Castile Soap and Chamomile

Sometimes the simplest things are the best, and cheapest. If you are trying for a healthy home, these two items are your friends. I have a large bottle of Castile soap, purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs, in my cupboard. I use it in foaming face wash, shampoo, and other home made personal items. Its simple to use,To make an all purpose cleaner, combine 1 gallon of hot water with 1/2 cup liquid Castile soap and 10 drops essential thyme oil. Spray on cupboards, sink, tubs,any surface you need to clean., If you have pets, make a shampoo that repels fleas with Castile and peppermint essential oil, bugs hate peppermint. Just keep it out of eyes and nose. Add a few squirts of Castile to 2 cups hot water to clean up greasy stove tops. Using Castile instead of normal disinfectants can help ease allergies, it will take a few weeks to see improvement as you need the toxic stuff you have been using to get cleaned out. Living in a clean , green house is so good for your health. Chamomile has long been used as a relaxing tea, to aid in sleep. But its good for ulcers too, and tummy troubles, very soothing. Steep a cup of chamomile blossoms in 2 cups boiling water, strain, cool and use as a hair conditioner, do not rinse out. It will leave your hair soft and slightly lighter. If you have puffy eyes, steep some flowers and make small compresses to put under your eyes, while relaxing a short time.Its also good for itches, scrapes and burns, can use tea or make salves and lotions, recipes easy to find on line. Amazing how going back to old remedies can improve our lives. I watched a spot on ABC news a while back saying lots of folk are getting tired of the side effects, cost and inconvenience of prescription meds, so they are looking for holistic, and alternative doctors who can use both, and keep your side effects at bay. Seems our grandparents knew a lot more than we gave them credit for. Back on the prairie, docs were few and far between and pioneers needed a good basic knowledge of herbal care. Even the Native Americans had a good handle on growing and using herbs, tree roots and bark etc. It kind of seems the farther we progress, the less healthy we are. It's trying to be spring, the dogwoods are lovely, the red buds are about gone, but my snowballs, tulips etc are so pretty. We have been in an area this week with 3 forest fires burning very close to us. We ate our share of smoke for a day or two, but the fire is burning away from us and up another mountain now. It's splitting so they are still using helicopters to drop water, last report said we had an extra 130 firefighters brought in to fight this giant blaze, We could use a good soaking rain to help get all these fires out. Hope you are having a lovely spring, enjoying some warmer days and the flowers that are now appearing. I am waiting for my little hummingbirds to return, love watching them. Take care.