Giving Wellness

Funny how much has changed in the 7 months I've been using essential oils.  Over this past holiday weekend, I diffused oils at my parents house, both to clean the air and to make it smell holiday-ish (I diffused a blend called Christmas Spirit which I LOVE!!)

I brought a travel bag of oils with me that I wasn't comfortable leaving home without, including Thieves, Lemon, Deep Relief, Sleepyize, and Stress Away.  I can honestly say that we used all of them as well as several others in the short weekend we were there.  And I learned, when my sister spattered her favorite shirt with bacon grease, that you can use lemon oil or eucalyptus oil to get out grease stains.  Who knew??

Anyway, I am excited to share wellness with my friends and family this year as gifts.  I have a bottle of Stress Away and Christmas Spirit to give the sitter, Stress Away Roll-Ons for the teachers, Mister for my husband, and Gratitude for myself.  And apparently I'm talking about how I use my oils non-stop, because suddenly several friends and family members are asking about buying oils and signing up for memberships.  I'm so grateful for these oils, and how they've changed my life and my family's level of wellness!  I can't wait to see what they do for us in the upcoming year!

Your Body's Not Meant to Run on That. . .

I recently listened to an online webinar as part of the Young Living Essential Oils Summit, which touched on a lot of topics around healthy eating and healthy living.  One metaphor that really stuck with me is when the speaker said the following (paraphrased): If your car was out of gas, you wouldn't fill it with diesel fuel would you?  Because your car is not built to run on diesel.  Just like your body is not meant to run on chemicals, synthetic and artificial additives, or genetically modified foods.  So why would you put that in your body?  Your body is meant to run on foods directly from nature - plants and animals that have not been altered, chemically treated, or taken out of their natural environments.  That's what we should be feeding our bodies!

Admittedly, I am far from fully clean in my eating habits, but every small change I make is another change in the right direction.  A lot of those changes have come from removing toxins from my home by replacing toxic cleaning products with natural, non-toxic ones,

I've also started making my own beauty/skincare products using all natural ingredients,

And some of it involves just a greater awareness of what I'm putting into my body and where it comes from.

In this season of increased gratitude, I am so grateful to have resources, information, and products available to make healthy changes in my life and in the lives of my husband and sons.

 If you have any questions or would like more information about anything I have discussed in a post, please send a message.  And if you are interested in a membership that allows you to purchase essential oils, supplements and beauty products of exceptionally high quality, at a 24% discount, click here to get started!

Reminder: I am not medically trained, and the information I write in these posts are based on my experiences with essential oils.  If you have questions about oils for medicinal purposes, please talk with a trained medical professional.

Day 9: Thieves Oil

Oh my goodness, I don't know if there are enough word to describe how amazing Thieves oil is!!  It smells like fall and holidays and baked goods.  It cleans wonderfully, and it is a great support to your immune system.  Thieves was one of the first oils that I learned about when I was just starting to discover essential oils, and it's easy to see why it hooked me!  I love using Thieves, diluted in carrier oil, on my children and myself at night, as we're working to avoid the back-to-school-bugs that we're all being exposed to.  We put it on our feet and up and down our spines.  As I type, I have Thieves diffusing in the kitchen.  I have added it to warm water with honey for a delicious and comforting tea, and I have added it to my washing machine to freshen our clothes.  

This is an amazing oil, and one that every oil user I know loves!  If you would like help getting this or other oils, please send a message.  And if you want your own PremiumStarter Kit (which includes all of the oils we're looking at during this challenge) click here to get started!

Reminder: I am not medically trained, and the information I write in these posts are based on my experiences with essential oils.  If you have questions about oils for medicinal purposes, please talk with a trained medical professional.

New Thieves Cleaning Products

With every day, I fall more in love with Thieves for cleaning - in July I tried Thieves Cleaner for the first time - we used it to make shower scrub, added it to the laundry, and used the spray to clean the bathrooms, kitchen, and floors.  Both my husband and I agree, we have never seen our showers cleaner, and we love that it doesn't hurt our skin, lungs, eyes, or make us nauseous!

At Annual Convention this past month, Young Living revealed three new Thieves line products - Laundry soap, Fruit and Vegetable Wash, and dish soap.  Now you can literally clean everything in your house with a safe, non-toxic, natural, product that smells AMAZING and supports your immune system at the same time.  It doesn't get any better than that!

Ready to try the Thieves Starter Kit or any other Young Living Products? You can send me a message to let me know how I can help you get started, or you can subscribe for a membership here.

Back to School

My Fellow Teachers, School Administrators, Child Care Providers, or anyone else who spends their days around children:

I don't need to tell you that Fall and Winter are rough on our immune systems! It seems like every time we start a new school year, my husband and I (both of us teachers) immediately catch some kind of a cold or bug.  Not to mention that fall tends to mean lice season in the schools!!  This year I head into the school year with an ace up my sleeve - my oils!!  I have spent the last couple months stocking up on my favorite calming blends (Stress Away, Valor, Grounding), my cleaning oils (Lemon, Thieves, Tea Tree, and Eucalyptus), my "healthy body" support oils (Thieves, DiGize, Peppermint, Oregano), and my "beat the bug early" oils ( RC, Ravintsara, Basil, Raven).  I spent yesterday making new Lemon Oil All-Purpose Cleaner, Foaming Hand Wash, and a variety of roller ball blends for my kids and myself.  I feel ready to fight off the back-to-school germs.

