in a few weeks.  This soap is sure to sell fast so don't miss out! 

I've also made a healing balm for cracked heals and cuticles.  I've named it Neem Crack Cream.  It works great!  I'm off to create a new Shaving Soap!   

Happy Valentine's Day

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59441976/minty-sweet-sugar-scrub-body-polish

In honor of Valentine's Day and Spring I added three new items to my shop.  Pink Sunset Goat's Milk Soap, Kilauea Volcano Soap, and Violets perfume.  To read more about them click on my Etsy Shop Link to the right. 

We have been very busy here in the Green Springs working on new creations for spring and summer.  Look for more Body Whips and Sweet Scrubs to be listed soon.  I am also working on a Neem Bar that works great on cracked heels.  My heels have been nice and smooth since I started using it last summer and all my testers have also had success healing their cracked or dry heels.

Every Valentine's Day I pamper my hubby.  Yesterday he twisted his ankle really bad and is limping,  so I have a massage planned for him using my infused arnica oil followed by this footbath:
Soothing Foot Bath
1/2 cup Epsom Salts
mix the following flowers and store in a glass container.  Place a handful of these herbs in a basin with epsom salt and warm water.  Enjoy!

1/4 Cup Calendula Flowers
1/4 Cup Rose Petals
1/4 cup Lavender Flowers
1/4 cup Comfrey Leaf

Follow with a foot scrub.  I like to use my Minty Sweet Sugar Scrub.   End with a foot massage.

SPRING AND THE COLUMBINES HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED

Spring arrived late this year to the Green Springs but due to all the rain the Columbines are blooming the like crazy.  Columbines have always been my favorite flower and the huge Rocky Mountain Blue Columbine which is the state flower of Colorado is my favorite. It was there that I first discovered the Columbine 30 years ago. They come in many different colors and sizes. I love them for their beauty and also because they  bring my favorite bird, the hummingbird to my windows. Red Columbine,  Aquilegia canadense, is especially valuable in a hummingbird garden because it blooms just when Rufous Hummingbirds are beginning to return from their wintering grounds. Feeding hummingbirds must hover directly beneath the Columbine flower, aiming their beaks straight upward to sample the nectar.  I have actually tasted the nectar and it is delicious. 

Neroli (orange blossom) Face Food

I finally splurged on some more neroli essential oil to make a Neroli Face Food. This is the same formula as my other Face Foods except neroli is the only essential used, producing a very fragrant, fresh scent. Neroli is one of the most expensive essential oils because it take one ton of orange blossoms to make one quart of essential oil.

Neroli Face Food benefits all skin types, sensitive, mature, and oily. Neroli is said to have cell stimulating properties and helps with broken capillaries, neroli oil stimulates new cell growth, heals scars and helps prevents stretch marks. It also benefits sensitive and mature skin while being slightly astringent for oily complexions.
It helps to re-hydrate, soften and boost rejuvenation.

Common Uses: Neroli Essential Oil increases circulation and stimulates new cell growth. It can prevent scarring and stretch marks, and has been found useful in treating skin conditions linked to emotional stress. Any type of skin can benefit from this oil, although it is particularly good for dry, irritated or sensitive skin. It regulates oiliness and minimizes enlarged pores. Neroli Oil helps to clear acne and blemished skin, especially if the skin lacks moisture. With regular treatment, it can reduce the appearance of fragile or broken capillaries and varicose veins. Other properties include being antidepressant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, aphrodisiac, carminative, cordial, deodorant, digestive, stimulant (nervous) and tonic (cardiac, circulatory).

Consistency: Medium

Note: Middle

Strength of Aroma: Strong

Blends well with: Lavender, Lemon, Clary Sage, Myrrh and spice oils such as Nutmeg, Cinnamon and Clove.

Aromatic Scent: Neroli Essential Oil has a sweet, floral citrus aroma. Many aromatherapists refer to Neroli as an exotic and exquisite essential oil.

History: Though Bitter Orange Essential Oil has been around for centuries, Neroli Essential Oil wasn’t discovered until the seventeenth century. It was named after Anna Maria de la Tremoille, princess of Nerola. The oils properties were extremely valued by the people of Venice who used it against plague and fevers.

Cautions: This oil is non-toxic and non-sensitizing.

To purchase this or any of my other Face Food Moisturizers click on my Etsy link.

