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A simple cleanser (for face or eye contour)

The commercial cleansers have the huge advantage of being ready to use: you only need to buy and use them! Unfortunately, though, such products are usually made (at least largely) with synthetic chemical substances, which ensure some advantages (like a low production cost, a perfect control upon features like texture, playing time, white film formation or prevention, color, persistence, etc.) on one side, but that, on the other side, are not completely healthy for our skins.

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St. John’s harvesting – Salvia sclarea L. and Hypericum perforatum L.

Salvia sclarea L. – in full bloom

St. John’s day, this year a flower day (the Moon is in Aquarius): perfect for the harvesting of the flowering tops of the plants that are in bloom now. In particular, the majestic and strongly-scented Clary Sage and the King of these days, St. John’s wort.

A St. John’s wort field

Clary Sage was reputed able to strengthen both the physical and the “inner” vision, so that in Italian it was called “occhio chiaro” (“clear eye”). The mucilage contained in its seeds was employed to remove foreign particles from the eyes. Its strong and intoxicating odor makes it an euphorizing herb.
St. John’s wort was known in the past for being able to drive out demons. Nowaday, we know that it is endowed with a good antidepressant action, and also  a regenerating and anti-inflammatory action on the nervous tissues (it can be used in case of neuralgia and neuritis).

  • Salvia sclarea ready for tincturing
  • Preparing St. John’s wort for infusion in olive oil
  • St. John’s wort infused oil ready to be exposed to the sun
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Field poppy – Papaver rhoeas (and similar species)

Cold in the 4.th degree and moderately moist, the field poppy is cooling, facilitates sleeping, softens the stools, relieves coughing, is choleretic, stimulates the expulsion of Yellow Bile and of any excess of liver heat, possibly compensating overheated Yellow Bile [Giannelli].

 

Sources

[Giannelli] Luigi Giannelli, “Medicina Tradizionale Mediterranea”, Ed. Tecniche Nuove

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Nigella damascena – Love-in-a-mist

Nigella damascena L. – flower

Botanical name: Nigella damascena L.

Common names: Love-in-a-Mist, ragged lady, devil in a bush; ancient: melanthion (Greek), gith.

Each time I meet this plant, my gaze is rapt by its beauty and the complexity of its figure. Even if it’s relatively common in the Mediterranean area, in practice it is met not so often. It usually appears in a group: sometimes a small piece of land or of a roadside appear as “grasped” by these plants and covered with spots of the almost ethereal color, that goes from the lightest to the deepest blue, of their flowers.

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