rigin: Southern European Mountains, Mediterranean.
 
Description: Labiatae (Lamiaceae), bushy perennial, similar to mint but more vertical growth, bright green leaves and small white or pink flowers appear in leaf axils. Sweet scented soft and bushy square stems.
 
Plant Parts Used: Aerial parts - leaves before flowering best.
 
 
Properties: Nerve restorer, tranquilizer, diaphoretic, stimulates blood circulation, anti-depressive, anti-histamic, anti-spasmodic, bactericidal, carminative, febrifuge, hypertensive, nervine, sedative, tonic, vermifuge. Relaxing, calming, relieves tension and stress, lowers blood pressure, reduces fever.
 
Metaphysical Associations: Air, Fire, Jupiter; Yin / Feminine, water, strong aphrodisiac, faithful (woman wears as a  beloved), central nervous system, settles nerves, elixir of life, anti-depressant, useful for end of relationships, fertility, youthfulness, counters fear and depression / negativity, increases wealth, makes wishes come true, lucky (beloved by fairies).
 
Spiritual Qualities: Love, cheers the emotions; calms nerves, strengthens and revives the vital spirit; longevity; increases psychic powers and encourages clarity of thought. Creates feeling of sanctuary and harmony; drives away bad dreams.
 
Medicinally: Anxiety attacks, Eczema and skin problems, allergies, insect bites, respiratory problems, digestion, shock, vertigo, phobias and palpitations with nausea and mild insomnia, relaxing, 'butterflies', cramps and digestive pains; fevers and flu's. Use externally for wasp and bee stings and as wound dressing. Helps decongest and loosen phlegm (an ingredient in 'Vicks’ ä), homemade chest ointment (with eucalyptus), crushed leaves can be applied to a graze as an emergency first aid measure.
Steeped as a tea - for heat stress, nervous disorders, anxiety, melancholy, asthma,                                         indigestion, flatulence; Uterine healer, balances menstrual cycle and                                         promotes fertility. Drink up to 6 cups per day for PMT and menstrual cramps.
          
Body Care: Facial steam reduces wrinkles and can be used to treat dandruff; also used in fragrance perfumes, natural cosmetics, facial cleanser and herb pillows.
 
Home Crafts: Pot Pourri, insect (including mosquito) repellent (due to citronella oil content); furniture polish, household cleaners, herb pillows.
 
Culinary: Lemon flavour for salads, puddings, punch, custards, cordial, added to cooking at last minute enhances flavour of vegetables and white meats. Used in food industries and drinks.
 
Cautionary Note: Non-toxic. Consult a Naturopath before taking large doses, especially when pregnant or lactating/breast feeding.
 
In the Garden:  Full sun to semi-shade, cut back and mulch, well composted moist soil, available in variegated form, ideal soil 1/3 slightly sandy soil. Loved by bees (rub melissa on a hive to calm a new swarm of bees).
 
  ShairinV©7/2005.

​I''m a blue eyed Auburn haired being with Irish Scottish and Danish ancestry i have the excessive nevi from the Danes I believe and the freckling that only genuine red heads have. 

Spending most of my life in rural Australia on elevated granite soils and now 51 I had to do this treatment. The constant moisturizing of dry pink patches of skin on my face and threat of more surgical cancer removal from my face was real and burdensome.

I was terrified of Effudex, with its weeks of treatment and raw burnt skin and frankly did not have the time or emotional stamina for such an ordeal.
​I spoke to my Skin Doctor about the new Fluorouracil and Calcipotriol Cream and got the combo 4 day cream compounded.

I only wish it was that simple. 
After cancelled appointments due to my ill health and their receptionists unable to use HotDoc booking platform and were honestly quite rude and condescending at the nearby fancy Skin Clinic with its $100 out of pocket after the medicare rebate, I finally got an appointment at Blunder Road which was around $30 out of pocket after rebate for a double appointment and full skin check. 

I got the prescription and as it required compounding i thought of Coorparoo;s great chemist with its long time Naturopath on site. A few Pharmacies have Naturopaths and I spent five years as a Pharmacy Naturopath which you can read about here.***

I had two weeks annual leave and got the script on Thursday before my leave started. I worked overtime on the Saturday and headed over to Coorparoo on Sunday.  Coorparoo Chemist advised No we dont do this as it is Radioactive and suggested the Wesley or Wickham Terrace. I telephoned the Wesley Monday my first day of Annual leave.  The Wesley said no we don't do this, we only do IV Cancer treatment compounding, try Wickham Terrace. 

