Shea Butter Treatment Stick

Just a week ago, a friend of mine and I participated in an 18-mile walk to support "Out of the Darkness - Overnight" in order to raise awareness about depression and suicide. In hindsight, I guess I was not as well prepared for the walk as I should have been. Walking 18 miles was more straining on my feet and body than I had thought it would. Therefore, I must have over extended either the ligaments or tendons in my foot and leg because ever since then I was in slight pain.

Then yesterday, while walking around a craft fair, I got the idea to make my own Shea Butter Treatment Stick. Not only is this treatment stick a great moisturizer, it is also wonderful for On-the-Go and is "airplane friendly" due to its solid texture. That means, you can carry it in your purse and not in a zip-lock bag :)

I used very few yet powerful ingredients for the base:

Beeswax is anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and heals wounds
Shea Butter is moisture spending; it is also anti-inflammatory and great for sprains, and
Jojoba Oil penetrates quickly into the skin and rejuvenates the skin.

To the base, I added the following essential oils that soothes muscle pains and sprains:

Peppermint (YL) is great for tired muscles and legs and a wonderful pain reliever.
Roman Chamomile (YL) is antispasmodic and soothes the nerves.
Rosemary (YL) stimulates the circulation and has anti-inflammatory properties.
Verbena is also an anti-inflammatory oil and is good for the neuromuscular system.

I've applied the Shea Butter Treatment Stick only twice and my foot feels so much better!

What a wonderful gift from Nature!!!

Many Blessings!!!

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Thyme Essential Oil in killing bacteria resistant to many antibiotics

Thyme Essential Oil made the news again. Just last month I posted an article about thyme EO and its properties in suppressing the inflammatory COX-2 enzyme. Today I found another article on BBC News that talks about the medicinal properties of thyme oil and how it helps in the fight of the bacterial infection Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that is highly resistant to some antibiotics. A high grade or Grade A quality thyme oil can be used internally and that means that you could gargle with a few drops of thyme oil in warm water to kill off bacteria. Here is the article I mentioned:

Essential oils destroy MRSA, Brighton scientists say

Essential oils could kill the hospital superbug MRSA, scientists at the University of Brighton have found.

A study found a blend of oils derived from thyme plants was effective in destroying MRSA in two hours.

The research was carried out by a team of microbiologists at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences.

MRSA is a potentially lethal bug that is difficult to combat because it has developed resistance to some antibiotics.

The study was set up when Sussex-based company Benchmark Oils asked the university to carry out research into the effect of its oils.

'Promising results'

Director Maggie Tisserand got in touch because she believed a blend of essential oils derived from thyme and used in aromatherapy could tackle MRSA.

Dr Jonathan Caplin, who carried out much of the research, said: "These are very promising results.

"We have shown at least in the laboratory that this blend of thyme has a very strong killing-effect on MRSA.

"Now further work needs to be carried out to ascertain its effect in real cases."

The research has been published in the International Journal of Essential Oil Therapeutics.

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Thyme Oil Can Inhibit COX2 and Suppress Inflammation

ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2010) — For those who do not drink, researchers have found that six essential oils -from thyme, clove, rose, eucalyptus, fennel and bergamot -- can suppress the inflammatory COX-2 enzyme, in a manner similar to resveratrol, the chemical linked with the health benefits of red wine. They also identified that the chemical carvacrol was primarily responsible for this suppressive activity.

These findings, appearing in the January issue of Journal of Lipid Research, provide more understanding of the health benefits of many botanical oils and provide a new avenue for anti-inflammatory drugs.

Essential oils from plants have long been a component of home remedies, and even today are used for their aromatherapy, analgesic (e.g. cough drops), or antibacterial properties. Of course, the exact way they work is not completely understood. However, Hiroyasu Inoue and colleagues in Japan believed that many essential oils might target COX-2 much like compounds in wine and tea.

So, they screened a wide range of commercially available oils and identified six (thyme, clove, rose, eucalyptus, fennel and bergamot) that reduced COX-2 expression in cells by at least 25%. Of these, thyme oil proved the most active, reducing COX-2 levels by almost 75%.

When Inoue and colleagues analyzed thyme oil, they found that the major component -carvacrol- was the primary active agent; in fact when they use pure carvacrol extracts in their tests COX-2 levels decreased by over 80%.

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