I love Lavender. It is the most common, well liked essential oil. I know why. It is good for everything, and I mean everything. From burns, cuts, bruises, pain, relaxation, bruises, bumps, scrapes, to bites, skin issues, anxiety, depression, sunburns, overexertion, etc..
Lavender, I love you!
Here are a few of my lavender stories. I love anecdotes, so if you have any on lavender or other oils, please let me know.
I have a bad habit of burning myself. The oven, my 450 degree flat iron, the sun, and glue guns. My husband has banned me from using the latter after near fatalities. :)
Usually, I burn, I blister, I am in pain, it hurts, but not since I started using Lavender on a regular basis about 12 years ago. When you burn your skin, all of the moisture is sucked out of your skin. To accommodate and protect the skin, a blister forms full of fluid. If you are a "picker" like me, you sterilize a straight pin and lance that sucker yourself. If you are squeamish, you take a day off work, & enter into a self proclaimed bed rest. Blisters hurt!
Once I was carefully removing a cookie sheet of cookies from the oven. I haphazardly let my finger slip off the hot pad and literally grabbed the pan bare fingered. Oh, I was in pain. I am not a pain person. In fact my husband has nicknamed me "egg shell", because I am easily hurt by seemingly small things. Of course this does not apply to childbirth, where I have been able to give birth naturally, for 3 out of our 4 children, the latter 2 being twins. Some how a blister derails me, but childbirth...no biggie! ;) So, back to the burn. I quickly applied lavender neat on the burn. 'Neat" means straight on, no dilution. There are only two oils deemed safe to apply "neat" and those are lavender and tea tree. I of course have others I will use that way, when it is needed. The lavender literally took away the pain immediately. I applied it every 15 minutes as this was about the time the searing hot pain would return. I did this for a 24 hour waking period, and noticed there was no blister. There was also barely any tenderness, redness or pain. It was then I learned about how essential oils can carry oxygen molecules along with them to the wounded area. Some may dispute that, but I have had too many occurrences tell me I am right on. After this incident, I hardly ever left the house without lavender.
Another incident I had involved ill fitting walking shoes. I had forgot that my shoe size gets 1/2 size bigger each time I am pregnant. Trying to get back into shape after my twins, I slipped on my old Nike's. Ignoring the pain on the back of my heal, I had walked a few miles before I felt a sharp knife-like cut. I took off my shoe and had rubbed my heal raw with about a 2 inch blister about to form. I had to walk home shoeless and close to tears. By the time I got in the door, I was wanting a morphine drip. By the time I wobbled into the kitchen, I would have OK'd amputation. Yes, it was that bad! I grabbed my trusty lavender and literally poured it on the closed wound. Yes, not exercising any caution, but it was an emergency. Immediately, once again the pain was dulled so completely, that I could not believe it. I kept reapplying all day, and though still a bit sore as it healed, it was not bothersome. Needless to say the Nike's went into the donation pile.
I have seen lavender work for my children so well, that I made them all their own lavender rollers (available for purchase) my 3.5 yr old only daughter, likes to ask for permission and anoint whoever may have the teeniest scratch or "owie". Of course when one of her older brothers comes in crying from outside after some bike or scooter mishap, she is the Florence Nightingale of the family and makes it all better. She has the precision of a juggler and the nurturing hands of a woman far older than she is. Yes, I will say it, she is adorable. She sometimes feigns imaginary "owies" so that she can apply the "Labindr".
I would like to close with a story where I did not use lavender. I seared the side of my neck with my flat iron while trying to figure out how to work the darn thing. It looked like a lovely hickey and being a married woman, I wondered what type of conclusions this would draw. In the depth of those thoughts, I forgot lavender. I forgot for a day. I don't know why, because it hurt. A blister appeared and the pain got worse. The blister popped (surprisingly a straight pin sterilized over a lone match flew out of nowhere and hit it- and yes, my mother always told me not to pop blisters) and a hard shell took it's place. It would get irritated and flake and started to scar over. By now I had the lavender, but I had not caught it as quickly as I should have. Luckily there was no scar eventually, and I attribute that to a lavender helichrysum blend I put together.
