Our Peppermint & Lavender Essential Oil

For the longest time we've been trying to find the best source of Lavender and Peppermint Essential Oils in the Philippines. Really, we didn't want the ones available locally 8 years ago. They're affordable, they smell good, but those are not the ones we're looking for. Almost every Lavender and Peppermint we've taken a whiff at smells narcotic, seems to have a little too much of some fragrance notes, and generally, feels "incomplete."

Back then, who cares about real essential oils? Who would really know what real Lavender Essential Oil or real Peppermint Oil smell like and what difference does it make? Well, we did and we still care enough to keep talking about how different the real ones are.

In the supermarket aisles at the home section or at body care section, there's a lot of products using lavender. There's car freshener, home spray, fabric softener, body wash...the list is seemingly endless. Is it possible they use lavender essential oil? Possibly not. The cost of real lavender essential oil is too expensive to be in mass-produced and mass-priced consumables. So they use fragrance oils, composed by perfumers, "inspired" by real essential oils. This is the reason why not a lot of Filipinos don't know what real lavender smells like. All we're familiar with are the lavender fragrances from fragrance factories. Most of us have never even smelled fresh or dried lavender plants at all.

Think Before Ingesting Essential Oils

From EssentialOilUS site

A big part of Casa de Lorenzo Organic Products is essential oils. We see it as a great way to make our soaps alive, in fact, it gives amazing definition and distinction to our castile soaps. Another reason is the long list of benefits it gives to people, among of which are relaxation, lowering stress levels, antibacterial action, and bad odor removal. Essential oils also allows us to help local farming communities and patronize their produce. Maybe not just big...its huge for us.

So why are we writing this? We just want people to be aware. Ingesting essential oils is simply dangerous and we're gonna tell you why.

Image from Suzanner Banks site

High chance of using too much. Because of the highly concentrated nature of essential oils, its always easy to go overboard when ingesting. Keep in mind, to be able to extract essential oils, one would need a lot of plant material. About one to two kilos of plant material can produce only 1mL of EO more or less. Higher concentration of substances means difficulty in administrating small doses. Half drop of EO vs 1 drop is a huge difference.

Essential oil tolerance of the body. Drinking citrus fruits, especially the ones prepared at home contains some essential oils in minute amounts. Way less than 1 drop per serving, and its all the body is used to. Imagine ingesting 3 or 5 drops of any citrus essential oil. That is the same as eating the rind of around 1 kilo of citrus fruits. And you know that adverse effects happen when the body takes in anything excessive.

Some essential oils can cause irritation. If essential oils can cause irritation on the skin at pure strength, getting a drop or two in your throat or digestive system will ultimately lead to some sort of discomfort.

Action of essential oils is different when ingested vs used in aromatherapy. Our digestive system is a wonderful set of organs designed to break down organic components for the body to use. It utilizes self-produced chemicals and mechanical action to do so, and this changes the actual property of any substance drank or eaten. This means the essential oil components are either changed or broken down, and when this happens, the results aren't exactly predictable. Essential oils have a better chance of reaching the bloodstream via inhalation or absorption on the skin and getting its full benefits. Whereas when taken in, we're not sure anymore what gets absorbed in the digestive system.

Children and pets are put at risk. It happens all the time. Whatever parents use or consume, some give to their children and pets as well. Small amounts to adults may be tolerable, but for young people and animals, the tolerance may not be the same. It can lead to a long list of serious reactions.

Not all essential oils are made using food grade equipment. Because essential oils are mostly used on cosmetic and aesthetic purposes, the processing quality and the equipment used in extracting are not exactly food grade. Although bacterial and viral risks are eliminated because generally, all essential oils have a certain degree of antiseptic qualities, ingesting them may expose people to heavy metals and the likes.

Not all "essential oils" are pure. Sometimes, that bottle of essential oil you get may have been adulterated and mixed with cheaper aromatic chemicals resembling essential oil components. There's no fool-proof way for a consumer to know if what the labels say are true. Even if one has access to expensive analytical instruments like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the results can be so diverse, even the experts can have a hard time proving the purity of an essential oil.

If you are still persistent about wanting to ingest essential oils, why not try extracting it yourself. Its easy to do for citrus fruits, just press the rind and you can get essential oils there. But for other plant materials, its never easy. Even if you trust the essential oil brand you're buying, we still suggest using the nose or your skin to play on the safe side. Perhaps when there's more study or credible resources that can be used as basis for ingesting essential oils, that's probably the time eating or drinking EO can be seriously considered. Its your choice still, although know that being adventurous has its drawbacks and risks.

