Wellness Mama®
Simple Answers for Healthier Families
Chickweed is one backyard herbal remedy that’s good in salad and doubles as a skin salve. You’ll often spot its white flowers poking up through the grass in early spring. Read on to see how to make a chickweed salve (and why you’d want to!). Chickweed Benefits Like many other weedy spring plants, chickweed is …
Gardening- Cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes! – Author Unknown There are so many benefits to gardening besides just the fresh produce. Gardeners are known to live longer and I know many elderly people who still spend hours gardening each week… in their 90s! It might be the abundance of Vitamin D, or the beneficial …
Black drawing salve is a natural remedy I first heard about when visiting a local Amish community to pick up produce and eggs. I saw one of the farmer’s sons applying what looked like tar to his arm after getting a large splinter from a fence post. I asked what he was putting on his …
Oh, stretch marks… I got stretch marks with my first pregnancy and have since gotten rid of them, even through five more pregnancies. Better yet, I haven’t gotten any new ones! I think it’s largely due to a healthy diet and lifestyle, but today I’m also sharing my stretch mark salve moisturizer I make. Don’t …
Last week, within the span of one day, three of my kids needed a band-aid for some reason. With five kids who like to climb, jump and live in their treehouse, this is a common occurrence, so I decided to find a natural salve option to use instead of conventional ones like Neosporin. A Healing …
When I married my husband, he had horribly cracked heels. Apparently, he’d had these most of his life, but as we learned more about natural living, I set out to find natural remedies for it. In the summertime especially, when feet are more exposed (hopefully barefoot or in minimalist shoes), cracked heels can be a problem. …
To continue the theme of DIY natural lip care recipes, I’m sharing this recipe for homemade healing lip salve. I really like homemade lipstick and homemade tinted lip balm, but sometimes I just want something to help with dry lips after gardening or being outside in wind/snow but don’t want color, shine, or scent. This …
These dog days of summer when the weather is hot, the children are restless and we all start to think about the fall are a great time to make herbal oils for winter remedies. As the name suggests, herbal oils are a great way to preserve the medicinal properties of herbs and plants by infusing …
This year, we’ve decided to keep things simple, natural, and sustainable with natural and DIY Christmas gift ideas. That includes a few select wooden toys for the kids that will (hopefully) last for generations. We’re also focusing more on experiences than material gifts (for the most part). There are so many great gift options for …
This is the time of year when I re-organize, reevaluate, and stock up on our needed supplies for the year. Right now, my regular organizational efforts are turbo-charged thanks to nesting and I’m taking advantage of the extra energy to order the items on my natural remedies shopping list and pre-make many remedies/beauty products before …
I love herbal remedies for mild ailments that we can take care of at home, and my comfrey leaf salve has been a go-to for years. Comfrey has come under some scrutiny in medical literature, so let me take you through the benefits and risks of this pain-soothing, skin-nourishing herb. What Is Comfrey Leaf? Comfrey …
Giving birth to a baby is tough work, no matter how the little one decides to enter the world. Having had a c-section and natural births, I can say that while natural birth can be harder pre-birth, c-sections can be much harder in recovery. At the same time, there are some things you can do …
I get quite a few questions about skin problems like eczema and psoriasis. I’m not a dermatologist by any means, but I have had some personal experience with eczema (in myself and family) and have found some natural remedies that have helped us so I wanted to share. As always, ask your own doc and …
Raw Manuka Honey is a mainstay in my herbal remedies cabinet to speed healing on all types of wounds, and I’ve used it with great results on several occasions. Why Raw Honey? Most recently, when the blade of my beloved spiralizer that makes vegetable noodles sliced off almost all of the fingerprint on my pinky finger. To be …
Arnica is well known for its ability to help with bruises, sprains, strains, etc and can remove shock and speed healing. It can be put on areas of trauma after falls, accidents, etc.
I’ve gotten several emails of late asking me to detail what is in my herb/spice cabinet and how much of each item I order to make sure I have enough on hand to make my various recipes. While it’s always preferable to grow and dry your own herbs, purchasing them from a reputable source can …
Plantain is a useful herb that is often considered a weed by most people. It is native to Europe and parts of Asia, but was said to have been introduced to North America when the settlers came from Europe. It’s scientific name is Plantago Major, and it likely grows in your yard. The leaves are …
Herbal remedies are something I always have on hand for whatever life brings. They won’t do me much good, though, if I can’t find what I need when I need it! Here’s how to store and organize your natural remedies, herbs, and more. How to Store Your Natural Remedies As my natural remedies started to …
Plantain is one herb that I literally would not be without. It grows in abundance in our yard so we use it fresh during the warm seasons and dry and freeze for use in the winter. I make salves with it for calming bug bites, rashes and burns and it works wonders. What is Plantain? …
If you’ve been a Wellness Mama reader for a while now you know that I’ve used coconut oil for everything from cooking to skincare to digestive help. Another of my favorite oils is argan oil. Argan oil benefits include skin, hair, and face support and can be used in many ways. What Is Argan Oil Argan oil …
Imagine for a second a scenario in which you were simultaneously: caring for a newborn that needed constant care building a house with your own hands having to fight off people trying to break into your home still responsible for normal cooking and cleaning Stressful… right? Yet this is what a honey bee colony does every …
We talk a lot about chronic pain on the podcast, but sometimes the pain we deal with is not chronic or even problematic (though totally real and, well, painful!). Whether experiencing growing pains first-hand or parenting a child going through them, growing pains are miserable. I remember them being so painful I thought there was …
Petroleum Jelly, the main ingredient in Vaseline®, is often used in beauty products and even on its own to moisturize skin. It’s cheap. It is unscented. It seems to work well for softening skin… what could be the problem? What is Petroleum Jelly? Petroleum jelly is a byproduct of the oil refining process. This means it …
I’ve said before that I am with coconut oil like the dad in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is with Windex! Coconut oil has a wide array of health benefits, hair and skin uses, and purposes around the home. I started using it a decade ago before it became popular and widely available in grocery stores. …