So, the moral of the long winded story is that lavender works for all things. It is amazing and should be used. No one should be without it, and if you are skeptical like I was, try it!
Lavender, I love you!
Here are a few of my lavender stories. I love anecdotes, so if you have any on lavender or other oils, please let me know.
I have a bad habit of burning myself. The oven, my 450 degree flat iron, the sun, and glue guns. My husband has banned me from using the latter after near fatalities. :)
Usually, I burn, I blister, I am in pain, it hurts, but not since I started using Lavender on a regular basis about 12 years ago. When you burn your skin, all of the moisture is sucked out of your skin. To accommodate and protect the skin, a blister forms full of fluid. If you are a "picker" like me, you sterilize a straight pin and lance that sucker yourself. If you are squeamish, you take a day off work, & enter into a self proclaimed bed rest. Blisters hurt!
Once I was carefully removing a cookie sheet of cookies from the oven. I haphazardly let my finger slip off the hot pad and literally grabbed the pan bare fingered. Oh, I was in pain. I am not a pain person. In fact my husband has nicknamed me "egg shell", because I am easily hurt by seemingly small things. Of course this does not apply to childbirth, where I have been able to give birth naturally, for 3 out of our 4 children, the latter 2 being twins. Some how a blister derails me, but childbirth...no biggie! ;) So, back to the burn. I quickly applied lavender neat on the burn. 'Neat" means straight on, no dilution. There are only two oils deemed safe to apply "neat" and those are lavender and tea tree. I of course have others I will use that way, when it is needed. The lavender literally took away the pain immediately. I applied it every 15 minutes as this was about the time the searing hot pain would return. I did this for a 24 hour waking period, and noticed there was no blister. There was also barely any tenderness, redness or pain. It was then I learned about how essential oils can carry oxygen molecules along with them to the wounded area. Some may dispute that, but I have had too many occurrences tell me I am right on. After this incident, I hardly ever left the house without lavender.
Another incident I had involved ill fitting walking shoes. I had forgot that my shoe size gets 1/2 size bigger each time I am pregnant. Trying to get back into shape after my twins, I slipped on my old Nike's. Ignoring the pain on the back of my heal, I had walked a few miles before I felt a sharp knife-like cut. I took off my shoe and had rubbed my heal raw with about a 2 inch blister about to form. I had to walk home shoeless and close to tears. By the time I got in the door, I was wanting a morphine drip. By the time I wobbled into the kitchen, I would have OK'd amputation. Yes, it was that bad! I grabbed my trusty lavender and literally poured it on the closed wound. Yes, not exercising any caution, but it was an emergency. Immediately, once again the pain was dulled so completely, that I could not believe it. I kept reapplying all day, and though still a bit sore as it healed, it was not bothersome. Needless to say the Nike's went into the donation pile.
I have seen lavender work for my children so well, that I made them all their own lavender rollers (available for purchase) my 3.5 yr old only daughter, likes to ask for permission and anoint whoever may have the teeniest scratch or "owie". Of course when one of her older brothers comes in crying from outside after some bike or scooter mishap, she is the Florence Nightingale of the family and makes it all better. She has the precision of a juggler and the nurturing hands of a woman far older than she is. Yes, I will say it, she is adorable. She sometimes feigns imaginary "owies" so that she can apply the "Labindr".
I would like to close with a story where I did not use lavender. I seared the side of my neck with my flat iron while trying to figure out how to work the darn thing. It looked like a lovely hickey and being a married woman, I wondered what type of conclusions this would draw. In the depth of those thoughts, I forgot lavender. I forgot for a day. I don't know why, because it hurt. A blister appeared and the pain got worse. The blister popped (surprisingly a straight pin sterilized over a lone match flew out of nowhere and hit it- and yes, my mother always told me not to pop blisters) and a hard shell took it's place. It would get irritated and flake and started to scar over. By now I had the lavender, but I had not caught it as quickly as I should have. Luckily there was no scar eventually, and I attribute that to a lavender helichrysum blend I put together.
So, the moral of the long winded story is that lavender works for all things. It is amazing and should be used. No one should be without it, and if you are skeptical like I was, try it!