My kids will be ready for school, too.  We have Sleepyize to diffuse at night to help them stay well rested, Thieves to rub on their backs and feet to help support their immune systems, and Geneyus to diffuse in the morning to help us all be focused and alert.  I have my Tea Tree to put in the laundry to make everyone's clothes smell wonderful, and again, my Lemon Oil Cleaner that they can use to help me clean up without any concern for exposing them to toxins or harmful ingredients.  I am so grateful to have my oils and to have information available to help me know how to use them to make this a great start to the school year.

If you're interested in learning more about the oils I've mentioned above or about the oils I have chosen to use for my family and myself, please feel free to send me a message!  And if you're interested in getting the same wholesale pricing discount that I get for my oils, you can use this link to order your starter kit!

Step aside, Martha!

I spent today creating DIY versions of all my go-to beauty products.  I spent hours this morning going through recipes (there are so many availab(le!) and making a shopping list (which was not terribly extensive, since most of the ingredients I needed were either things I had in the kitchen or oils that I already had from my starter kit).  Then my afternoon was devoted to making natural, healthier versions of my products  - from exfoliating scrub to eye cream.  I had SO much fun!!  The recipes were easy, the products look great, and I can't wait to see the results!  I've made my "allergy trio" and my "weight loss trio" part of my regular routine, but now I have adopted a new trio - the skin care trio.  Most of the skin recipes involved a combination of frankincense, lemon and lavender oil.  I've been using frank on my skin since I got it - it is recommended for wrinkles, scars, and uneven skin tone.  Lavender is recommended to help with skin irritation, and lemon is recommended as an anti-oxident, so this combination made a lot of sense to me.  I've done lots of reading about coconut oil, vitamin e oil, and jojoba oil, and combining them with essential oils seems like a very healthy alternative to skin care products made of a bunch of things I can't pronounce!

I used these recipes:

Face Wash - using baking soda, coconut oil and oils to cleanse instead of harsh chemicals
Exfoliating Scrub - honey, almond meal, and peppermint oil - so invigorating!
Eye Cream - vitamin e oil, coconut oil, and frankincense oil, which are all known to help with fine lines and signs of aging
Night Cream - lemon, lavender, frankincense oils blended with coconut and olive oil.
Lotion (non-greasy body lotion) - shea butter and jojoba oil with lemon, lavender, and peppermint oils
Foaming Hand Soap - castile soap, glycerin, thieves oil and distilled water as a hand cleanser/sanitizer

Next on my to-do list: shaving lotion, sunscreen, and bug repellent.  I'm hooked!

If you have any questions, of course, please email me.  And if you're interested in Young Living oils, which I have chosen as my oil supplier, based on the quality of their product and their impeccable reputation, let me know.  If you're interested in membership with Young Living, which allows you to purchase oils at wholesale prices (24% off of retail), you can sign up here.

Thieves Oil - A Must Have!!

Thieves Oil tends to be one of the better known oil blends available.  It is without question my favorite oil blend from Young Living.

Thieves Oil blend originated with a legend.  This oil is supposed to have protected thieves from the plague because of its immune system boosting properties.  I don't particularly care if the legend is true or not, I will be keeping this oil close by!

This is another one of those oils that we use for personal wellness and for household cleaning.  Young Living has a whole line of Thieves products that I haven't even begun to explore yet (including a Thieves Premium Starter Kit available when you enroll as a member).  I have just been making my own versions of the home cleaning products so far.

Thieves oil blend is a combination of cinnamon, clove, lemon, eucalyptus, and rosemary.  It smells like the holidays to me. I started with Thieves in a diffuser - I absolutely love the smell - it is a warm and cozy, homey smell that lifts my mood immediately.  However, that is not why we were diffusing it.  Thieves acts to boost your immune system, so having had a rough winter with various ailments in our house, I was looking for something to help us out.  Unfortunately, I didn't start this till March, so I just caught the tail end of the worst stretch for us, but I look forward to using it next year to help us stay healthier.

That being said, however, a few weeks ago my older son appeared to have some kind of a stomach bug.  When he's sick, he likes to have my husband sleep in his room with him to help him during the night if he isn't doing well.  Before my husband turned in for the night, I had him put Thieves on his feet and I rubbed some (diluted in a carrier oil) up and down his spine.  We both wanted to know that he had a little extra protection so he wouldn't catch it, too.  The next day we diffused thieves in my son's room, to get whatever might be floating around out of the air and clean the room out a bit.

I put Thieves onto the soles of my feet about once a week or so to give my own immune system a boost.  Thieves is a "hot oil", meaning it burns on contact if it isn't diluted.  For many people, putting hot oils on their soles of their feet doesn't bother them, which I have found to be true for me, but if it is on my feet, I do still feel it tingling, so I know it's there!

