Krista's Herbarium
a collection of herbal remedies, recipes, and reveries
Herbal Workshop: Spa
My Spa Herbal Workshop was a great success. My fellow Herbal Warriors and I had a great time together making Calendula Face Cream and Chamomile Face Cream.
After arriving at my house, each participant was offered freshly made sun tea and herbal citrus water. While they enjoyed the refreshment, we went over the recipes for that day’s herbal remedies. Spa Recipes 20.5
The goal of this workshop was to demystify the metamorphosis that happens when water and oil are emulsified into a cream. I remember the first time I made a cream, it was like I had become a wizard or an alchemist. To blend a host of waters with a mixture of oils into a smooth cream was magical.
First, the oils and wax are melted in a double boiler on low heat.
This is then left to cool. We treated ourselves to a delicious cherry and chocolate coffee cake (brought by one of the participants. Thanks, Pamela!) while we waited for the oil mixture to cool. It was a lovely sunny day in the garden, perfect for chatting and chilling while we waited.
After about 20 minutes, the oils had partially solidified and we were ready for stage two. The oils were scraped into a blender and set to high speed.
We added the water mixture into the vortex of the blending oils and…VOILA!
A beautiful sight, this is. A perfectly blended face cream. It smells and feels so good and is super healing for your skin.
Everyone filled their jar with the cream, they could choose either Chamomile or Calendula, and affixed super cute labels on (all designed and hand-drawn by my daughter, Rebekah). The rest of the cream was scraped out meticulously and soon everyone was applying it to their faces, arms, legs…it was pretty funny.
All the workshop participants left with their cream of choice, some salve samples and a magazine from my friend Marek who runs a juicer company, mipam.cz. He provided for us that day a Vitamix blender (so I could have more than one blender running) and even coupons for products that he sells. Thanks, Marek!
I am really looking forward to our next workshops!
Photo credit: Zeinep Yessenbekova
Krista's Herbarium 