By this stage I was not confident that Wickham Terrace could compound the cream either so I searched online and called a Skin cream compounding place in Melbourne that had a backlog and the compounded cream would take two and a half weeks.  They didn't know of anyone in Brisbane. 

I called Medicii an online business that sells the compounded cream and mens hair replacement creams.  Mediciii did not answer the phone.  I submitted an online query and prescription ordering and they requested payment.  I was very skeptical of the companies validity for such an important and reasonably expensive cream.  Medicii emailed me "are you interested in purchasing the prescription". i thought why on earth would I make an online request with a photo of my prescription if I didn't want it filled. I called Medicii again.  Medicii receptionist advised that they required payment up front and did not need the original script.  This sounded strange as working in pharmacy I know that they need that physical script to claim PBS rebates so I emailed them that I did not want to go ahead with the purchase.  I received a very rude email from their staff and multiple followed.   Needless to say, I would not recommend doing any business with that company ever.

​I called Wickam Terrace and simultaneously submitted a photo of my prescription to their online ordering system in a last ditch effort to actually get the 4 day cream, they have a drive through which sounded very convenient.  They also do the "plant medicine" which was minorly tempting at this stage due to a. fear of burning my face off and b. infuriating inability to have this cream compounded to start the treatment and complete the required recovery before I'm back in the office for training in my new role.  I recently got a promotion at work. Yay me. 

The Wickham Terrace Pharmacist said yes they have this one already compounded and just need to decanter it, so it will be ready in one hour after I pay for the medication, I will receive an SMS when it is ready.  I paid $100.00 for the 20 gram tube online and waited....

Tuesday and the day is marching on with no SMS.  i decide to call the Wickham Terrace Pharmacy and make sure everything is on track.  They tell me that No they don't do the 5% Flouracil and 0.05% Calciotriol cream only a 2% Effudex and refunded my $100.00.  If I had not of callled the Pharmacist was not back until Wednesday and who knows when they would have let me know my prescription was not going to be filled. But the Assistant was very compassionate and advised me that

the only place in Brisbane that has a license to compound the chemotherapy cream Fluorouracil and Calcipotriol Cream is

Brisbane Skin and Compounding Pharmacy in Taringa. Ph: 03 9070 6272.

I called Brisbane Skin and they said YES just SMS a photo of your script and they'll send a payment link and then bring the original script in when I come to collect the cream and YES they are making a batch tomorrow. 
​
Hallelujah!!! 

$140.00 and 24 hours later I collected the prescription 4 day Fluorouracil and Calcipotriol Cream.

Skin Cancer not only leads to death in some people but it is a huge time, emotional and even financial burden in our later years.  For people with very fair skin, fair or red hair and blue eyes, the Type 1 skin type Skin cancer is a very real experience.

Radiation from the sun in the form of electrons hit the skin and knock off electrons from our cells causing changes in the molecules and damage DNA.  Photosynthesis of plants works on this same mechanism where electrons enter the plant cells and cause a cascade of events that create carbohydrates for plant energy and growth.  But we are not plants and require only a small amount of sun exposure to survive. Vitamin D requires sunshine electrons to convert into one of its many metabolites of forms but this process is achieved in sufficient quantities for mood, immune system and bone health with just ten to fifteen minuters per day. This sun exposure can be accomplished early morning or evening before the full force of the sun and its Ultraviolet rays peak in the middle of the day.  Fair skin people produce Vitamin D more efficiently and melanin rich people may need supplementary vitaimin D. 

Eumelanin is the brown pigment produced by our skin, hair and iris and provides natural sun protection by absorbing UV light.  Red heads have low eumelanin and higher pheomelanin production due to a different amino acid combination on our DNA strand at MC1R which produces the ginger pigment.  Our skins over produce eumelanin as a defence for UV rays in certain spots which is our delightful dappled freckle tones.

Whilst hard to match cosmetic foundation to freckled skin it is imperative and 100% required to use Sunscreen.

​

Zinc and Titanium create a physical barrier to UV light so little to no UV light (electrons) enter the skin. 

Zinc is the number one essential mineral for skin health and over 300 other biochemical reactions in the human body from signalling systems, to structural and as a coenzyme required to be present for other biochemical functions throughout the body. 