In the deep dark months of winter, I found myself in the middle of one of my many colds.  This one included a very sore throat.  A co-worker, who is the one who introduced me to Young Living, carries Thieves spray in her purse.  One spritz to the back of my throat numbed it instantly and made the rest of the day of teaching bearable.  And another co-worker said she diffuses Thieves in her home all winter, and she swears her family had significantly fewer health issues this year as a result.

Like I said earlier, I have been using Thieves in a cleaner as well.  I made my own, although Young Living does sell Thieves Cleaner.  I combined 2 tsp. of witch hazel, 20 drops of Thieves Oil and 1/2 cup of distilled water in a glass spray bottle.  I keep it in the bathrooms upstairs so that I know they are getting disinfected and sanitized without leaving behind chemicals and fumes that might hurt my family.  I also use it in the kitchen and to spray down toys or non-wood surfaces my kids are coming in contact with.

I have read about using thieves in the dishwasher and in the laundry, but I haven't tried that yet.

Thieves can also be used as an analgesic, putting it "neat" onto sore gums or toothaches.  It can also be used to stave off cravings when trying to eliminate certain foods from your diet (I'm currently on a sugar-detox diet and using Thieves to help me through rough patches).

I'm looking forward to trying the rest of the thieves line - hand soaps, dental care, sanitizer. . .

If you are interested in trying Young Living products, or if you have any questions, please email me.  And if you're interested in a membership with Young Living, I can help you with that, too!



Please remember that I have no medical training or background.  I am speaking only of my experiences with essential oils.  Please do your research and consult your doctor before using essential oils for health reasons.

My Story

Welcome! Chances are, you found this blog because you're interested in learning more about essential oils.  That's where I started, too.  I have known about oils for the last few years - a co-worker swore that putting peppermint oil in her water helped as a digestive and an appetite suppressant (sounds good to me!) and I gave it a try.  That was about as serious as I got.

Meanwhile, a couple years went by, and I went from being a person with very few health concerns and a fairly healthy lifestyle to being someone who was taking 3 prescription meds daily, fighting virus after virus, and watching helplessly as every bug out there knocked the whole family out from the first day of school throughout the winter and well into the spring!  I knew that the OTC meds we were using helped alleviate symptoms when they came up, but something more proactive needed to happen to help us get ahead of these health problems that seemed to be never ending.

About a year ago, I noticed posts all over the health blogs that I follow regularly about the benefits of various essential oils.  I marked them all to read later and moved on.  Then, about 6 months ago, another coworker mentioned the oils she is using, and I started asking questions.  I decided to just dip my toes in, having NO IDEA what the world of essential oils would teach me, and ordered my first two oils: peppermint (the old, familiar friend), and one called Stress-Away - I had been struggling with some anxiety issues and was feeling exceptionally stressed about work related issues, and was ready to try anything.

 I started putting the peppermint in my water during the day and noticed a change in how my body felt after lunch (less bloating, less feeling of sluggishness!).  I followed the guidelines for the Stress-Away oil and applied some to my wrists and neck and IMMEDIATELY fell in love with the smell! (I'll post more about Stress-away in a future post)  It was fragrant and calming, without being overpowering or offensive to others (you should know that I am extremely sensitive to smells, and am the first one to complain about other people's scents bothering me - everything from headaches to sneezing fits!)  I started using the Stress-Away more regularly and found that I started feeling like something was missing on days that I didn't use it.


Around that time, my coworker mentioned that she was ordering some more oils, and invited me to add to her order if I'd like.  I felt like I was ready to try some more, so I ordered lemon and valerian.  I had read about both - lemon as a detoxifier and valerian as a sleep aid.  The only thing I knew was either using oils topically or in water, so I used my lemon in my water, alternating with the peppermint (because I had NO IDEA you could or should mix them!) and valerian in my tea at night - NOT a good taste!  To quote my husband, "It smells like peaches and feet!".  I liked the lemon well enough, but wasn't fully sold on the valerian.  My coworker started asking about what I thought about the oils, and sharing thoughts about the oils she was using.  I asked her one day, in desperation, about what she used for menstrual cramps.  She listed a couple of oils and a blend that I was completely unfamiliar with, and I knew I needed to start doing some research.  And one afternoon, when I could barely swallow because of what I was certain was strep, she introduced me to Thieves oil and Thieves spray.  Intrigued by the effect it had when she sprayed it on my throat, I dove in to my research even further!

Not long after, I was in a friend's house and she had a diffuser running - she shared that she diffused Thieves oil 24 hours a day, and she swore that her family had been the healthiest they've ever been since she started.  For me, I still just loved the smell and didn't understand what was really happening when she diffused it.  These are both friends that I trust, and that I feel live their lives similarly to me, so I was ready to learn more.  One weekend I glued myself to the computer and read everything I could find about oils, and thus began my journey.  I have learned so much in such a short time about how to use the oils, what oils to combine in order to maximize effects, what uses the oils had beyond fragrance, and the science of why the oils worked.  I very quickly became hooked!

Look for future posts about how I decided what kinds of oils to use and what oils are now a part of my regular routine!  And if you're interesting in trying oils for yourself, email me at wkharrop@gmail.com.  If you're interested in becoming a Young Living member, click here.