So Clean You Can Eat It!
Do you sometimes feel like everything is evolving into what it should have been to begin with, that to move forward we must move backward?
GARA Hydrosols: A workshop experience
Hydrosols: teeming with a plant’s essential goodness
At a recent workshop on the “alchemy of hydrosols” hosted by Emilee and Paul of Grass and Root Apothecary (GARA) Skincare at an unusual property tucked away along Thacher Creek in Ojai where they live and work, the two passionate herbalists shared how they distill plants into therapeutic water and oils slowly and gently in a set of sculptural, handmade copper stills from Portugal.
The process they use is nearly a lost art that goes back thousands of years and is actually the foundation for today’s modern medicine. Though the synthetics derived from chemicals to mimic nature are a poor substitute for the potent aroma and medicinal benefits of fresh plants distilled in these types of traditional vessels.
GARA offers a comprehensive line of hydrosols, with seasonal offerings from the available flowers, herbs, woods and roots harvested from their garden and by the small organic growers they partner with in Ojai, (including Carol Wade who helped create Ojai’s Earth Island Medicinal Herb Garden and teaches an extensive 352-hour course through her Ojai School of Herbal Studies which Emilee recently completed).
All hydrosols are beneficial in some way, whether for their aroma or medicinal properties, or both, and bring the essence of the complete plant into a therapeutic water. According to Emilee, hydrosols can contain up to 40% of the cellular water from the plant and are also infused with the oils of the plant during distillation. The excess oil rises to the top of the hydrosol and are collected separately as essential oils.
Essential oils, even from the same plant and distillation batch, represent only one aspect of the plant, in a concentrated way, which is why there are safety precautions for their use and potential irritation if used directly on the skin. Hydrosols are potent and medicinal, 20-30 times stronger than herbal teas says Emilee, yet can be misted directly on the skin as facial toner (tightening pores and balancing ph), added to baths (for aroma, mood and healing), and used for flavor in cooking.
The emphasis of the workshop was on the importance of distilling the hydrosols in a slow and gentle way and the versatile uses of hydrosols, but also on respecting the plants themselves. This is an impossible consideration in the commercial production of hydrosols, which are produced quickly and often from dried plants. Emilee told attendees that the way they harvest fresh plants for GARA’s hydrosols is also traditional, that they never take the first or the last plant when harvesting, allow the plants to produce seed, and beyond its uses for humans, honor each variety’s role in its environment.
Visit garaskincare.com for more information, where available hydrosols are listed by scent (floral, sage, citrus and California natives) and by use (face & body, aromatherapy, in the kitchen and for the family), as well as other GARA products such as creams, balms, serums and more.
So Clean You Can Eat It!
Do you sometimes feel like everything is evolving into what it should have been to begin with, that to move forward we...
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