The Half-Crunchy Mama

Trying to live a natural life with balance

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A few more successes: My oil solutions (Part 2)

I thought I would throw a few pictures together in here and share some of the successful blends that I have created in the past few months. These are what are currently working for my family and I, but you may or may not get the same results. Mostly because I am not a medical professional, naturopath, certified aromatherapist, or whatever. I’m just someone that has an understanding of what individual oils and blends can accomplish in the support that they can offer our bodies, as well as using a little muscle testing 🙂

(This post is for informational purposes only.)

Each individual oil and blend can support a multitude of systems and address many different needs. Different people will benefit from different oils in different ways, much like traditional medicine where not every prescription works the same and fits every person the same way. I am only touching upon what each oil in my blend recipes are capable of. I suggest you dig around the interwebs for more information. It’s amazing all the different things they can help support!

Snoring support

The hottest thing I have recommended has been using Valor for snoring. This was my first big win with oils as I mentioned in my Snoring? Backache? Hangover? Allergies? Bug bites? My oil solutions (Part 1) post. We had run out of Valor for quite some time and had been using its “backup” of Highest Potential. While this didn’t have the same effect, it was better than nothing!

Then Valor was finally back in stock and when The Russian started using it again, it just didn’t seem to be working as well as it had. I mentioned this on one of the Facebook groups I belong to and someone suggested using Thyme for snoring. I added 6 drops of Thyme to the roller bottle with diluted Valor that he keeps on his nightstand and WOW, I could barely hear him breathing! I guess this is the heavy-duty formula for stubborn snoring 🙂

The Half-Crunchy Mama's Snoring Support FormulaMy suggested formula is:

  • 20 drops of Valor
  • 6 drops of Thyme
  • Fill the rest of a 10ml (1/3 oz) roller bottle with fractionated coconut oil (FCO)
  • Apply to the bottoms of the big toes
Science time

Before I explain about why the specific oils in my next two blends likely tested, I want to share a bit of the chemistry. You will need to excuse me while I nerd out on you for a moment. (I love science.) This is a very base-level description of these constituents, but it’s important for me to explain that there is actual science behind using the oils – how and why the chemical constituents of each oil provide support. Yes, there is real science behind this oil craze. I’m only mentioning the oils that I have included in this post as examples below, but please feel free to research what other oils these constituents appear in. All of this information (and much more) can be found in the Reference Guide for Essential Oils, a.k.a., my bible (which is one of the freebies that you for becoming a member through me).

Sesquiterpenes are found in great abundance in essential oils and are antibacterial, highly anti-inflammatory, slightly antiseptic, and sedative. They are a major constituent in oils such as Cedarwood and Vetiver. They also play a (minor) role in the makeup of Bergamot, Cinnamon bark, Frankincense, and several of the oils that make up the R.C. blend.

Esters are calming, relaxing, and balancing. Bergamot and Lavender are high is esters.

Aldehydes are calming to emotions. Cinnamon bark oil is high in aldehydes.

Ketones stimulate cell regeneration, promote formation of tissue, and liquefy mucous, therefore helpful when there is dry asthma, colds, flu, or dry cough. Ketones are a major constituent in Peppermint oil.

Phenols are made up of the most powerful antibacterial, anti-infectious, and antiseptic constituents in the plant world. They are stimulating to the nervous and immune systems, contain high levels of oxygenating molecules, and have antioxidant properties. Because of their qualities, they can be irritating to the skin and should always be diluted. They are a major constituent in Thyme, Basil, Cinnamon bark, Peppermint, and many of the oils that make up the R.C. blend.

Cold and flu support

My next support formula to share with you has to do with the crud that seems to be everywhere this season. Some people get full-blown flu, others just get a cold with symptoms that linger for weeks. In November, The Russian came home from work and school full of gunk. He had been trying to fight it on his own (Russians can be slightly stubborn) and finally decided to ask me for assistance. In addition to some herbs, I tested him for a bunch of oils that would help support his body to fight whatever this was. It took him a close to a week to get cleared up since he had waited so long, but he didn’t have any of the lingering symptoms like the rest of the folks we know.