Safeteam Gift Guide and Weekend Sale

This weekend some members of the SAFETEAM are having a weekend sale. http://etsysafeteam.blogspot.com/ Just in time for the holidays I am having a 20 % off sale ending November 15 at midnight PST. So hurry over to my shop and check it out. Also check out the Safeteam mens gift guide, my Vanilla Mocha Soap is featured. Look for Whipped Shea Butter, Essential Oil Perfumes, Shampoo Bars and more to be listed soon. So check back often or click on the Etsy link on the right.

St John's Wort for the body, mind and spirit

Above is the soap I made using oil infused with St. John's Wort (hypericium perforatum). Herbal folklore name is flower of the fairies and wolf medicine. This is one of my favorite herbs and grows abundantly in the surrounding mountains. I filled a glass gallon jar full of flowers and added organic olive oil. I then set the jar in the sun to infuse for at least 6 weeks making sure to turn and shake once a day. I use the oil in many of my lotions and potions.
Last week I burned my fingers with the steam from the canner. I quickly rubbed St. John's Wort oil on the burn and the pain stopped immediately! St. John's Wort oil has the ability to penetrate nerve endings thus relieving pain. I also use this oil for painful joints.
If I am feeling blue, I like to take a few drops of tinctured St. John's to lift my spirits.
The soap pictured is called Citrus Sweet Goat's Milk Soap
I used the following 5 fold essential oils: lemon, lime, blood orange, tangerine and grapefruit. I also added a touch of patchouli which gives it its sweetness and anchors the scent. Lastly I add a bit of Litsea Cubeba essential oil.

The natural colorant is fresh St. John's Wort infused in organic oils to give the soap a nice reddish color. It never ceases to amaze me that the gold St. John's Wort flowers turn the oil to a beautiful red.

Bath Time

Fall is the time I get back to taking long luxurious soaks in my claw foot tub. When we were building our log cabin, one my first priorities was finding a big old claw foot tub. This weekend I made up a batch of vanilla and lavender scented bath salts. The following recipe makes enough for many baths: I use 1 cup of dead sea salt, 1 cup of epsom salt, and 1/2 cup powdered organic milk. I place everything in a large zip lock bag and mix well. Then I add a small whole vanilla bean scraped and cut into little pieces and lavender essential oil, I use a teaspoonful but you may want to ad more or less. I shake the bag daily for a few weeks then it's ready to use. Once I draw the bath I add a tablespoon or two of the bath salts and soak my cares away.
Sometimes I will ad dried rose petals or hollyhocks for a spa-like experience. Now is the perfect time to treat yourself to Clean and Glow, my oil based cleansing method and don't forget Green Springs skin softening goat's milk soap scented only with essential oils and or herbs. Goat's Milk exfoliates naturally. Treat your feet to a rub down with our Shower and Glow made with dead sea salt and herbal infused organic oils. Relax and let the salts and essential oil do its work. Sweet dreams!

The Three R's

This mama bear visited our campsite in the Sierras after our dogs scared her up the tree. After a few hours she came down and was on her way. We were lucky to see three other bears during our trip and a mother deer nursing her fawn. Camping and being out of cell and computer range for two whole weeks is just what I needed.

Days were spent hiking, biking, swimming, reconnecting with my husband and just plain relaxing. Our tent has a mesh top and we watched the stars in the comfort of our sleeping bags.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my business and the direction I want it to go. I tend to try to do to much and get burned out. I'm an Aries so that may explain it! If someone asks why I don't have a certain scent of soap or lotion, I always need to make it and list it in my store, even tho that person sometimes never comes back to buy it. More often than not it sits in the store a long time before someone does buy it.

This is how I came up with the Three R's. You have always heard of reduce, reuse, recycle, my three R's are relax, reconnect and reinvent. Relax: is something I do not do as often as I should, but on vacation it felt so good to just do nothing. Reconnect: I am painfully aware how short life is and my goal is to reconnect with family, friends, and neighbors regardless of how busy we all are. So friends and family be forewarned, I will be bugging you to get together more! It's really easy to become isolated in our busy lives, but what's life about without, family, friends and neighbors. Reinvent: realizing that "less is more" I have decided to cut back on offering so many different types of products and only focus on the ones that I and my customers love the most. This will free up quite a bit of time so I can relax, reconnect and reinvent my shop and product line.

So if you don't hear from me or see as much in my store online, know that I am living my life to the fullest and enjoying it as much as I can which will make me refreshed and focused so that I can continue to make amazing organic eco friendly products. Also now I can spend more time trying to save the planet for my grandkids. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!

P.S. Don't worry I will still be making FACE FOOD.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVIN FUN

Can you believe Suka is 6 months old already? He is almost as big as Tenaya pictured with the beautiful blue eyes. He loves to chase her around their fenced in yard. Sometimes he grabs a hold of her tail while they are racing around! They have worn a racetrack into our yard and Tenaya is so fast the only way Suka can catch her is if he takes a short cut.

