February 2024 Newsletter

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“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose — not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.”
– Anne Sullivan

As you read below about some changes happening here, it has brough me back to when we arrived in The Villages, in 2005. Armed with a dream and a plan….

I failed. I began. I failed. I began. It seems like every January I make these goals and February I remember my failures. I feel bad for myself and beat myself up. Then the smoke clears and I begin again. This year is no exception.

I train people to find their “why”. I do this through the Tiara Project which I advertised last month. All spots are filled now, but it brought me back to my own “why”. February is also the anniversary of my fathers death, although its been over 20 years, his tragic death still makes me think back to what I was doing those weeks prior to his death. Who I was then….

I don’t think I liked her very much. She was me then, but not me now. Without his death, I may of never made that connection. His death gutted me to the core. As much as I don’t think one ever heals from a death, it has taken me 20 plus years to have a scar that wouldn’t keep opening this time every year.

So I look back at when I began. When I failed. When I began again and so on and so forth. This year determined to begin with a different mindset, one not bound by the past or grief. One bound by purpose and desire.

I am doing this so on February 25, 2024 I can look at the sky and say “Hey Dad, I found it again. Watch me build my why and purpose. Some help would be great too”.

Then in 10 years I can look back and say, I began and I liked that person.

Life is an evolution. Enjoy the ride.

Meredith

Aromatherapy for the Mind- Last Chance to Register!

For the past few months, Meredith has been taking a course called “Aromapsychology” taught by Robert Tisserand, the leader in the US and possibly the world in Aromatic Chemistry and research.

This class was dedicated to understanding how the brain interreacts with essential oils for mood disorders, cognitive function, and scent memory.

It was an intense class with an astounding amount of clinical research that is so beneficial to the marketplace today. These are important lessons in chemistry, blending and formulation.

Meredith has decided to give an overview of what she learned in this class: FOR FREE. She knows that Faeve’s population is overtly concerned to what happens to our mind as we get older, and she wants to share what she has learned.

The class will be 2/15/2024 at 6:30 pm on Zoom. There will be a general overview, some recipe ideas and a Q and A forum for all.

You do not have to attend live to receive the lecture. However, you do need to register. Please click here to register for this amazing information session.  

Got the Virus?

A customer just walked out our door at the store. This very minute- as I was trying to figure out something to write about. Then it hit me. In the past 5 days I have made 10 inhalers for post-nasal drip, sinus infections or long haul Covid for taste. We have sold 12 bags of Under the Weather Tea……

We are what I lovingly now call FluRona season. It’s not the Flu, it’s not Covid. Or maybe it is? Either way, it’s hitting us. So I thought that some good tips on how we battle this as herbalists would be of some assistance.

1. Don’t use “big box” herbs for actual healing: Many of the grocery stores and big box stores sell traditional herbs such as chamomile and mint for colds and flu. Only 2 or  of those companies (and they are usually found in organic supermarkets like Sprouts, Fresh Market, Whole Foods etc) actually contain the medicinal properties of the herbs you are looking for. They taste good, warm your bones and possibly help you to sleep. However, the manufacturing processes pretty much take the “get you better” stuff away.

2. Take an herbal anti-viral: There are many herbal anti-virals on the market. I particularly like Xymogen Viragraphis, but there are many others out there. My suggestion would be to ask your massage therapist, acupuncturist or chiropractor what they recommend as they usually use more pharmaceutical grade products. Another option that I like in a pinch is Oscillococcinum and that can be found at drugstores such as Walgreens in the cold and flu aisle.

3. Use Your Oils in Various Ways: When I had the Flurona, I lost my sense of smell and taste. I was pissed, I mean look at what I do for a living :-). I immediately made an inhaler of Peppermint, Clove, Lemon, Eucalyptus and Rosemary. I was inhaling this almost 10 times a day for 3-4 days. Good news: taste and smell came back. I also would take hot baths with Sweet Marjoram, Orange and Spike Lavender in them. This was to soothe my throat, relax my nervous system and give me a little bit of antibacterial push. This is also helpful to do before sleep. If you are not a tub person, you can go get shower steamers or bath bombs put the oils on the bath bombs and drop them in the shower for a similar effect.

4. Drink your Medicine: My first job is to educate. My second is to make and sell products that are scientifically, organically and naturally safe.  However, our Under the Weather Tea has almost 20 herbs in it for virus and the accompanying symptomology such as fevers, pain etc. This should not be taken long term, as it is rather strong. Think of this as an herbal friend to support you in your quest of getting better. You need a little honey and lemon for taste, as the best plants were so busy being beneficial for our health, they forgot to add flavoring to themselves. If you buy a bag, dump it in a mason jar and put it in the back of your pantry for when these type of conditions hit.

5. Use Pharma when you have to: I know this sounds strange coming from an herbalist, but I am a huge advocate of Mucinex. What they are able to attain in one of their pills would take hundred of cups of herbal tea. When these viruses break, they land in your chest. Mucinex is the only thing I know that gets rid of the chest congestion quickly and most of the time, kindly. This is where bronchitis and pneumonia start to brew. Even as an herbalist, I want to clear that as soon as possible. This is the beauty of using plants and pharmaceutical science to help our health.