Growing Lavender in the Philippines Update 1

As promised here's our update regarding our Lavender Officinalis plant. 2 months after we've posted that we're trying to grow lavender, a lot of its leaves started to dry out. Here's a look of how she's doing:

A month ago, we noticed an increase of leaves turning brown, and this was around the time that Metro Manila was getting more rainfall so we carefully re-potted the plant to a clay pot. It helped a bit, but typhoon Lando came and the noticeable impact of too much water showed. More than 50% of the leaves suddenly began to grow limp and a few days later, they just went brown. We've also tried spraying the plant with foliar, in case the roots are not functioning anymore and it seemed to have helped. A major concern right now is that there has been sporadic rains which may aggravate the case further inspite of a potting medium with very good drainage.

To sum up, here's a few things we've surmised while we're taking care of the plant:

1. Lavender is such a sensitive plant. Slight changes affect it a lot.
2. Protect the roots from too much water. Rain doesn't seem to do the plant much good, especially if it soaks up the area where its roots are. Controlling the water is essential to the plant's survival. Watering every 2 days may work, and using less water is best practice in this case.
3. Avoid moving the plant constantly. It seemed to hate being moved from one place to another because we're hiding it from the rain. Perhaps a cover during rains may work instead.
4. Lavender likes the sun. It can survive with partial sun, but if there's a place where it can get full sun, the better. If the plant is just getting partial sun, take it easy on watering a bit further.
5. Foliar spray may have help the plant if you want to give it a boost of nutrients.

Hopefully, our plant survives this bout and no one accidentally waters it out of schedule. Nevertheless, whatever the outcome of our plant will be, we're already working on preparing for our next batch of lavender plants. We've recently bought lavender seeds and made plans for a mini greenhouse so we can apply what we've learned better.

Growing Lavender in the Philippines

We've heard from a lot of people about growing Lavender in the Philippines. They tell us a lot of stories about how they themselves or their friends tried making the plant survive here in the country, and ultimately giving up on it. Why try? Because Lavender is such an amazing plant. Aside from the fact that it is one of the most well-known and widely used flower in the world (it surpassed roses a long time ago because of price and availability), real Lavender is but a delight to the senses. And because we dream of being able to grow our own Lavender, we are also trying.

Any species of Lavender doesn't thrive naturally in the tropics, but they can, as proven by a handful few. Cultivating them here in the country, will definitely be an uphill climb because the odds are bigger than the chances. The plant doesn't like being soaked frequently, loves a cool climate, thrives well under a good amount of sun and a dozen other factors that nags everyone to drop the idea and find other things to grow. But we'd like to try swimming against the current.

To build our confidence, we bought ourselves a 4 or 6 month old seedling of English Lavender (Lavandula Officinalis) to check our green thumbs. That was 2 months ago. Here she is now:

People seem to have understood the needs of Lavender because where we bought the seedling, they potted the plant on a high drainage potting medium which the plant seemed to be enjoying. Seeing it grow and mature in the past 60 days has been kind of a roller coaster ride. There are times when the leaves would be uptight and proud, such a happy sight. There are times when its leaves will droop low, and we'd get concerned. But now, she's going good. Her major stem is turning woody, the leaves are proliferating and the shoots are continually appearing. Whenever we pluck the damaged or drying out leaves, crushing it on our fingers releases a delightful fragrance, assuring us its going to be alright.

So we decided to take it to the next level: growing Lavender from seeds. We tried the English Lavender Munstead variant, and out of the about 200 seeds we planted, about 15 sprouted. However, because of the unpredictable weather in the past weeks and a lot of other factors, it went down to 3 yesterday and as of checking a while ago, one more wilted out. So here's one of the survivors:

All of these are just very small trials, as we are dreaming of growing a lot of Lavender locally and getting extracts or essential oils. By the looks of it, seems like we have a long, long way to go in improving the survival success of the plant. If it won't thrive well in a more or less controlled environment, how will it fare on a more hostile environment out in a field? Indeed, it takes a lot of patience, but once flowers will bloom, it will definitely be a statement it was worth all the effort.

Our Fascination with Natural Soaps

Cheesy may it sound, our soaps come from a deep respect and fascination of nature. Many would not understand how real soaps are made, all that everyone sees is an amber bottle labeled castile soap from us. To the ones who enjoy our products, we'd like you to know more about it. For the ones who are still pondering to try, read on, you might see a good reason why.

