By Hillary Arrieta, 
LMT, MTI, and Certified Aromatherapist.

It's summer, and I love walking and hiking in nature on warm, dry days. If it were up to me, I'd probably spend most of my time outdoors. However, mosquitoes are a problem everywhere you go. Sometimes these Texas summers require early morning or evening hikes, which can be an issue because those are the times of the day when they are the most active. 
A few years back, I was at an outdoor meditation retreat where I forgot about these pesky and unrelenting creatures. I came away with welts that were so itchy and miserable that I decided to blend something that could take the sting out and give me some relief. This aromatherapy recipe worked like a charm! I always make sure to have some of it handy for the summertime. 

For this recipe, you will need to gather essential oils of: 
Four drops Spike Lavender (Lavandula latifolia)
Four drops Blue Tansy (Tanacetum annuum)
Two drops of Tulsi (holy basil) (Ocimum sanctum ct eugenol)
Three drops of Peppermint (Mentha x piperita)

One ounce PET plastic flip-top bottle.
One ounce of any of the following: 
Organic, unscented lotion, aloe vera juice (an excellent, cooling option), or your choice of natural, cold-pressed seed or vegetable oil. 

Fill the bottle almost to the top with your carrier product. Drop by drop, add your essential oils. Shake to mix and apply to the itchy bites as needed. Avoid the area if the skin is broken and bleeding.

Pro tip: Add your blend to a glass roller bottle for on-the-go convenience. I find glass roller-ball bottles at Natural grocers for a very reasonable price.
 
If you don't have any of this stuff and aren't interested in blending oils, try an old folk remedy of using a banana peel! Just peel the banana and place the inside part of the skin on the bites. That should ease the itch.
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If you tried this recipe, Leave your results in the comments section! I'd love to hear how it worked for you. 

Enjoying hours of restful sleep is on the top of my personal self care list. I don't know about you, but I've always loved sleep. It just seems to be the perfect reset button for me. If I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I do my little night time ritual and go to bed early. 
I wake up rested and feel like I can focus on problem solving with a clear head.

Lately, many of my clients have been talking to me about their lack of sleep these days. They say that they are having a hard time winding down in the evening. Of course we know that massage helps people get better quality of sleep and eases insomnia so they are already in the right place to received sleep related benefits. 
Recent seasonal changes and lunar events can also make it difficult on our sleep patterns.
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Some people turn to alcohol or prescription medications to help them achieve restful sleep.
I checked out the long list of side effects some people have experienced from medications, so I thought that I'd write about some natural ways to catch some high quality zzz's.

Lifestyle:
First, consider your current lifestyle. Look at it from a holistic point of view. That means examine all of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of your life right now.

• How much exercises do you get and how is your daily diet?
• Are you stimulated mentally?
• Do you feel balanced emotionally?
• Do you feel a spiritual connection regularly?

Make some changes to your lifestyle that feel good to you and see if it has a positive affect. I also love this list of questions to ask yourself when you're feeling overwhelmed. It's a big help to me when I need to put things in to perspective. An excellent self care list!

Bedtime routine:
Some of my favorite bed time routines are taking a hot bath with bath salts and massaging my feet with an aromatherapy salve. I also love to do a few restorative yoga postures to get my body ready to sleep. Spinal twists are my absolute favorite before bed. 

Sleeping space:
Now, set up your sleeping space.
Make it cool and dark. Consider removing electronics from your bedroom.
Make yourself a retreat that you enjoy going to every evening. I always have a book and a flashlight on my bedside table so I can read because i've found that it puts me right to sleep. Find out what works for you and make it easy to access. Some other suggestions are aromatherapy eye pillows or deep breathing exercises.
I've also included this great pillow spray recipe below the picture. 

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Recipe for a simple pillow spray:

2 oz empty and clean spray bottle
1 tsp. vegetable glycerine (can be found online) to help disperse EO's
Distilled or filtered water
7 drops of Lavender ( Lavendula angustifolia) essential oil
7 drops of Ho wood (Cinnamomum camphora ct linalol) essential oil
6 drops Frankincense (Boswellia carterii) essential oil
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First, fill the bottle almost to the top with water (make enough room for the other liquids that you're about to add).
Then, add essential oils drop by drop.
Next, add your vegetable glycerine.
Put the top on the spray bottle and shake it up. 
Spray your pillow before bed and enjoy!

I was first interested in aromatherapy beginning in the seventh grade. I went to a natural health store with my mom and found a beautifully packaged essential oil boasting about it’s ability to attract the opposite sex. I was intrigued immediately and purchased the oil without hesitation. The next day at school, I showed all of my friends, telling them “ This magic oil will get you noticed by boys!” Of course they were also very interested in this so we all took turns sharing the bottle, scenting ourselves in the lovely lavender aroma. 

