Botanical Beauty: Lavender Toner
Real beauty comes from health—spiritual as well as physical. A beautiful countenance blooms from within with the love and joy of the Lord, and the skin is kept clear and supple with fresh water and fresh food and fresh botanical cosmetics you can easily (and inexpensively) prepare at home.—natural products like this simple but effective lavender toner.
I love the sweet scent of lavender! It is a favorite herb in our home.—We use it in our baths and candle diffusers and herbal sleep pillows and drawer sachets and even our potatoes provençal. One way I enjoy lavender every day is with this facial toner.
This is such a simple recipe, with only three ingredients and no special skills needed. Initial preparation time is under five minutes, but you may find yourself lingering as I do over each ingredient. The entire room will be perfumed while you measure and blend. After two weeks of steeping, the result is a highly fragrant toner with a lovely rose-amber color.
Packaged in a lovely container (perhaps an antique scent bottle?), this would make a very special gift for any woman. It’s also fun to treat yourself! I use my jar of lavender toner every day, splashing it on my face each morning—or in the afternoon as a pick-me-up.
Lavender Toner
Use organic ingredients whenever possible.
1 tablespoon of dried lavender buds
1 cup witch hazel extract
6 drops of pure lavender essential oil
Optional: I like to add just a few curly strips of fresh (organic!) orange peel, or two or three drops of sweet orange essential oil, because a fresh hint of citrus so beautifully complements the sweet and woodsy scent of lavender.
Combine all the ingredients in a small jar with a close-fitting lid and shake jar vigorously. Allow to steep for two weeks in a dark, cool place, shaking every day. After this time, strain the liquid and store in an airtight container—perhaps one with a misting cap. No refrigeration is required, though a chilled toner is very refreshing during a hot summer day (and an effective wake-me-up in the morning!). Without refrigeration, the toner will keep up to six months. Always label your concoctions with a name and date!
Use a cotton cleansing square to apply toner to the face, avoiding the eye area. Apply daily or as needed, to help clear blemishes and tighten pores. You can also use this as a body splash. Remember, simplicity and versatility,
vv After only a day of steeping, the extract has taken on a lovely clear amber hue.
vv Two weeks later, the toner is ready to be used. When I’ll be using a misting bottle, I use a funnel lined with cheesecloth to strain the lavender buds and sediment from the toner.
vv Otherwise, I allow the lavender buds to steep longer, pouring off the toner as I need it. The color deepens into this beautiful dark rose.
Witch Hazel Extract
Extract of witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is a popular natural astringent available even in most conventional drug stores. Not all extracts are equal, however; some have a high alcohol content and may be more drying to the skin. Mountain Rose Herbs carries a double-distilled extract in a 14% alcohol base. It is potent but very gentle on my dry-to-normal skin.
The clear liquid has a pleasantly fresh, neutral scent that lets the lavender—or other fragrant herbs—really shine.
Lavender
Lavender provides many benefits to the skin—calming inflammation, encouraging new cell growth, toning the skin, and balancing the production of oil. In our home, we use it for skin problems as various as acne, minor burns (including sunburn), cuts, scratches, bug bites, and rashes. And that wonderfully soothing scent is itself therapeutic. Stress has been linked to a worsening of many skin conditions, including acne and eczema. Take a deep breath of lavender and stress may be (literally) forgotten.
Photographs and text © 2011.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011