Welcome
to this month’s edition of Witch Hazel, the gothic/pagan answer to Heloise! This month, I’d like to entertain some of the questions I received:
Is there anything you can recommend as an eye make-up remover? Most brands in the stores are so expensive, and a lot of the cheaper brands irritate my eyes.
Beth – Wayne, New Jersey
Dear Beth: Try safflower oil! You can put a small amount onto a cotton ball or tissue and it will take the eye make up right off. Best of all, it only costs about $4 for a 32 ounce bottle! You can find safflower oil in any supermarket, and it contains vitamin E, which is great for conditioning the skin around your eyes.
Dear Witch Hazel: I’ve been having trouble falling asleep at night, is there any kind of herbal solution for me?
Ravenna – Buffalo, New York
Dear Ravenna: Lavender is great for help to fall asleep at night. You could make a tea from dried lavender leaves and a little chamomile. You could also make yourself a dream sachet to keep underneath your pillow at night. Fill a small piece of porous cloth, such as felt or cotton, with dried lavender. Add a few drops of lavender essential oil, and tie the top tightly with a piece of ribbon. You can add other herbs to the sachets if you have them on hand. Jasmine, chamomile, aniseed, or pennyroyal. If you have a small cloth pouch available, just fill that with the herbs and tie up the top.
No herbal medicine cabinet should be without dried lavender flowers. You can usually find them in the bulk bins at health food stores, but with gardening season upon us, you could plant a few in your herb garden. When lavender is planted outdoors, it will spread out and multiply, so within a couple of summers you should have an abundant supply of plants in the garden, if you just start out with a few. Many farm and garden supply stores sell potted seedlings that can just be transplanted into the ground, or for urbanite gardeners, into pots on your window sills.
Besides being an excellent sleep aid, lavender also relives migraine headaches and emotional stress. Use the dried flowers in place of potpourri in a simmering pot in the evening to help relax. For minor muscle aches, boil a handful of flowers in one quart of water and add the mixture to bath water. This is a great way to unwind after work and prevent tension headaches from creeping up. If you don’t have any of the dried herb on hand, just substitute with a few drops of essential oil. Just put one or two drops onto a cotton ball and inhale the aroma. Four or five drops of essential oil can be added to bath water much the same as the boiled infusion and a few drops mixed with water in your potpourri simmer pot can replace the flowers and fill your home with a wonderful fragrance.
Dear Witch Hazel: While lounging at a gothic bar, someone accidentally knocked a Portuguese prayer candle (the big candles in jars that you can find at bodegas everywhere) and spilled a ton of white wax on my favourite jacket. Is there any way to save it?
Jamie, Mississauga, Ontario
Dear Jamie: You jacket can be saved, it’s time to hit the grocery store and pick up some wax paper. Just take a small square of wax paper and set your iron on low heat. Place the wax paper on the jacket, and carefully start ironing. The wax will “lift” from the jacket. As the paper loses its waxiness, just tear off a fresh sheet and iron all of it away!
If you have any herbal questions or home remedies that you would like to share, please send an e-mail to
witchhazel@morbidoutlook.com.