I am almost done wild crafting Arnica, St. John's wort, and Elderflowers. I made a beautiful soap using St. John's Wort Flowers that I will post in a few days. I also made a nice salt bar that is a goat's milk soap bar with dead sea salt and French green clay. It smells amazing.
I still have many soaps, potions and lotions to make for my markets and shows. Visit me in Jacksonville Oregon Labor Day weekend for the Arts Festival. Then it's time to gear up cause Christmas is right around the corner. Time sure flies!

Back By Popular Demand

Rose Complexion Bar is back in stock. This organic bar is a labor of love. It starts with 100% Goat Milk from Nubian Goats (see post below). Nubian goat milk has high milk fat producing a super rich bar. Goat's milk is high in lactic acid which naturally exfoliates your skin. The organic oils used in this soap are infused with herbs and the most fragrant rose petals saved just for this soap. The oils are solar infused for six weeks and smell heavenly. Just before pouring the cold processed soap I add a generous amount of rose absolute, rose geranium, and palmarosa essential oils. The bar is then cured for about a month producing a gentle, long lasting bar. I love to use this decadent bar all over my body, try it your skin will feel the difference!

Nature's Gold Rose Facial Oil

Natures Gold is made with the oil pictured in the post below. I bottle the precious organic herbal infused oil in a frosted glass 2 oz container, add a few fragrant rose petals, rose essential oil, vitamin E and viola this facial oil gives your skin a dewy appearance and silky feel. The oil soothes dry, damaged skin and the rose scent is uplifting.
Rose is an aphrodisiac since ancient times and this oil is also great for a sensual massage.

Nature's Gold

This beautiful infused oil is where it all begins. Most of Green Springs Bodyworks products start with this herbal infused organic olive oil. This jar is chock full of healing herbs and flowers, solar infused for four to six weeks. I lovingly pick and forage the herbs and flowers in the early morning preferably during the time of the full moon. I have been wild crafting herbs for over twenty years and I make sure to walk gently and only pick what I can use. It sometimes takes weeks to find enough herbs for one batch as I go to many different locations in the surrounding mountains so as not to deplete any one place. Often I come across herbs that I use for natural dyeing, I am also a fiber artist so it's great when I can also find natural dye plants while I am wild crafting!

One of my favorite herbs to infuse is St. John's Wort. Picked at the peak of perfection this oil will bless you with the most beautiful deep red oil that is one of my most prized healing oils. I usually harvest that in July but Spring arrived late this year so it may bloom later. I will post a picture of that oil when I infuse it. Well, I better get back to my garden, it rained heavily last night so I need to take advantage and get in there and pull weeds before the ground hardens. Happy Spring !

GREEN SPRINGS AT THE ROGUE VALLEY GROWERS MARKET - SAVING THE PLANET ONE FACE AT A TIME

This is my booth at the Growers Market. I sell in Ashland on Tue. and in Medford on Wed. In a few weeks I will also be selling Saturdays in Ashland. One of my favorite things about the markets is meeting expectant parents then getting to see the new babies and watching them grow. The local community is really supportive and come rain or shine.

Our biggest seller is our fabulous organic Face Food. Many of our customers are tourists and purchase it at the markets and can't live without it, so I also sell it online. Also pictured is my hand-spun hand painted fiber art, yarn, and baby clothing made from recycled sweaters. In the future I hope to open a shop on Etsy and Artfire listing those items. Please stop by and say hi, if you are ever in Ashland or Medford Oregon on those days. The market runs from March until late November.

GREEN SPRINGS - LIVING UP TO OUR NAME

Twenty five years ago we moved our family from Cleveland, Ohio to the mountains of Southern Oregon to a small community called the Green Springs. Back then it consisted of loggers, hippies, and back to the landers. For the most part everyone got along because we were all somewhat isolated and depended on our neighbors. We purchased 10 acres and began living our dream. We built a small cabin with logs killed by beetle infestation, grew our own fruits and vegetables and tried to walk gently on the land. I learned how to garden, spin, weave and make soaps, lotions and potions, and was commitment to eating organic and out of necessity we reduced, reused and recycled.

Fast forward to the present. My goal is help others go organic and eco-friendly , and make every attempt to save the world for my five grandchildren, and future generations. I now market my fabulous skin care products and call my business Green Springs Bodyworks. My products and packaging are eco-friendly and most of the ingredients are organic. What I do not grow or wild-craft, I try to purchase locally. I trade a local vendor face cream for his wonderful organic olive oil. Our butters are purchased from a sustainable women's co-operatives. We offer a $1.00 refund for recycled containers and I usually go home from the markets I sell at with a big bag of returned bottles and jars. Last April I decided to spread the word further on the Web. My products can be purchased on Etsy, Artfire, and here on the blog.

