Lavender is not just another pretty flower. The oil of this fragrant and much-loved plant is amazingly useful, as I learned when I co-authored a book about a lavender farm in Hawaii. From the farmhouses of old Europe to the palace of the Hawaiian monarchy, lavender has found a place in homes of every description.
Like other essential oils made from various herbs and flowers, lavender oil carries the essence of its parent plant, distilled into liquid form. But, unlike other essential oils (which must be mixed with a carrier oil, such as almond, olive or canola), lavender oil may be used "neat," straight from the bottle.
Aromatherapy texts contain many suggestions for how to use this oil, and research has shown that a lot of the lavender-based folk remedies passed down through the generations have a basis in science. Lavender is antibiotic, antispasmodic, analgesic, antiseptic, antiviral and antifungal, which means that it can protect and promote health in many ways.
Before the days of antibiotics, sweet-scented commercial soaps and lotions and all the other modern preparations that keep our bodies healthy and our homes clean and smelling fresh, lavender was a housewife's best friend. For centuries, lavender has disinfected sickrooms, healed wounds and burns and sweetened the air in castles where the nobility's pets were as much at home as their owners!
Great for home first-aid kits, lavender oil will maintain its therapeutic powers for about two years. After that, use it for its fragrance, perhaps as part of your housecleaning routine.
Here are a dozen simple suggestions for using lavender essential oil.
-Add a few drops to any body lotion to make a fragrant moisturizing cream. Smooth it on before bedtime to take advantage of lavender's famous relaxing properties.
-Soak a cotton ball with witch hazel, add a drop of lavender oil and rub over an acne breakout.
-Put a drop of essential oil on an open blister to prevent infection. Be prepared: It will sting!
-Rub a few drops of oil over sunburned areas. You'll be amazed at how quickly that sunburn feels better.
-Sprinkle a few drops on your pillow to help you sleep at night.
-Fill a spray bottle with warm water and a few drops of lavender oil, shake well and use it as you would any room freshener. (Be sure not to spray it on wood.) -Lightly mist your bedclothes for a soothing scent at bedtime.
-Put a drop of essential oil on a cold light bulb, where it will radiate fragrance as the bulb heats up. The oil is flammable, so don't drop it onto a hot bulb.
-Make your own defuser: Buy wooden shish kabob sticks and cut them in half. Put lavender oil into a pretty little bottle and stand the sticks in the oil for a long-lasting fragrance.
-Scent your kitchen: Add drops of oil to the final rinse water when you clean kitchen counters or floors, or add a few drops to a bottle of dish-washing liquid.
-Sweeten your clothes: Put a little oil on a small square of cloth and toss it into the dryer.
-Put some onto small cotton wool balls and tuck them into drawers. Your clothes will be fragrant, and the lavender will discourage moths.
-Add a few drops of oil to your hand-soap dispenser next time you refill it.
About the Author
Learn more from award-winning Hawaii author Jill Engledow about the history of Hawaii and about lavender in Hawaii at her website, http://www.islandlife101.com.
Article Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/274425/twelve-great-ways-to-use-lavender-oil.htm
The Mystery of the History of Lavender in Hawaii
The Mystery of the History of Lavender in Hawaii
By Jill Engledow
The history of lavender in Europe is well-known to those who love this fragrant herb, but it took some detective work to find out about the history of lavender in Hawaii. It all started when a lavender farm on my home island of Maui asked me to help write a book about the plant.
The owner of the farm, who is of Hawaiian ancestry, has a sort of mystic sense about the lavender plant's history in the Islands. He told me that he was sure it was a plant loved and used by the nobility and royals of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and he asked me to find out how this Mediterranean plant got here.
Since my specialty is writing about the history of Hawaii, I eagerly began the search.
I had a head start, because the farm folks had been given a copy of a song called Pua Lavender--lavender flower--published in1870 in a Hawaiian newspaper. It was a sweet love song, in which the beloved is compared to a lavender flower.
There were many Hawaiian newspapers in the nineteenth century, printing traditional stories, poems and the news of the day. Fortunately for those of us who don't read Hawaiian and don't have time to dig around in archives, there is a project to digitize all the old newspapers, and many are now available on the Internet.
When I looked into the online newspaper collection, I found two old advertisements that mentioned lavender. One was from 1849, describing the contents of a new shipment that included products ranging from ladies' white silk stockings to pickles to rope, and including lavender water.
In 1869, a shop advertised "ka wai lavender maikai" ("fine lavender water") and "ka lavender boke hoikeike." That word "boke" threw me off at first--no such word in the Hawaiian dictionary--but then I realized it was probably the word "bouquet," written in the phonetic fashion Hawaiians use when adopting English words. Since "hoikeike" means "to display," perhaps this was a bouquet of dried lavender shipped across the ocean as a decorative item.
None of these findings answered our question--when and how did the lavender plant first arrive in Hawaii? I read biographies of men famous for bringing plants to the Islands, called local botanical gardens and the Bishop Museum, talked to historians in the state archives and professors at the University of Hawaii agricultural department, but no one could answer my question.
I asked all my friends who are Hawaiian history buffs, several of whom are working on books and have read many missionary journals and letters. One found a reference in the journal of missionary Amos Cooke about "our dear Juliette" being afflicted with palpitations, that added "a spoonful of lavender soon relieved her." The journal entry was from 1849-- maybe Juliette was sipping some of that lavender water mentioned in the old newspaper ad!
In the archives at the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu, I found no mention of lavender, though I had hoped that surely those orderly New England missionaries had kept a record of what they brought with them and what they planted in their gardens. Yes, their journals and letters did mention things like roses and figs, but no lavender.
I left the archives disappointed, but as I walked past the original missionary homes, preserved on a busy downtown Honolulu street, I glanced over and discovered a lavender plant growing right at the doorstep of one of the old buildings. I was so excited I couldn't stop talking about it for days! Surely this was a good sign.
Then I talked to the curator at Washington Place, which was the private home of Hawaii's last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani. It turns out the queen left behind a handwritten list of the plants in her garden, and guess what was on it: "lavender bush." So it looked like the queen herself was a lavender lover!
Alas, despite these clues, and our heartfelt certainty that those hard-working missionaries and Anglophile royals would have grown and used a plant that had so many practical applications and was so beloved in Victorian times, we never learned exactly when and how lavender came to Hawaii. It remains an unsolved mystery.
But I still have hope. Perhaps someday someone will dig up that one historical letter that describes how a missionary wife nursed a tender lavender plant on the long sea journey around the Horn, and we'll have our answer.
In the meantime, we know lavender loves Hawaii, particularly the sunny mountainside of Haleakala on Maui. And more and more these days, Hawaii loves lavender.
About the Author
Learn more from award-winning Hawaii author Jill Engledow about the history of Hawaii and about lavender in Hawaii at her website, http://www.islandlife101.com.
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