Kitchen Duties – Herbalist to the Rescue!
As seen on the Sonoran Living program.

Every day – there are dishes to wash, kitchen counters to clean and dry chapped hands as a result of all that work! What’s a person to do???

Throw out all those chemical synthetic cleaners and use some essential oils of plants and flowers to sweeten up unscented and natural-based products. Many essential oils are potent germ fighters and smell great, too. Some of them have an affinity to the skin, so they are great to include in lotion to help nourish your hands after dishwashing and cleaning.

Here are two recipes for essential oil bases that are great kitchen partners. One of them will be added to make both the dishwashing soap and the kitchen counter cleaner. The other recipe is designed to be a special treat for hands and used in a lotion.

Flowering Woods™ Essential Oil Base

Make the essential oil base in a one ounce bottle that you can then use to make other products from. Remember, when using “parts” you can make how ever much or little you want. For example, you may use drops as a “part” or you can use teaspoons as a “part” or any measurement in between. This way you have much more flexibility.

This blend is a nice balance of masculine and feminine scents. Cleaning the kitchen is an equal opportunity sport!

Ingredients:

3 parts	Cedarwood essential oil
1 part	Ylang Ylang essential oil

Flowering Woods™ Dishwashing Liquid

Use an unscented, natural based dishwashing soap, like Seventh Generation Free and Clear (find at a health food store, Wild Oats or Whole Foods, etc.). Make scent rather strong for you will be diluting it into water when washing the dishes.

This soap is MUCH better than the so-called aromatherapy dish soaps you can find at the grocery store. These soaps are just not even in the same league!

Ingredients:

8 oz	Free and Clear Dish Soap
½ tsp.	Flowering Woods™ Essential Oil Base

Method:
In a measuring cup, blend the soap with the essential oils. Pour into a decorative bottle to keep by the sink so that it is handy to wash dishes with. Since you have made this new dish soap, everyone will clamor to get a turn at washing the dishes. Please insist that everyone must take turns!



Flowering Woods™ Counter Top Cleaner

The cedar in this blend will even help keep the bugs away!

Ingredients:

12 oz	filtered water
1 oz	rubbing alcohol
½ tsp.	Flowering Woods™ essential oil blend

Clean 14+ oz spray bottle and label.


Method:

Measure water, alcohol and essential oils into spray bottle. Label the bottle. Shake well before every use. Spray on counter to clean and wipe with a cloth or paper towel. Enjoy!

Luxurious Hand Lotion

This hand lotion starts with a base of an unscented lotion (Cetaphil is an easy to find option) and then hand-nourishing essential oils are added to the lotion, as well as a little bit of high quality vegetable based oils. The result is a lotion that smells wonderful and is great for your hands.

Because you are making this yourself, you can afford to use top quality ingredients. This would make a nice gift because of the quality of the preparation.

Essential Oil Base

If you used 1/8th teaspoon equals one part, then this is how the recipe would look:

Blend in a one ounce dropper bottle.

Ingredients:

32 parts (4 teaspoons)	Rose essential oil, 5% dilution in jojoba oil (you can easily buy it this way – pure rose essential oil is very expensive and needs to be special ordered from most places)
4 parts (1/2 teaspoon)	Sandalwood essential oil
2 parts (1/4 teaspoon)	Carrot Seed essential oil
4 parts (1/2 teaspoon)	Patchouli essential oil
1 part (1/8 teaspoon)	Neroli essential oil (quite expensive but wonderful) optional
1 part (1/8 teaspoon)	Ylang Ylang essential oil

To make the lotion:

Ingredients:

6 oz	unscented lotion
2-3 capsules	vitamin E (400 IU capsules)
1 ½ oz	jojoba oil (use more if needed)
¼ tsp.	Essential oil base

A Bottle with pump or squeeze-able tube to put finished lotion in.
Labels.

Method:
Put all ingredients in a measuring cup and stir well. Adjust consistency, if desired, by adding more jojoba oil as needed. Using a funnel, pour finished lotion into bottle. Label bottle.

Enjoy!