Rosemary Gladstar - Herbs for Natural Beauty: Create Your Own Herbal Shampoos, Cleansers, Creams, Bath Blends, and More

The ethereal concept of beauty and cosmetics has created a rather bizarre fashion industry, one in which beauty means self-manipulation, starving oneself in the name of fashion, and actual surgical restructuring of the body to please somebody elses sense of style. There is little contentment in the profound sense of beauty anymore; rather, it has become a restlessness to achieve something unattainable.

Weve replaced simple, old-fashioned truths such as beauty is in the eye of the beholder with the new adage beauty at any cost. Whether that cost is the depletion of rare and precious resources, the inhumane use of animals to test cosmetics on, or the deprivations and depredations of the body to sculpt it in the manner deemed beautiful by the beauty industry, it hasnt seemed to matter. But beauty cannot exist long alone. It needs balance and harmony, Cosmeoss gifts, to truly emerge and endure.

When I was a young child growing up on my parents farm, I would often walk into the fields and lie in the tall grasses. I would take off my clothes and lay my body on the bare ground, and feel the earth beneath me. It nourished me and filled me with a deep sense of beauty. I would look up at the blue California sky and ask that I be a reflection of all that I saw in nature, so that when people looked at me they would see the fields and the wildflowers and the depth of the sky in my eyes. It is this early sense of beauty that has permeated me all these years.

Though much of my work as a community herbalist has been concentrated on making medicinal products and helping people manage and heal from their illnesses, I always find a way to weave the beauty way into my healing work. I want Cosmeoss hand in the pot!

When I mixed and blended my early medicinal tea blends, they always contained a few herbs just for beauty, such as roses, calendula, and blue malva flowers. My tinctures and medicines, likewise, had a sweet taste, a touch of the beauty way. Im a firm believer in the fact that beauty aids in healing, and is perhaps one of the greatest healers. It seduces and induces people back to wellness, back to that place of balance and harmony that is the soul of life. Without beauty, why would anyone want to get well? The flowers, the fresh air, the running waters, and the loving hearts of those who care for us feed and nourish the soul and invite it back to wholeness.

Over the years Ive delighted in making wonderful all natural cosmetics and skin care products. In the kitchen, whatever I was cooking up often went on my face! It wasnt unusual to find me with egg or avocado or oatmeal on my face, my long hair rubbed with olive oil and rosemary and securely tucked up in a towel. I was a walking salad! Id spend my evenings playing with and perfecting recipes for herbal masks, baths, and creams and then share these recipes with others. Wed stage facial parties, gathering friends together to treat one another to herbal hand and foot baths, facial steams, and masks. After the works, wed finish with a gentle massage using my favorite face cream.

Id often take the show on the road, packing up baskets of materials to take to workshops. Id treat everyone there and you can bet these classes were well attended. When I first moved to New England and was invited by Rick Scalzo to speak at the annual Gaia Herbal Symposium, I offered to do a cosmetics workshop. Rick was hesitant; he wasnt sure anyone would be interested at a conference that featured herbal medicines. But I felt that if even just a few people showed up, it would be fun. So the cosmetics workshop was included on the schedule, and Rick, still thinking it would be of limited interest, assigned me a small room in which to do my presentation. When it came time for the workshop, it was apparent that we would have to do some quick maneuvering; there were more than 150 people in attendance.

The recipes in this book are among my favorites. Most are my personal creations; a few have been enhanced by the creative suggestions of others. When I first began making my own natural skin care products, there were no classes being taught and very few books on the subject. Many of these recipes came to me in those moments of inspiration when Id been out among the flowers. Others I labored long over to get the exact proportions and effects. And some of them were garnered from students, who often took a simple suggestion I made and added the oh-so-perfect ingredient to create a product of excellence.