Of course, rest, sleep, water, Gatorade, saltines and a good show always help. When I got it, I watched Las Vegas from the early 2000’s.I think I got through quite a few seasons. My brother watched The Soprano’s from the beginning, my son, The Office. It helps so you can just doze off when you need to.

News About Our Pain Creams

Our pain creams, Kalo and Levo Prophen are very popular in The Villages. We formulated them for Villagers using 89 percent natural ingredients and 67% of that 89 percent was organic. When we manufactured it we would do between 40-60 at a time. We would keep some for the store, the others would go out to local doctors offices and massage therapists.

Then a few things happened. The first was that the company that we sourced our materials were bought out by a venture capitalist company. Everything went up in price almost 35%. While we could handle that, the quality went down. When we spoke to them about it they told us we were nuts, even though we had been buying the same products for 7 years now.

The second was that we were selling them too quickly. This isn’t a bad problem. We are certainly not complaining. However, as The Villages grew, so did the word about our “arthritis” and “pickleball” cream. It seemed every week it was on the formulation board. It was getting exhausting.

There were some changes that Meredith wanted to make to it as well, to up those organic and natural numbers. Her goal was always to make the most natural plant based pain support product.

Meredith’s connections to the worldwide supplier chain of natural plant therapies is vast. Over the years she has worked directly with distillers, farmers, manufacturers and suppliers. This time she decided to have a conversation with the “creme de le creme” of Botanical Formulators (BF) in the world. She explained her issues.to the BF. The BF then suggested how they could work together to source more pure plant ingredients and put some extra strength goodness in the creams that Meredith could not do in the lab due to lack of certain equipment.  So they went to work making a new “deck” for the pain support creams. They kept they original formula, but got rid of 5% of the “fillers” that did nothing to the creme but help bind it. Now the binders are plant based. Then they added additional extracts in larger amounts, making the plant potency just a little stronger.

Those that heard about this happening were hesitant to see the change. “Why break what’s not broken”, but after trying it for themselves, they were sold. It looks the same, it smells the same. However, now on the ingredient list, you can pronounce everything. It is now almost 95% percent organic and 96% plant based.

To keep the prices where they were, it made more sense to have them manufactured in a FDA approved facility, as compared to a cosmetics grade facility. They are also now triple batch tested for bacteria and microbials. They will have longer expiration dates due to plant based stabilizers.

The best news for the Faeve team is now they will be coming to us in quantities of 160 jars at a time. Making manufacturing them for us so much easier and less labor intensive.

Most importantly, it gives another US based natural product business income to survive. We all have to take care of each other.

These new formulas will be available in store, online and in places you usually purchase them by 2/5/24.

As we have been out for about 2 weeks, there is a list started for when they come in. Please call the store at 352-753-2787 or wherever your purchase them to get on the list in case we sell out.  Let us know how you love them!

Updates that some may be interested in:

• Our Menopause Kit (The Crone Kit) is held up in packaging and labeling. It should be available in another 8 weeks the latest. We apologize but this is the prettiest packaging we have ever worked with.

• We will be moving before summer, to another location in The Villages. Once the have the exact location and the ink is dried, we will let you know.

• When we move, we will be focusing more on the medicinal support of what we do and less on the retail part of it. Keep your eyes peeled for a moving sale in the future.

What we love about having a business in The Villages….the word of mouth…

Somewhere in a pool a few months ago (where all the gossip in The Villages happens) there was talk about Frankincense helping knee pain. We knew this already, but we also knew that there were better and more scientifically stronger oils than that.

So that was curious…

Then people wanted Frankincense in a roller ball. This was also very curious to us because roller balls are typically used more as an inhalation device as compared to a topical application. Think perfumes.

Finally, we got all the details on this very strange phenomena we were hearing about. Many people using this product (which we happily made for them) was easy to carry, didn’t have any temperature issues and could be used before and after exercising. While this is also what the pain support creams are for, Meredith understood the whole “travel” part of the idea.

We started talking amongst each other about infusions. What would happen if you infused anti-inflammatory carrier oils with 4-5 anti-inflammatory herbs and then added the Frankincense and others Meredith thought would work better. It would go on the same, be more effective and sustainable.

Hmm…

Well, the infusion is done. The oil blend is complete. Its truly amazing. Hopefully by fall the labeling will be correct. Right now we can make it quickly in housewithout a professional label if you come to the store .

If you are one of those people that helped create this for us (or even if you aren’t) , we want to know. We want you to NAME the product.

You may know that the names of our products cannot have any medicinal qualities in them. So we can’t say “Knee Pain Oil”, its illegal. But we can say “Pimlico Oil”, a play on a Villages pool for instance. But since you are the ones that created the base of this, we want you to name it. The winner will have the product named for them with a thank you on the back of the label. To enter the contest click here. Then in a few months we will have a survey of the top 3 we like and have you all vote!