Our castile soaps are made from oils. Not added with oils, but made from oils. All fatty substances can be made into soap, and depending on the oils used, a soap can either be highly moisturizing, bubbly or a highly cleansing one. Olive Oil soap can condition the skin, Coconut Oil soap is very cleansing to the point it can dry out the skin, and Palm Oil soap can be a very boring one on its own. However, mixing them together in the right amounts, you get something wonderful. We stick around with what Mother Nature offers and stay close to it. Casa de Lorenzo Castile Soaps itself are proof of this.

Benefits of Avocado Oil

Image from Lindsay's Blog

We are all familiar with the Avocado Fruit. For us Filipinos, one way or another we have seen these fruits on display on the market or fruit stands. Our parents might have prepared a dessert of milk and avocadoes, or maybe had eaten guacamole with some Mexican dishes. To those who don't know, guacamole is originally made from Avocadoes.

Here in the country, not much is known about this wonder fruit aside from being eaten. We are even ignorant about the nutritional values of the fruit, while on other countries, lots of research has been discovering benefits of the avocado comparable and sometimes even exceeding those of olives. Many are even surprised to hear that the avocado fruit contains oils.

We're Making Passionfruit Seed Oil

Nowadays, in order to get high quality natural products, people have to do it on their own. That's really how Casa de Lorenzo Soaps came about, since we don't want to use detergents sold as soaps on our skin anymore, we made our own soaps (Read Why I Started Casa de Lorenzo). It was enjoyable, and one variant came after another. We're having so much fun in doing things on our own, we've decided since there's a shortage of supply of quality natural products here in the Philippines, we're going to make raw materials ourselves and one of our targets is making Passionfruit Seed Oil.

Manila Castile Soap Day on Independence Day

In celebration of our country's 115th commemoration of our Independence, we're letting everyone try a few bottles of an All-Filipino Natural Soap.

This June 12, 2013, starting at 12 midnight, all you have to do is to go and visit the Casa de Lorenzo Promo Page, leave your name, email and contact number on the form that will be available on Philippine Independence Day. The first 20 to sign up will be contacted and confirmed to get (1) 250mL Bottle of Calamansi Manila Castile Soap, our newest variant.

Link to Promo page: http://www.thecasadelorenzo.com/p/promos.html

Only Natural Ingredients indigent to the Philippines make it to a bottle of Manila Castile Soap. Combining the Cleaning power of Virgin Coconut Oil Soap, the Moisturizing properties of Rice Bran Oil Soap, and the Lather of Palm Oil Soap, the Manila Castile Soap Variant is a great addition to Casa de Lorenzo. Scented with locally-sourced Essential Oils from plants and flowers of the Philippines, every bottle is delightful to the senses when bathing.

Why I Started Casa de Lorenzo

Oftentimes, life puts in your path something that leads you which direction to go. When you let life take the reins, there's a lot of surprises along the way. This is how I was led to making Castile Soaps.

Casa de Lorenzo Soaps were born out of a need for something better. Years ago, my eldest daugther had sensitive skin. She'd have dermal irritation frequently, and often times, she'd have chicken skin. So we did some troubleshooting, trying different skin products. Eventually we realized that she was reacting to some ingredients of the soaps that we use, so we tried to find alternatives.

Soften Your Hands with Avocado

From SevenDesktop.com

Its May already, and here in the Philippines, the season of Avocado is about to reach its peak. Such a great time to take advantage of the things this seasonal fruit brings.

Did you know that Avocado in general is a great source of ingredients for beauty products? It is rich in essential nutrients and amino acids that are extremely beneficial to skin. Here's one of the ways on how your skin can benefit from Avocado aside from just eating it.

Valentines Soap Giveaway

You asked for it, you got it! In celebration of our 1,000 Likes in Facebook and the coming Valentine's Day this February, there will be (5) winners for this Giveaway, but we're not just handing out our regular best sellers but something you won't get everyday.

We've created a few bottles of Limited Edition natural liquid bath soaps scented with CHOCOLATES and ROSES. Because we want you to feel the love, our prizes are (1) 250mL Chocolate Old Fashioned Soap and (1) 250mL Roses Castile Soap for each winner. That means we're giving away (10) bottles of Natural Liquid Soap this time!

To join, just follow the simple steps below:

1. Download the image of Roses and Chocolates Liquid Soap to your computer.
2. Post the image in your Facebook Timeline and comment something about Valentines.
3. Comment below the link of your Facebook Timeline to let us know you joined.
4. Ask your friends to share!

Please be reminded to make the setting for this post "public" so we can review how many shares your post got when the contest ends on February 1, 2013. Announcement of winners will be on the next day February 2, 2013.