Most of us are low in Zinc which affects immunity, wound healing, cognition, mental health, growth, taste smell and gene regulation.  Read more about zinc, it's benefits, sources and required daily intake by reading my article on  zinc-for-immunity-against-respiratory-disease.html

As a vital nutrient required by so many minute machinations of the human body it is in my educated opinion, very unlikely that nano zinc would have any terribly harmful effects.  
This pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37505567/#:~:text=Abstract,biomolecule%20oxidation%20and%20cell%20dysfunction.study outlines the effects of Zinc nano particles and concludes that zinc nanoparticles cause an oestrogenic and antioxidant effect on cells in animal trials. 

Many chemicals in plastic containers, cosmetics etc contain oestrogenic compounds.  These Xenoestrogens either block estrogen receptors or attach and activate the receptors which causes an estrogenic mimicking affect.  xenoestrogen exposure can cause dry, thin, bruisable skin, autoimmune dysfunction, reproductive endocrine; activation (menstrual symptoms and breast growth in men), alterations and possible cancers and has been proposed as a cause of ADHD. 

With the extensive exposure to xenoestrogens through plastics, personal hygeine, cosmetic and other products, the use of a nanoparticle zinc compared to the thick white coating of non nano zinc or titanium dioxide is a personal decision that only you can make.

Other sunscreen ingreditents such as oxybenzone, homosalate, and octinoxateoxybenzone, homosalate, and octinoxate have shown endocrine disrupting potential in laboratory studies.  Endocrine system is the hormonal signalling system of the body via the pituitary, pineal, hypothalamus, thymus and adrenal glands, ovaries and testes where signalling molecules are relayed through the lymphatic system, blood and intracellular tissues.  The body is regulated via pathways to produce or stop producing various hormones which maintains homeostasis or equilibrium within all bodily systems.  Other compounds which are endocrine disrupters include: Pesticides, plastics cosmetics, heavy metals, industrial chemicals and flame retardants. So we are constantly bombarded with chemicals that can cause endocrine disfunction at all times. 

There is also an inherant risk of endocrine disruption and disease progression from our very own experiences, thoughts and feelings and being stressed about anything is a health hazard in itself. 

Reducing exposure to unnecessary and avoidable manufactured chemicals reduces your overall risk although we cannot escape these in the modern industrialized world.  From microplastics to BPA to sunscreens our world is full of chemical exposure.  in fact our world is made of chemicals. Even the cells of our being are chemicals, a plant, a frog, a table a chair are all composed of chemicals. The air we breathe is carbon, oxygen, hydrogen.  It is the configuration of the chemicals and the misplacement of chemicals compounds in places they shouldn't be that causes problems.  

Swap heating food in plastic, chemicla rich cleaning products, skincare, haircare and cosmetics for glass containers, simple natural vinegar, lemon and baking soda, steam, natural brands and aloe vera, paw paw, calendular, witchhazel, lip-balm-alleriges-make-your-own.html, bossitos range are made with Australian grown flora, bondi naturals ectetera and Use Sunscreen. Your skin will thank you for your sensible risk benefit analysis 

Choose to cover up, seek shade and apply a zinc or titanium oxide based sunscreen to reduce your risk of sun damage.

Your Naturopath or influencer or health conscious friend that persuades you not to use sunscreen, and instead to use natural sunscreen or to lather yourslf in oils and sun bath in the middle of the day will not be the one going under the knife, burning off thier face or saying goodbye to their loved ones.  

There are no consequences for misleading health advice, it is up to you. 

The Choices you make about Sunscreen must be weighed against the very real and harmful effect of the sun and the disfiguring, painful diagnosis, treatments, and possible death of skin cancer.

Everything in life is a risk.
We make our choices and take our chances. 

I sunbathed only a few times in my life and burnt to a crisp easily with days of peeling skin afterwards. I worked and played outside, almost never used sunscreen, was not strictly wearing hats or covering up my skin and I am paying the price. 

I highly recomend using a Zinc or Titanium oxide suscreen - slip slop slap when in the sun for longer than ten minutes or any minutes between 9am and 4pm. A morning or evening breif pop outside or driving, window light will provide enought Vitamin D metabolism for optimal health.

​

Autumn is windy and the temperature fluctuations between hot and cold can leave our skin dry.

With a few natural ingredients you can make a batch of your own skin care that is personalized, free of nasty additives and cost effective. 

For some of us buying skin care off the shelves is fraught with burning skin, money wasting and stress.  Even simple and common ingredients can cause skin irritation. 

For myself as an Auburn atopic lass, sorbolene burns my skin within seconds of application and wind and sun are take a toll on my sensitive skin.

