This is a quick way to enjoy the herbs you have in your garden in your bath – in fact it couldn’t get simpler! Making herbal bath posies is a lovely way to enjoy the herbs in your garden throughout the growing season. Herbs you might choose to include:

• Rosemary – stimulating
• Sage – cleansing
• Mint – refreshing
• Chamomile – calming
• Wild Pansy – soothing
• Calendula – soothing

In the picture are two combinations:

• Rosemary, sage and mint for a classic herb garden aroma and to gently revive and stimulate the senses.
• Calendula, chamomile and wild pansy to relax and soothe the skin.

Tie your chosen selection of herbs together with a piece of string, and drop the herb posy into your bath as it runs in. When tying up the posy you can leave a long piece of string and use this to attach the posy to the tap, so that it is kept under the hot running water.

What a lovely way to enjoy a bath, and as a summer/ autumn present for friends and neighbours. For an extra special treat you could also try our relaxing Herbal Bath bags which combine chamomile, sweet marjoram, rosemary and lavender with epsom salts for a deeply relaxing bath.

It does feel a bit early to start talking about the Christmas, but we just have to tell you about some exciting new developments here at Amiya for the coming months! The year seems to have flown by and all too soon the high street will start stocking its range of seasonal gifts. But if  you’re fed up with the usual gifts, or shopping for female friends who already seem to have it all, and you’re wondering what might make a unique gift this year, we have a suggestion…

We’re planning to run herbal evenings starting in October, based in Leamington Spa, on the theme of making herbal beauty gifts. As part of a small group you will have the chance to learn about the key herbs used for beauty, make beautiful herbal products, and individually label and wrap them. These will be unique seasonal gifts that you won’t find anywhere else!

Television programmes like “Grow your own drugs” and “The Kitchen Pharmacy” have helped to create a resurgence of interest in the benefits of homemade herbal remedies and treatments. This is good to see as we have such a rich herbal heritage available to us. As well as creating some lovely Christmas presents, these evenings will be a chance to learn about herbs and get started using them in your own recipes – browse our herbal library, our home remedy collection, and go behind the scenes at Amiya’s garden laboratory!

We’ll be announcing more details at the start of September, including what recipes you’ll get to make, dates and price. Subscribe to our newsletter to find out more, or use the contact form to let us know if you’re interested. These evenings will be fun and personal, with each session having a maximum of 8 people. Hope to see you there!

Many of our customers come back again and again for our natural hair care products. In response we’ve now introduced a 1 litre size for our four herbal shampoos:

• Nettle and Rosemary
• Rose and Chamomile
• Sage and Yarrow
• Mild Calendula

This offers an even more economical option as you can refill your bottle at home, and we’ve included a special reduced postage and packing offer to make this even more favourable! Just select the 1 litre option for any of our shampoos in the the online shop.

Amiya’s herbal shampoos are formulated to be gentle yet effective. All of our natural shampoos are:

• Free from harsh chemicals like SLS or SLES and parabens
• Free from artificial colours and fragrances
• Made with strong herbal infusions and high quality essential oils, many of which are organically sourced
• Handmade with care

Many mainstream shampoos strip the hair of its natural condition. Amiya’s natural shampoos provide a more gentle wash, leaving the hair feeling soft and healthy. Find out more about our natural hair care products, and what our customers say about them.

If you haven’t yet tried our shampoo range, you can try any of our shampoos in a smaller 100ml size as part of a trial set with our Wild Pansy and Marshmallow conditioner.

Shampoo and conditioner mini set 100ml (x2)
£8.00Price:
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Wild pansy & marshmallow conditioner 250ml
£7.00Price:
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Sage and yarrow shampoo 250ml
£6.50Price:
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Nettle and rosemary shampoo 250ml
£6.50Price:
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Calendula shampoo 250ml
£6.50Price:
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Rose and chamomile shampoo 250ml
£6.50Price:
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If your eyes need some soothing during the summer months, perhaps because of hayfever, this is the perfect herbal recipe to make! It is easy to make and contains cornflower, cucumber and aloe vera. If you don’t have aloe vera in your kitchen or garden, you can buy the pure gel in a health food shop. And if the lovely blue cornflower isn’t a resident of your garden, you can use one of the alternative herbs suggested below.

Cornflower (Centaurea Cyanus)

Once a common sight growing wild in our fields, the cornflower is loved for its bright blue flowers. Today it is usually cultivated purposefully in gardens, rather than being found wild.

Although largely ignored by modern herbalism, it has a long history of use to soothe the skin, and in particular the skin around the eyes, due to its astringent and anti-inflammatory properties. In beauty preparations for the hair, it is also said to help darken fair or grey hair.

Recipe: herbal summer soother for eyes

In this recipe we’re going to use an infusion of cornflower petals in a soothing wash for the skin around the eyes. If you don’t have cornflowers, you could use chamomile flowers instead, or if you’re making the recipe in May/ June you could use elderflowers.

Ingredients:

• Half a cup of cornflower petals
• Aloe vera gel (either cut a fresh leaf off of an aloe plant, or use about a dessert spoon of pure aloe gel from a health food shop)
• Cucumber (about quarter of a large cucumber)

Cover the cornflower petals in boiling water and leave to steep for a couple of hours. Strain off the cool liquid. Cut and peel the aloe leaf (careful as its very slippery!) and chop into small pieces. Peel and remove the seeds from the cucumber, and chop into small pieces. Mix together the liquid, aloe, and cucumber in a blender until smooth. Finally, strain this mixture through a piece of muslin or a clean pop sock into a bottle. You can store this in the fridge and use within one week. It could be used in a spray bottle to refresh the skin on the face on a hot day; dabbed around the eyes with cotton wool; or used on a compress over the eyes while you lie back and relax.

Note: the eye wash is for use externally, not in the eyes.

You can find more recipes to make at home in our News area.

Sources:

• The Aromantic Guide to the use of Herbs – Kolbjorn Borseth 2006
  
• Hatfield’s Herbal – Gabrielle Hatfield 2007