I don’t remember it having any effect whatsoever on our middle school crushes, but it opened me up to a whole new world of essential oils. The magical promise of this oil was too exciting to my thirteen year old self, that I had to give it a try. From then on, lavender has been one of my top favorite flowers and essential oils. 

I enjoy growing lavender in my garden, specifically the Goodwin creek gray variety, and enjoy the intoxicating aroma on windy warm evenings. I can personally relate to the pleasant and loving feelings this herb and it's oil is thought to bring about.
I have never seen lavender oil marketed as a man magnet again since my middle school days. Thinking back on this early experience, I wondered where the part about attracting love by way of lavender came from. I usually see lavender marketed as a calming, sleep inducing, and skin healing oil so I went looking for more on the subject of it’s use as a love potion, as well as it’s history, and the history specifically linking it to love and attraction.  

Lavender and it’s uses have been documented for over 2,500 years by many many cultures. It has been thought that lavender originated from the Mediterranean, areas of the Middle East, and parts of India. It’s now being grown all over the world including Australia, The US, Southern Europe, France, and parts of Asia. Lavender has a rich history that can be linked to advanced ancient civilizations. Egyptians, Romans, and the Greeks are just a few civilizations that reaped the benefits of the herb.

Lavender has many uses in today’s world as well. It’s widely used in the cosmetic industry to fragrance creams and lotions and has massive therapeutic benefits in modern aromatherapy.  There are so many uses for this lovely oil. Some of it’s most celebrated benefits are it’s skin healing properties, It’s assistance in the relief of emotional tension, relief from cramps, digestive discomfort, and the list goes on and on. It’s truly an amazing herb and essential oil.

So why does lavender make a good oil for a love? After reading so much about this oil and the herb itself, Lavender has so many practical uses and while love is not always practical, Lavender has been a fragrant symbol of love and fidelity exchanged by lovers as a sign of undying devotion for centuries.  As it was previously stated, several cultures throughout history used it to excite their partners, to attempt to keep them chaste, or give it to one another as a symbol of their love.

Lavender is often associated with love spells according to Patti Wigington, the author of an article discussing lavender in the pagan/wiccan tradition on about.com. Patti suggests carrying a sachet of lavender flowers on your person or hanging it in your home to bring love into your life. After reading about this, I was able to discuss it’s use in love spells with a few people I met in my aromatherapy group online who practice wicca. I came to find out that it’s not always the main ingredient but it is more of a helper herb in many spells. If you were wishing  to create a love spell using lavender essential oil, you could make it as simple or as complicated as you wish. A “spell” is really just an intention setting ritual directed towards yourself. Diffusing lavender oil while meditating on love and setting an intention of loving someone or something could be a simple ritual. 

It was just pure intuition that gave this herb it's reputation in the beginning. Now we have GC/MS testing that can tell us the chemical components of an oil. Knowing which components make up an oil can help us understand it’s therapeutic value, then we can blend or use oils in a more clinical way.  Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry are analytical tests that are done on samples of oils to determine exactly what is in your essential oil bottle. This is very important because oils are not regulated so there are no real standards imposed on companies who advertise and sell EOs. Not only will GC/MS testing discover synthetic components, the tests will determine the chemistry of your oil, giving you an idea of how to use it from a clinical standpoint. If you are a clinical aromatherapist, this information is very important to you because it will determine how you will blend for your clients.

According to the information I have on my lavender oil, lavandula agustifolia, the report shows high levels of monoterpenols and esters. These chemical components tell me that this oil would be wonderful to calm, soothe, and balance body systems. It would also help reduce fear and panic and offer relief to tight muscles and headaches from tension. 

When you feel calm and comfortable with no stress or fear, most people would agree that connecting with others is much easier. Intimacy is bound to happen if all of these effects took place. So now we have a little science on lavender to back up the intuition of our ancient ancestors. 

Surprisingly, there's quite a lot of information out there on the correlation between lavender and love. For over 2500 years, people have been enchanted with it's beauty and comforting fragrance. They have used it’s oil in perfumes, spells, and therapeutic applications. The herb itself has been hung in bedrooms to invite love and romance, it’s been placed in wedding bouquets, planted for it’s beauty, utilized for protection, and has been offered as gifts to ancient kings.

While there are many oils labeled as having an aphrodisiac type effect, lavenders uses are many and it has found it's way into peoples hearts. 

I hope you enjoyed my blog post. This comes from my paper I recently wrote for my aromatherapy certification. 

Question:
Are you into aromatherapy?
Which oils or smells are you naturally attracted to?

I'd love to read your answers in the comment section below!