The real success with this blend came for Sugar Bee and I. We both woke up the day after Thanksgiving feeling pretty crummy. I felt like I was getting the flu, so I can only assume that she felt the same as she was complaining and boogery. I immediately started rubbing the blend on the back of my neck and on the bottoms of her feet (she’s three and this blend contains some hot oils), reapplying several times throughout the day, right up to bedtime. The next morning, I continued the applications for both of us, and by that afternoon (around 36 hours later), I felt great and she looked and acted a lot better! WHAT?! How could this be?!?! Yes, I had also beefed up some of our herbals and we have pretty good immune systems, but in all my years of natural healing, I have never experienced such a fast turnaround. There really is something to this oil thing.The Half-Crunchy Mama's Cold and Flu Support Formula

My suggested formula for my Cold and Flu Support Blend is:

  • 8 drops of Lemon
  • 10 drops of Thieves
  • 8 Peppermint
  • 10 R.C.
  • 6 drops of Cinnamon bark
  • 6 drops of Basil
  • Combine in 10ml (1/3 oz) roller bottle filled the rest of the way with FCO

Apply as often as you want to back of the neck or bottoms of the feet. With children, only apply to the bottoms of the feet. I applied to the Vita Flex points for lungs and sinuses, at the base of the little toes and off the sides of the balls of the feet. Here is a reference for you.

Why these oils? Just a few highlights as they pertain to this particular use:

  1. Lemon: Antioxidant and antiviral properties; French use for asthma, colds, fever reducer, throat infections, and red and white blood cell formation; stimulates digestive, immune and respiratory systems
  2. Thieves: Antibacterial, antiviral, anti-infectious, and strong antiseptic; stimulates immune system; contains Clove, Lemon, Cinnamon bark, Eucalyptus radiata, and Rosemary cineol
  3. Peppermint: Analgesic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antispasmodic, and antiviral; French use for bronchitis, fever reducer, flu, headache, nausea, respiratory function, and throat infections; stimulates digestive, nervous, respiratory systems, muscles, bones, and skin
  4. R.C.: Antiviral, antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-infectious, anti-inflammatory, relaxing, balancing, and lymphatic decongestant; stimulates the respiratory system; contains Eucalyptus globulus, Myrtle, Pine, Marjoram, Eucalyptus radiata, Eucalyptus citriodora, Lavender, Cypress, Tsuga, and Peppermint
  5. Cinnamon bark: Antibacterial, anti-infectious, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiseptic, antiviral, immune stimulant, purifier; historically used in nearly every prescription issued in ancient China; stimulates the immune system
  6. Basil: Antibacterial, anti-infectious, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antiviral, decongestant, restorative; historically used for respiratory problems, fevers, epidemics; stimulates the cardiovascular system, and muscles and bones

*Note: I mention the French and historical uses because they have been around and in use for way longer than people realize in this country, and the French are at the forefront with using essential oils for healthcare.

Calm Focus blend

Finally, I will share what I have named my Calm Focus Blend. A few weeks back, Sugar bee was testing for some oils that people have found helpful for helping children (and adults) focus better, handle their anxiety, and feel more relaxed (calm). Doc tested what oils for her and then I determined the rest of the ratio when I got home. The result was a calmer and more focused three year old. She’s not hyper or ADHD or anything like that, she’s just three. If you are a parent, you are well aware that most three year olds are complete a-holes a lot of the time. She has so much going on in her noggin that it can be overloading for her to take everything in, process it, and discuss it all. She is a very spirited child and I wouldn’t change a thing about her…except maybe her patience level with her own self….but that is a genetic thing. I own it.

