This month, I wanted to take a short break from answering your questions and offer an invaluable resource to all the crafty folks out there. The company I’d like to share in this review is Lavender Lane.

Lavender Lane is absolute heaven for do-it-yourself beauty care! The have everything you need from pour and melt soaps to lip balm kits and packaging. While their selection of dried herbs and flowers is rather limited, they have a wide variety of essential oils for all of your aromatherapy and cosmetic needs. There are several pages of tips and recipes on the site to peruse before purchasing so you can see which projects will be the most fun to do.

What started out as a small cottage industry mail order catalog run by Donna Madora Mitchell, has grown into an incredibly successful company with an extensive web site at www.lavenderlane.com. Besides teaching the art of home beauty care and herbalism through books, kits and related supplies, Donna is also an inspiration to us all. Through rough company beginnings and much personal tragedy, she has persevered and always maintained a positive attitude. You can read her story here for an opportunity to get to know the woman behind the company.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to sample their new Easy Cream and Lotion Paste recently. It’s a wonderful cream base, that you add to boiling water. Depending on the water to cream base ratio, you can make thick creams, lotions and body sprays. 1 part water to 1 part paste will give you a thick cream, while 4 parts water to 1 part paste will produce a light lotion. I prefer thicker lotions, so I used 2 parts water to 1 part paste, and added some Ylang Ylang essential oil for a lovely fragrance. At just $7.50 per pound (which will allow you to make 5 pounds of light lotion, or 9 pounds of body mist) this product is a great buy, and you will save a bit of money in comparison to purchasing commercial body moisturizers.

One of the first products I ever tried from Lavender Lane was their Lip Balm and Solid Perfume Kit which contains enough sweet almond oil, bees wax, flavoring and containers to make a dozen personalized lip balms on the stove top or in your microwave oven for $15. After a little bit of practice, I was able to adapt their recipe to create my own blend that included cocoa butter and vanilla extract. Besides lip balms, these kits are good for making solid perfumes by adding your favorite essential oils. This is a great idea as the solid perfumes are portable and won't spill all over your purse!

They carry a wide variety of pure essential oils in several sizes to experiment with aromatherapy, and for $40 you can try the Aromatherapy Starter Kit, with an assortment of essential and carrier oils, bottles and a 110 page guide book to learning the art of aromatherapy.

If you want to try a little of this and a little of that, two great starter kits are the Caboodle Craft Kit and the Pamper Yourself Beauty Kit ($40 each) These contain varieties of supplies for making items such as lip balms, potpourri, facial masks, bath crystals, and much more.

There are many, many more wonderful products available at online, and I recommend dropping in on their web site ASAP to see for yourself!

Thanks for reading. Feel free to write to me at witchhazel @ morbidoutlook.com and recommend your favorite beauty recipes.