They're Essential!

We eat a healthy diet. We are active. We rarely get sick. I've been working hard to eliminate chemicals in our home and so I make our own cleaning products. Vinegar, anyone?

It's nice to have some things in my bag of tricks, though. When I was in labor last year, my doula had me using essential oils. Clary sage and lavender to be exact. They helped me not only relax, but I was able to have the natural delivery I had hoped for.

When some post partum anxiety issues surfaced, my doula came to the rescue again. Some essential oil blends helped me tremendously.

Recently, I decided to jump in feet first to the world of essential oils. And am I ever glad I did! Last week when I cut my finger, I immediately put lavender on it. It helped me with pain and the scent was very relaxing.  I followed the doctors advice and took a course of antibiotics and got a tetanus booster. But, the essential oils have been helping it heal nicely.

Lavender and frankincense have been helping with wound. I'm looking forward to getting my stitches out on Saturday and I will be a little more aggressive using the oils to massage. I had a reader last week suggest oils in the comments - I love getting comments! 

I also use lavender for my kids to sleep at night. My mom also uses lavender to sleep as well. For cleaning, lemon and melaleuca (commonly known as tea tree oil) have been my go to oils. With stainless steel appliances and two kids, I need something that works well for fingerprints. Lemon oil is the ticket. Mixed in with a little olive oil it cleans my appliances right up with minimal scrubbing needed. The wipes I'd been getting before not only needed elbow greaase, they also smelled funky. Now when I clean, it smells just like lemons. I recently made a homemade soft scrub cleaner and use melaleuca.

There are a lot of other ways the oils have been helping us out. I'll share more in the future, but for now...do you use oils? What's your favorite? Let me know!