Lavender: 10 Natural Health Benefits and Healing Uses
Over the course of the next few weeks we will be highlighting the health benefits of various herbs that offer natural healing properties.
Lavender: Benefits
10. Scent
Crush fresh lavender between your fingers or rub lavender oil on your temples for a soothing dose of aromatherapy stress relief. Lavender relieves anxiety and tension naturally.
9. Tea
Did you know that steeping a small handful of lavender flowers in boiling water creates a healthful herbal tea? This is just as effective as chamomile for promoting sleep and helping to soothe frazzled nerves.
8. Perfume
Lavender oil makes a nice, chemical-free alternative to perfumes and colognes. Dab a little at the back of your neck or wrists to smell clean and light.
7. Bath
Adding either oil or fresh buds to a hot bath will promote relaxation and ease tired muscles.
6. Sleep accessories
Tie up fresh flowers in a satchel, small pillow case, or reusable eye pillow. Lavender helps you to sleep better.
5. Skin relief
Is your skin burned, chafed or irritated? Add some lavender oil to your moisturizer or a spray water bottle and apply or mist your skin generously.
4. Sweet, fresh-scented laundry
Tie up a bundle of lavender blossoms in a cloth and add them to the dryer cycle when you do laundry. It beats those chemical sheets!
3. Cuts and scrapes
Lavender has natural antiseptic properties. Use lavender oil as a protective salve instead of rubbing alcohol (this is a nice alternative for children).
2. Dandruff
Between vinegar and lavender, who needs those harsh chemical shampoos? Steep lavender as you would to make tea; allow to cool and use as a rinse daily until dandruff is cleared up.
1. Recipes
Lavender makes an unusual, floral accent in many dishes. Reader Sarah C. grills peach halves wrapped in applewood smoked bacon and tops them with a sprinkling of lavender flowers and crushed black pepper. Get creative!
Further reading:
10 Unusual Flavor Combinations for Bored Tastebuds
13 Simple, Timeless Kitchen Hacks
Easy, Natural Household Cleaners You Can Make Yourself (Chemical-free!)
- via Health Mad
- Flickr Photo (CC) Studio-D
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Posted By: Worker Bee
lavender is a truly remarkable tool and that is why i invented the “aromahand”. thanks for the great post….
Who knew that lavender flowers had that many uses?
We can use lavender for pain relief, relaxation, depression, burns, skin infections, and rheumatism.
11. Smell like a girl.
Lavender is fine for women, but not for the vast majority of men.
How about sharing some manly substances?
Who’s cares? As long as it works!
There was a blogger who also made lavender ice cream. It looked really good.
One word of caution though. Through years of trial and error someone I know has discovered that significant contact with lavender oil for them brings on a UTI. Something as simple as a back massage using lavender oil or a bath in salts infused with essential lavender oil can bring on the symptoms in 24 hours. This was discovered only thought trial and error so a word to the wise….
I agree that lavender is really a gift from nature since it is so versitle and healthy. I love the smell and like to put it in my bath. It’s like a little vacation!
lavender, like everybody said is very good for all different types of things. for example; i made lavender cakes with lavender icing made from fresh buds and flowers from my garden. they taste delicious and have a unique taste which is exactly like the smell but sweet and not as powerful. just soak a couple of teaspoons of buds in milk overnight and use in any cake recipe that uses milk(works best as muffins)i used 1.5 cup plain flour 1 cup caster sugar 2tsp baking powder 5tbsp butter (whisk at this stage) 130ml of the rested lavender milk (whisk again) and 1 egg (whisk again) half hour gas mrk 4 middle shelf makes about 16-ish cupcakes or 12 with left overs. word of warning, after about 3 and after half hour those who ate them suddenly felt quite sleepy, so have them before bed with a tea or warm milk for a relaxing restless night. happy baking
(for icing just use a little of the lavender milk with icing sugar, use a little less butter and a little milk if making butter cream)
Thank you for some other informative site. The place else could I get that kind of information written in such a perfect method? I’ve a mission that I am simply now operating on, and I’ve been at the glance out for such information.
Hi Mark,
I’ve really enjoyed reading the Daily Apple, and tried the Paleo Diet a couple of years ago with great success, lost 16kg and 4″ off my waist, more energy, no indigestion, much lower blood pressure and sleep better too. No doubt in my mind Primal works. The comments on Lavender were interesting and I have found all those uses, work but thought I would share the following in relation to dandruff and hair. I stopped using shampoo, conditioner or any other product on my hair 10 years ago and dandruff, itchy scalp, all in the past.
I wash my hair in clean water in the shower every day and what I have left is clean, healthy and shiny. The human body is an amazing piece of living technology, far more sophisticated than any machine, so why do we insist on poisoning it, most people take more care with what they stick on their plants, cars and carpets than they do with what they put in or on their bodies.