Try This at Home: Holiday in Scents
December/January 2009
By The Herb Companion staff
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Photolibrary.com
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Rosemary Refresher
A rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) rinse will make your hair smell beautiful, and might help your brain run a little better, too. Make a strong tea using 1/2 cup fresh (or 1/4 cup dried) rosemary per quart of hot water. After it cools to lukewarm, use it as a final rinse for washed and conditioned hair. —Barbara Pleasant
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Traditional Aromatherapy
Pomanders, traditionally oranges studded with whole cloves (Syzygium aromaticum), are a great holiday tradition—and they smell heavenly. Lemons and tangerines also make nice pomanders. Using a wooden or metal skewer, poke holes into the fruit, then fill the holes with cloves. Cover as much of the fruit with cloves
as possible.
Spice Up Your Tea
Nothing goes with holiday cookies quite like a cup of cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) tea. It’s soothing, warming and helps improve digestion. The herb combines well with black tea and with other spices, such as cloves, ginger (Zingiber officinale) and orange peel. Herbalist Brigitte Mars recommends using cinnamom sticks, crushed with a mortar and pestle, to make cinnamon tea—cinnamon powder makes a muddy, overly spicy tea.
On-the-Go Remedy
Ginger is many health pracitioners’ favorite nausea-fighting herb. It tastes great, is available in many forms and is easy to find. For motion sickness, take two 500-mg capsules of powdered ginger 30 minutes before boarding an airplane or boat or getting into a car, and repeat the dose approximately every hour, as needed. If your stomach feels queasy on land, try capsules, ginger tea, strong ginger ale (made from fresh ginger) or candied ginger.