There are many recipes out there that use bees wax yet as an allergic type (atopic) myself I recommend pure lanolin as an alternative.

Lanolin is less likely to cause a contact dermititis irritation or allergic response for sensitive folks. Also no animal cruelty is required as the lanolin is extracted when washing sheeps wool after shearing and is cleaned through centrifugal processes to remove the animal sweat and other contaminants.
This removes the potential for animal dander reactions.  If you are allergic to cats, dogs or horses it is the animal dandeer that causes the reaction. Dander is essentially dead skin flakes similar to dandruff which contain proteins that cause allergy symptoms.

Lanolin is absorbed by the skin and creates an effective barrier cream for any chaffing, dry skin, cracked heals, breasfeeding woes, cold sores, etc. 

Check your chemist for inexpensive Gold Cross Lanolin or try this 100% pure lanolin I found on Amazon that is gorgeous 

Nuts and seeds provide beautiful oils that are great for our skin hydration and nourishment.

​Coconut we are familiar with and Coconut oil is easily available.  It is important to note that coconut oil is really mostly saturated fat and is going to clog pores and arteries regardless of its small percentage of medium chain fatty acids that are scientifically backed for brain health. 

Shea butter is made from crushing kernals of seeds from the Tropical African Shea tree and boiling.  This produces a block of Shea butter often used in skin care products.  The Shea tree also contains natural latex which could trigger allergies in some people. Shea butter is emolient (skin soothing and reduces swelling). It sits on the skin and moisturises the upper layers.  

To maintiain the natural and cost effective premise of this home made lip balm, simply add herbs and spices from your kitchen and juice of beetroot or turmeric for colours and flavourings. 
Carrot seed oil is age defying and provides SPF 15. 
Breaking a Vitamin E capsule increases the antioxidant content and also increases shelf life 

Ingredients
Bees Wax 
​Lanolin 
Shea butter 
Cocoa butter
Coconut oil
Jojoba oil
Olive oil
Carrot Seed oil 
Cinnamon, cardomon, nutmeg powder
Beetroot, orange, turmeric juice
Aloe vera
​
Use a stainless steel double boiler to melt the wax, oils or butters, combine ingredients thouroughly and store in pots or lip balm cylinders.  
Wait until the balm has cooled almost entirely before adding aloe vera leaf gel.
You can add rosemary or other herb pieces for their flavourful medicinal properties and strain through cheesecloth before potting. 

Autumn is here and the cooling wind is a relief, the gusty breeze flows and nature begins its solar year transition to winter time.  
Being in tune witth nature and her seasons is happening for all on earth's southern hemisphere yet to enhance balance of our human bodies we can make changes to our diet and activities to harmonise with the elements. 

Seasonal foods change as growing conditions alter the available toods. 
Autumn is a time to harvest root vegetables and pumpkins. Eating the legumes, pulses, carrots, potatoes at this time of year brings a stability and nourishment to the system that is grounding during the windy cool change. Think falafael, hearty chickpea salads, baked potatoes and pumpkin soup.  

In Western Traditional medicine and daily life we ate what was seasonally available without a metaphysical context yet with the rise of imported foods and globalisation the distinction of seasons and the interconnectedness of our body to nature has been severed.
A rainy day, a windy day or hot day all affect our mood and energy.  In Traditional SubContinenal Indian Medicine called Ayurvedic medicine there were foundational texts that outlined this connection of mind and body to the weather, the seasons and the cosmos. 
We can imagine a time when our ancestors lived completely in nature and all cultures had this strong connection and understanding of the intrinsic environmental entwinement. Historically humans had to be aware of and work with nature for their very survival.  Today we can remove ourselves and create artificial support systems that could see us on other planets, but societies rates of mental and physicall health are not significantly immproving accross the board with these advances.  Certainly infection and injuries may be better treated and plagues are we hope a thing of the past but our beings are yearning for nurturing, relaxation, a sense of stability and the space to dream and flow in peace.

Ayurvedic Medicine has coalesced the five elements common to the pre scientific era textbook understanding of  once enlightened thought -  Alchemy, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda - Air, Fire, Water, Earth/Wood, Ether/Metal/Space - into three Doshas - the Tridoshas

In this Vata time of Autumn Adjustment slowing down activity choices to yoga, walking peacful exercises and keeping a regular daily and sleep routine helps us stay grounded as the cool winds and mental energy are whipped up in our environment. 
Warm herbal teas, walks in nature, mindfulness and warm spices will soothe us throught the coming months.