Lavender essential oil benefits and uses

Thought I'd do a post today on the many uses of one of my favorite plants, lavender.  The Blue Lady's annual Lavender Festival is this weekend, so I thought I'd share with you all what I use lavender for.  (See the Blue Lady on facebook for dates, times & more pictures of the Lavender Fest).


Part of this year's lavender harvest along with my lamb's ears.

The uses of lavender essential oil can be mind boggling.  I keep it on hand all the time because it has so many purposes with few side effects, so I experiment quite often with it.

 One of my very favorite, and most often implemented uses is for it's calming effects and help with sleeping.  Children benefit from lavender when used as a bedtime ritual, creating lasting wonderful memories of childhood.  A few drops of oil rubbed on the soles of a child's foot, or a cotton ball with a few drops stuffed inside their pillow will help calm children and help them sleep.  Of course this works with adults too.  I find that drinking a few mixed herbs along with lavender before bed as a tea and then my pillowcases and sheets with lavender sprayed over them put me right into a deep sleep.

Lavender naturally deodorizes fabric.  I make a lavender fabric softener by mixing essential oil with water, or mix a few herbal oils together and add to the rinse like you would any other fabric softener.  You can also add a few drops of oil to a cloth or used dryer sheet and add to your clothes dryer.  I try to hang all our laundry outside in the summer to save on power and our carbon footprint, but you can try either one.  Both work great.

The aromatherapy benefits of lavender are really fun.  Diffuse in an electric diffuser or just take the bottle under your nose and breath deep.  All sorts of things are remedied by inhaling this herb. Calming relaxing effects, tension headaches, (you can also rub oil directly on temples for headaches) sore achy muscles, ( use as a massage oil for muscle aches).  I like to add a few drops to a hot bath.  It relaxes muscles and you at the same time... 

Lavender buds are used in baked goods, teas, etc.  I make lavender lemonade every year for the festival.  It makes the lemonade pink when the lavender is added.  Here is my recipe:

1 container frozen lemonade
3 TBL dried lavender buds
water and ice

Put 2 Cups water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Add lavender buds and stir.  Take off heat and let cool. Strain lavender buds out of liquid.  Make your lemonade as you would normally (as per directions on the container).   Add lavender liquid to lemonade and watch it transform from yellow to pink, miraculously!

I hope you'll try some of these fun uses of lavender.  Stop by The Blue Lady to try some lavender lemonade this weekend.  I'll have essential oil, dried lavender and live lavender plants for sale too.

Until next time...