(With or Without a carrier oil)

Did you know Lavender Essential Oil is the most used essential oil in the world?

Yup! And there's good reason too.

It has POWERFUL calming, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-depressant qualities and has been used for centuries for all types of things!

I always have a bottle of lavender essential oil around me. I keep one in my suburban, I keep one in my purse and I keep one in the bucket of bandages and first aid creams in my hall closet.

Why?

Because I USE it.

I like to open the cap and smell it. It calms me. I get overwhelmed REALLY easily and I have three little boys 10, 7 and 4 who sometimes are ALL talking at once about 3 different things. Add on a husband who sometimes asks questions at the same time and it can get a bit stressful.

When this happens, I usually just go quiet and open the hallway closet door - crack open a bottle of lavender oil, close my eyes and breathe deeply into my belly.

It works! It gives me a little boost of calmness - plus it signals to the boys to drop it down a bit.

I love to travel, but it takes A LOT out of me. I used to get a splitting headache at the end of the day most times I travel - whether it’s 5 hours in the car to visit my in-laws or on an all-day adventure going on a plane to Florida to visit my sister.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve arrived at my destination only to have to go into a dark bedroom the moment I get there and be in so much headache pain, I’m nauseated and feel like my head is going to break into two. It sucks. Especially when I haven’t seen my sister in 6 months and I literally can’t do anything until morning when the headache is gone.

Now I put a few little drops of Lavender essential oil on my temples and on the inside of my wrists when I wake up in the morning on a traveling day and at regular intervals throughout the day. It helps! I sometimes still get headaches when I travel, but not nearly as much.

I used to get headaches quite often, (not so much anymore - yay!) but when I do feel a headache coming on the first thing I do is grab my Lavender Essential Oil. I breathe it in directly from the bottle. Then I mix three drops with a little bit - maybe a teaspoon of an organic salve - (whichever one I have at the moment) to act as a carrier oil. Then I put the oils on my temples, the base of my head, the inside of my wrists and the bottoms of my feet. This helps too!

I don’t use Essential Lavender Oil a lot with the kids, (some people say to be careful about overusing it especially with growing boys) but when they are being exceptionally grumpy, I put some on them too (I always use it with a carrier oil on them). I also diffuse it in a room where they are playing or jumping about.

For me - I (most of the time) use it straight from the bottle. I know you are not are supposed to do this with other essential oils, but it’s okay to do this with lavender essential oil - so I do.

If you want to use a carrier oil to dilute it - here’s how you do that:

Take about a teaspoon of coconut, jojoba or oil based salve (I use an organic all natural hand salve) and mix three drops of lavender essential oil in with it. For use on my kids, I use 1 drop not 3.

Mix it around in the palm of your hand and then rub it on your temples, insides of your wrists, base of your neck or bottoms of your feet. It’s as simple as that!

Apparently it takes about 20 minutes for the lavender to get into every cell of your body! That’s crazy to me!

Notes - a lot (I would say most) essential oils are hot- meaning if you put them directly on your skin it will burn. Lavender oil does not do this. Some people say you should dilute it whenever you use it, but I don’t - and I’ve never had a problem.

Make sure to get a high-quality organic 100 percent Lavender Essential Oil - one that is marked Lavandula Angustofolia.