love of lavender
written august 2014 by one of our skin experts, johnna:
lavender is my favourite essential oil. we use it in our post-waxing oil blend (along with chamomile!) here at CoalitionSkin and i can never get enough of the scent! we also add it to our home-made natural baby powder. lavender is naturally antiseptic (for skin and even your scalp!) and calming for the skin after waxing, but it has many more benefits. lavender is well known for helping people fall asleep. placing a few drops on your pillow before bed is a natural, easy way to solve insomnia for people who sometimes have trouble falling asleep at night.
i find as i get older, insomnia seems to be a common problem with friends and family. there is constantly so much going on in our heads with work, the gym, our social lives, events… it can be hard to shut it all off when its time to hit the hay. sleeping has a correlation with stress levels and being calm, which lavender is also known for reducing. it can help with anxiety, headaches, depression and emotional stress. the essential oil removes the negative stress and can even get productivity levels going. a study showed people inhaling lavender and rosemary oil before taking an exam, had less mental stress while also increasing cognitive function. pretty amazing for just inhaling a delicious scent. i wish i had known this in high school!
back in 1928 a man named Rene Gattefosse was the first person to discover lavender’s skin-healing properties. he was working in the lab one day and got a large burn on his skin. he immediately put his arm into a big container of lavender essential oil.
he wrote that the burn healed extremely quickly and without getting infected, or leaving any scar. annik has also seen this magic first-hand which was pretty incredible (a second-degree burn healed 100% overnight).
hopefully none of you will get a really bad burn… but when using lavender to heal any burns, put the essential oil directly on the area, immediately (within 30-60 seconds, so run!), without diluting it.
with this being said, we think every first aid kit should have lavender essential oil in it! if you want to buy some, we sell it in our downtown vancouver shop and on our e-store.
xo johnna