Planting the Seeds of Beauty: Growing Herbs for Skin Care

For centuries the home herb garden has been many things to us, including the source of our beauty preparations. Today as we weave our way back to using whole plants and foods to nourish skin health, there is a curiosity awakening about planting a garden, along with questions about why one would take time to do that when so many of the herbs are already widely available in fine beauty products.

The simple answer is there is nothing so healing as a live plant plucked and used within minutes of taking it from the soil. Think of it as a farm-to-table experience, but for your face!  Shortening the distance and time between the garden and the herb’s usage, allows you to utilize the nutrients from plants when they are at their most vibrant, to deliver maximum benefits.

To really understand this principal and why it is an important concept in green beauty, I encourage you to grow an herb. If you want to know how to use a specific plant to influence skin health, plant it, care for it, watch it grow, then wait, wait, wait… Watching the plant overtime will show you the way to use it.

You might be thinking “Life is busy enough, now I have to plant my own herbs? Just one more thing to do.” But it’s so easy! The rich insights gleaned from watching a plant mature will be worth more than a weekend workshop or hours of bedtime reading. Just start, even if you choose only one single beauty-focused herb that you have heard of and are interested in. Even if it is a potted herb sitting on your kitchen counter. Micro-gardening is still gardening!

For me this year, the herb that I want to know better is Borage. It has always intrigued me and I have grown it in my garden many times, but when I recently used it in a new face product (Farmaesthetics Nutrient Dense Fine Facial Oil), I realized there was a complexity and potential for varied uses in skincare and beauty, and I want to know more.

It has such a lovely little twinkle of a flower, but powerful! Borage can be infused into oil or made into a tea or tincture for external use in compressing. It is known for containing the highest source of GLA and other essential fatty acids to treat dry skin and restore elasticity. It is hailed for diluting sebum, a thick oily substance that is over-secreted in some people with acne, and acting as a preventative by reducing the risk of pores becoming clogged. Astringent substances in borage, called tannins, are now being hailed for their help in tightening skin. Hello Ms. Borage! I can’t wait to know you better.

What herb do you want to get to know this summer?