essential oils

Essential Oils and Plant Oils {Beauty Products}

Swathy · January 7, 2012 · 1 Comment

Well, reading one of my reader’s comments, I came to know that probably not all are really aware of the difference in the plant oils and essential oils. So, I shall try to clarify that a bit.

Plant Oils

Body Oils are made of blending 2 or more plant oils

All oils under this category come as vegetable oils. They can be used for culinary purposes or even for skin care. These oils are generally extracted from the fruits like almond nuts, hazelnut nuts, coconut fruit, etc. Some of the oils are extracted from the waste part like the rice bran oil comes from the rice bran which is generally used as a fodder for cattle. These oils can be used directly for any purpose and there is a danger of these oils going rancid over a period of time.

They are extracted by cold process or a heat processing method. Cold pressed oils are best as the nutrition is intact and the oil goes through the least amount of processing.

Essential Oils

Essential Oils

Essential Oils are extremely concentrated essences of the various parts of a plant. For example, Essential Oil can be extracted from roots, leaves, barks, stems, flowers of a plant. The oil is extremely concentrated and can not be used directly on the skin or hair. Not all essential oils can be used for culinary purposes. To use these oils, one needs to dilute them with the carrier oils (which are the plant oils).

Essential Oils are extracted using the steam distillation or solvent extraction. Steam Distillation gives the best quality of the Essential Oil. To produce an ounce of Essential oil, huge amount of the plant might be needed and that makes these oils extremely costly. For example, a pound of Jasmine flowers give 1 ounce of Jasmine Essential Oil. So, cost is determining factor of the purity of the Essential Oil. One more thing which characterizes essential oils is its strong fragrance which is generally missing in plant oils.

These oils are extremely delicate and come in very small quantities of 10ml or 50ml and mostly, you will find them in dark-colored bottles. The reason why they are put in dark colored is that the composition of the essential oil may be altered by the sun’s rays so it is always advised to store these oils in the dark. That preserves their stability. Generally, these oils have long shelf life and can be used as preservatives also in homemade cosmetics.

Have your used Essential Oils? Pin It

Also read: Are essential oils good or bad?

Make your own colors for your Rangoli

Swathy · October 31, 2010 · 5 Comments

Rangoli is an integral part of our festivals. While in North India, people generally make Rangolis only during festivals where as it is a daily routine in South. Every morning you will find ladies waking up, cleaning their porch and making a beautiful Rangoli with rice flour. Of course, they do not bother to color it every day but yes, we do love colors. Right?? Diwali is almost there and of course, your designs for Rangolis would be improvising day by day. So, have you decided on how will you color your Rangoli. No, not the Holi colors please!! They are chemically processed making them unhealthy not only for the skin but also they can cause asthma and cancer. Skin allergies from Holi colors is nothing new. I stopped playing Holi because of the very reason and many of you must have too.

So, how do we go about making our own colors? I am sure many of you must already be aware of it. But, for those who do not, I’ll recount certain things and your own imagination will also give you exquisite results on the D-Day. Lets start with things already available.

Turmeric – yellow. Mix turmeric with rice flour (off-white in color) or even maida (all purpose flour) and create different shades of yellow. Besan can be used for pale yellow too.
Orange peels are already lying for your daily scrubs. Use them for orange color.
Sindoor can be used for maroon. The orange shade of tika is also available. It will do beautifully for orange.
Beetroot – shade of magenta. Dry the peel or a single beetroot cut into pieces and then grind them for a beautiful and vibrant shade of something ranging from pink to magenta. You can vary the color using the white flour.
Pomegranate – something between red and orange. Dry the peel and grind it.
Carrot – Peel it, cut into pieces and dry and then, grind. Carrot red.
Rose Petals – which ever color is your rose. General colors are pink and red. Dry the petals and grind them or you can use them as they are.
Marigold petals – a vibrant orange. Petals can be used as they are.
You have a wide array of choices for green. Go for mint, spinach, fenugreek, corainder leaves or leaves from the plants from your garden or you can dry the peels of your green veggies from the gourd family and powder them.
Blue is a difficult color. You can go for small blue flowers which is the best bet. Or, if you can get indigo, you can create blue color of your own. But, this would be rare. So, I am giving this a miss!! You have lavender flowers. They would do beautifully and impart fragrance too.
Hibiscus flowers – would again give red.
You can use cinnamon and other spices for brown. I would go for cinnamon because it has a fragrance too.
Use mustard seeds (rai) for black. I know black is not used or preferred but using mustard seeds in the middle or small pockets of your Rangoli would give a different look to it.
Jasmine flowers, jasmine buds, rose buds can also be used (as in the pic). It is just made of all the flowers you can get at the florist shop. Why not use them? The green color is made form the ferns stems.

I am not able to think of any more colors but I am sure you can make out some from your own imagination and kitchen and beauty ingredients. There are some tips which I can give on your Rangoli decorations:

Mix rice grains with the respective colors to make them look more appealing. My mom had made a complete Rangoli from the rice grains mixed in different colors and believe me it was fabulous. It was in a competition she participated and won the first prize!! Using rice grains makes your Rangoli stay for longer.
Do not have the time to dry the ingredients and powder them. Just crush the things, make a paste and mix with rice. You will need more quantity and little patience to mix with rice because it takes time.
You can use essential oils in your colors to make your Rangoli smell exotic.
Use the diyas for decorating and illuminating your Rangoli strategically.
I do not have to tell you this but make Rangoli at a strategic place where it is visible to all but not in anyone’s way so that no one disturbs your hard work.
You can place small Ganesh ji’s in your Rangoli. That looks chic and will utilize the numerous Ganesh ji’s coming your way. (We do get lot of Ganesh ji’s during Diwali and I love it!!)

Wish you all a very Happy Diwali!! May it bring you and your family all the prosperity and happiness you wish for.

[Do you have any tips on Rangoli decoration or color making?]

Essential Oils: Good or Bad

Swathy · July 11, 2010 · 9 Comments

Have you ever bought essential oils in the market? Do you know that there is an FDA regulation which allows the companies to say an essential oil is 100% pure if it has 10% pure oil in it. So, unfortunately, the essential oils available in the market are not at all pure. If you are absolutely sure of the brand you are using, then it is fine for you to use it. But, in case, you are a new user, it is better you do the brand research properly. Today, I would discuss how to create your own essential oil at home but it definitely would not be as strong as the original essential oils.

Take a transparent glass bottle with a screw top. Fill it with your favorite choice of herbs like rose petals, jasmine flowers, lavender flowers, orange peels or any other herbs you like. Fill them up to 3/4th of the glass bottle. Now, pour a base oil like almond oil, coconut oil or any other oil of your choice into the bottle up to half of the bottle. Now, close the bottle using the screw top tightly pressing the herbs in the bottle as much as you can. Put it in direct sun light for three days. Make sure the screw top is closed as tightly as possible. Keep on closing it even more tightly every day. After three days, you can strain the oil and use it anyway you want. Make sure you finish it before a week. So, make small batches every week.

You can also infuse your oils with herbs instead of going for essential oils. This way you will have pleasant smelling oils in the house and reap the benefits of the herbs along with the oils.