Monday, January 24, 2011

Herbs and Essential Oils for Romance

Valentine's Day will soon be upon us.  My article about essential oils for the Holidays was so well liked I decided to do one for Valentine's Day and romance.

Here is a link to one of my favorite herbal love recipes ever.  It takes a few weeks to make but is well worth the wait and the effort.  It features Damiana, which is an extremely bitter herb, but it's also great for reproductive health.  The combination of the damiana, chocolate, honey and rosewater tastes wonderful.  Scroll down the page to view the recipe.  If you have all the ingredients, or can gat them this week you have time to make in time for your big romantic evening.

You may want to sip your damiana love potion while enjoying an herbal bath (in the dark with candles, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries).  You can tie up your chosen herbs in cheesecloth and just toss it in the tub and let it steep or take your herb bag and let it steep in a pot of water that has been boiled.  This way you can make a really strong herbal infusion and just add it to your bath water.  Your herbs can include damiana, roses, lavender, chamomile and if you want to spice things up a bit you can add a touch of cinnamon, clove or cardamom to your herb bag.

I created my Lover's Massage Oil a few years ago with sensual essential oils and my husband and I love to give each other a nice back massage with it.  Not only do the essential oils relax us (and it has some sexy oils in it), just the act of giving each other a massage helps to strengthen our bond with each other, it is a nurturing act of love in and of itself.

For a massage oil choose carrier oils that are light and soak into the skin easily.  I recommend almond, jojoba, avocado, apricot kernel, grapeseed or fractionated coconut oil.  the whole point of a massage oil is not to get greasy but to lubricate the skin enough that you hand isn't skipping and pulling on your lovers' body.  Add essential oils at a rate of no more than 2.5%.  That's about 15 drops per ounce of carrier oil.
Relaxing essential oils can include lavender, roman chamomile, petitgrain, neroli, clary sage.  More sensual oils include rose, jasmine absolute, vanilla absolute, champaca absolute, cocoa absolute, Ylang Ylang, Patchouli -all of these are pretty strong so you don't need more than a drop per ounce.  Some warming essential oils are ginger, rosemary, cinnamon (bark or leaf), cardamom, clove bud, cassia (chinese cinnamon).  In the case of the cinnamons and clove, I would add very little because they can cause some stinging on some people and some people- about 5% of the population-can develop a skin allergy after they are exposed to them.  I recommend adding a little something from each list for a nice balance.


Of course any of the essential oils can be used in a diffuser or room/linen spray rather than applied to the skin.

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