Unfortunately the bigger Siberian Husky pictured died right after Christmas. Here is a recent picture of Suka our newest member of the sled dog team. Tenaya, his big sister is three and loves her newly adopted companion.

Happy Earth Day

These items from the Ecoetsy Team were a big hit at my Growers Market Booth. To celebrate Earth Day I downloaded these awesome Green Share seed packets from http://lolaness.com and filled them with my organic seeds. I used calendula and amaranth. Also pictured is a kootsac from www.kootsac.etsy.com. It is a re-usable bulk food bag for produce. I purchased two bags and used them to put all my vegis in. The bags are very well made and hold a lot. The customers and vendors were very interested in these items and I enjoyed sharing. Happy Earth Day everyone!

SAFE team's International Soap Challenge

Vote for your favorite soap with a chance to win one! SAFE team's International Soap Challenge - come vote http://etsysafeteam.blogspo...
If you vote in this challenge and purchase any item from my store you will receive a free organic lip balm! Just put "voted" in the message to seller.

Moonlight on the Adriatic

This is the soap I created for the challenge. Last summer I traveled to Croatia the home of my ancestors. I had no idea what a lovely country it is. Beautiful lavender grows everywhere and they produce the most delicious grassy green olive oil. I tried to recreate the blue-green Adriatic Sea in this soap. It is made with organic ingredients, 100 %, goat's milk, french green clay and pure essential oils of lavender, jasmine and litsea.

Purchased on Etsy for my Valentine's Day Ambush

I purchased this on Etsy for my Valentine.
Scentual Soundtracks: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6371978 offers decadent
sensual ingredients in her skin care products.
Money is tight so my plan is to ambush my husband and give him a candlelight dinner and his very first spa treatment. More about that in another post.

I choose this Facial Mask because of it's wonderful chocolate scent and it looks just like chocolate! The skin pampering ingredients are: rhassoul clay, powdered coconut, powdered chocolate, ground flaxseed, and jojoba oil. It comes in a beautiful eco-friendly cobalt blue glass jar. All you do is take out a level teaspoon of the mask and put it in a small container. Measure 2-3 tsp. of liquid, I plan to use whipping cream, but the possibilities are endless. Buttermilk, yogurt, olive or jojoba oil, honey, milk, green tea, or water, are all good choices. Add liquid, stir and microwave 10-15 seconds. I don't have a microwave so I just put the mixture in a double boiler over water and simmer gently for a few minutes. Apply to face or body and leave on for 5 to 15 minutes. Rinse with lukewarm water,
then tone and moisturize. It leaves you skin feeling silky soft and clean. I just love it and want to share with my hubby and you!

Check back next week for my full ambush spa plan!

Etsy Treasury

My organic soap is featured in this lovely treasury, check it out here:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=37540
You can also view the curators shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5981407
Her work is amazing!

Eco-friendly Christmas

This Christmas our family decided to make or recycle all of our gifts. The youngest (pictured) told his grandmother he wanted a roll of duct tape for Christmas. We got such a kick out of what he created with it. The knights helmet and wooden sword (covered in duct tape) has been played with more than any of the plastic sets he has had in the past. When it starts to get worn looking, there is nothing a little duct tape can't fix. You can see from the picture how proud he is of his creation, and best of all, his friends all want him to show them how to make one!!
I knitted earflap hats and socks, and gave my organic soaps to everyone. My husband took wooden boxes and wood burned each grandchild's name (we have five) and date and we decorated each box with glass beads or shells, and added a lock and key. Each child received there own special treasure chest.
I received a basket of jams, honey, salsa, garlic braid, and beeswax candles from my daughter and her family, my son's family gave us a beautiful photo album filled with family photos. It was truly the best Christmas ever!!!

KISS YOUR SHAVING CREAM GOODBYE

~VEGAN HANDCRAFTED COLD PROCESSED ROSE CLAY SOAP 5-6oz~

Great gift for Valentines Day. Priced $1.00 off!

No need to still be shaving with commercial shaving creams. Try our organic, eco-friendly alternative! The rose kaolin clay in the soap gives a nice slip so shaving is a breeze. All our products are colored naturally and scented with pure essential oils.

Hurry over to www.greensprings0.etsy.com and pick one up for your Valentine or yourself!