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.

Safeteam Challenge

SAFE Team's Christmas Carol Challenge

Is that favorite Christmas song running through your ahead already? Is it Silent Night? Deck the Halls? Santa Baby? Or, I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas?

This month, SAFE team members were given the challenge to create a soap based on their favorite holiday tune. You job is to pick a favorite. Vote by telling which one gets you humming in the comments section and you'll be entered to win the winning bar! Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

Below is my entry:



1. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy - Goat's Milk Soap by greensprings0



I choose this song because every Christmas we watch our granddaughter perform the Nutcracker with her ballet school. This year is the first time she will dance on pointe. She has been waiting a long time for this moment.

Wanting a complex sweet scent, I choose lavender, rose, ylang ylang and pettigrain essential oils.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving we put up or decorations, played in the snow and cross country skied today.

For your holiday shopping pleasure, the Green Springs Elves have been busy in the workshop creating lots of new soaps, individual bath scrubs and more!

 As as thank you to all my wonderful customers I am having a sale at www.greensprings0.etsy.com : ♥GREEN SPRINGS BLACK FRIDAY THROUGH CYBER MONDAY SALE♥ Free local delivery with  shipping refunded via paypal.
~ Nov. 26th through Midnight PST on Nov. 29th~
20 % off entire store and a free gift with every purchase. Use coupon code: GREEN4THEPLANETANDU at checkout.

Combined flat-rate shipping on up to 7 soaps is only $4.75 within the US, $11 for Canada and Mexico, and $13 for everywhere else. Shipping overages over $1.00 refunded.

INFUSED OILS MAKE GREAT GIFTS

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  Fall is my busiest time of the year.  Since I make most of my holiday gifts I need to get started early.  I have also been making new products for my Etsy Shop. After wild crafting herbs and flowers in the fall they are now solar infusing nicely on my windowsills. Besides the multi-herb oil pictured in the previous post, I have also infused the vanilla oil pictured. 

The beautiful calendula was picked yesterday in the garden.  It's unusual for it to still be blooming in November so I am really thankful.  Calendula is an amazing herb.  It is especially good for babies because of it is so gentle and healing.  Some of the other infusions I am making are comfrey, arnica, St. John's Wort, and elderflower.  For holiday gifts I am infusing  rosemary, thyme, fennel, and tarragon in organic olive oil.  

I like the slower solar infused method, only using dried herbs and add Vit E oil to prevent rancidity and to increase shelf life. If stored away from heat and light, your oil should last a year or two if not longer.This is how I do it:

 Dry the herbs to remove all water.  This can be done with a food dehydrator or just by leaving in the sun.  After the flowers and herbs are dry, you can add them to the olive oil.  Whole sprigs of thyme, rosemary, dried peppers, etc. can decorate the inside of the bottle this way. 

The oil will pick up the flavor fairly quickly, in the first few weeks, and then slowly intensify. It is fine to leave the herbs in for a long time; eventually all the flavor leaves the herbs and the oil flavor stabilizes. I like to infuse the herbs in the decorative beer bottles pictured when giving as gifts. For the herbal infused olive oils I like to attach a recipe to the bottle.  For the infused massage oils like vanilla, comfrey, calendula, St. John's wort, arnica I sometimes like to essential oils known for healing or relaxation.  

Happy Holidays and don't forget to visit my Etsy Store for my big Black Friday Sale.

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.

Skijoring with the huskies

Here is a picture of the dogs taking a break while skijoring at Hyatt Lake yesterday. Hyatt Lake is located outside of Ashland Oregon in the beautiful Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. It is one of our favorite places to play year round. We love to ski around it in the winter, take the canoe on it, bike around it, swim across it, dog sled, hike and run around it. We are sometimes rewarded with a view of ospreys and eagles soaring high above.

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.

ECO LAWN MOWER AND WEEDEATER

My daughter's Nubian Goats bring new meaning to the phrase "will work for food". Besides furnishing us with delicious goat's milk that we drink and cook with, makes fantastic cheese, and super rich goat's milk soap, they are also tireless lawn mowers. Right now they are busy clearing the field of blackberries! The herd is very affectionate and love to go on walks with the kids.

On the curing rack is my favorite soap, a wonderful batch of my 100 percent goat's milk soap scented with neroli and rose absolute. Look for that to be listed again on Etsy in 4 more weeks. A long cure makes for a milder long lasting bar. Next up is East Meets West goat's milk soap. This is my next favorite soap, scented with patchouli, frankincense, myrrh, lavender, and lime, the scent is exotic and unusual. Customers who hate the smell of patchouli always love this soap.

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.

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!