Anyway, I did see quite an improvement in many areas for her, including patience with herself when dealing with a difficult task, less of a stammer (not really stuttering, but I think she has a hard time having her mouth keep up with her mind), less fresh mouth, and better sleeping at night, just to name a few. Calm Focus. Get it?

The Half-Crunchy Mama's Calm Focus Support FormulaSo here is my suggested formula for this Calm Focus Blend:

  • 6 drops of Cedarwood
  • 6 drops of Vetiver
  • 9 Lavender
  • 9 Frankincense (I used 5 drops of Frankincense and 4 drops of Frereana Frankincense)
  • 6 drops of Bergamot
  • Fill the rest of a 10ml (1/3 oz) roller bottle with FCO
  • Apply to the back of the neck at the base of the skull 1-3 times a day, or as needed

Why these oils? Just a few highlights as they pertain to this particular use:

  1. Cedarwood: Sedative; French use for calming anger, nervous tension, and overall calming; stimulates the nervous system
  2. Vetiver: Calming, grounding, sedative; Folklore – “oil of tranquility” in India; stimulates hormonal and nervous systems, and emotional balancing
  3. Lavender: Antidepressant, sedative; French use for insomnia; stimulates the nervous system and emotional balancing
  4. Frankincense: Antidepressant, sedative; French use for depression; stimulates the nervous system and emotional balancing
  5. Bergamot: Sedative and uplifting; French use for agitation, colic, depression, insomnia and stress; stimulates emotional balancing

The Half-Crunchy Mama - Young Living Distributor #1876381

If you are interested in starting your natural health and healing journey with essential oils, please allow me to be your guide. You can sign up here to get started with your starter kit and own discount on products. There is no monthly minimum to purchase anything (but great perks if you do by becoming an Essential Rewards member, earning points for free oils with every order!) and you will get some great freebies from me once you sign up, including the reference guide that I linked to above! I have a Facebook page, The Half-Crunchy Mama, where I share information on oils and a variety of other natural living topics. You can connect with me there and reach out with any questions you may have about your oils. I will be your support!

That’s all for now! Please reach out to me with any questions about these blends. Happy oiling!


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Why I’m not going to tell you that essential oils fix everything

Don’t get me wrong, oily friends. I am definitely in love, borderline obsessed, with some of the magic that these little oils have delivered for me and those in my life over the past several months. Essential oils can be very beneficial to us, but I just don’t think that they are a cure. Yes, I have read some testimonials and seen actual proof of healing, but I believe that those cures are the exception. Some of the wonderful benefits that I believe in include ridding the home of toxic chemicals for cleaning and freshening the air, boosting the immune system, providing natural pain relief, and easing a variety of symptoms from anxiety to insomnia, digestive issues and allergies to migraines, acne, and insect bites. The list is actually endless and if you ask me about what oils you can try to help aid with something that you struggle with, I’m positive that I can come up with a few ideas to try. Naturally.

Did you notice the words that I chose to use above? Easing a variety of symptoms. This is my point. It’s one that I could receive quite a bit of flack over from serious oilers, but I have to get this out of my brain. It’s actually making me feel a little crazy (there’s an oil for that) and I really want to tell everyone that the oils seriously CAN help and to give them a try, but don’t ignore me because you are judging and think this is some silly fad that only crazy hippies are a part of. Remember, I’m only half crunchy. This means that I don’t believe everything, especially anything that gets hyped up. I’m educated and consider myself to be a fairly intelligent woman. I don’t believe in miracle cures and I certainly trust that there is a time and a place for medications in our lives. Just not to the extent that we medicate ourselves in this country.

Here are my two cents on the subject of oils. In terms of our health, they help ease the symptoms that we experience. This equates them to medications in my book. Medications mask the symptoms, providing relief. They don’t fix problems, but they allow us to live comfortably or with the appearance of a healthier existence, think blood pressure medication, insulin, and other things that help people stay alive. Does going on insulin (not applicable to childhood diagnosis) or blood pressure medication “fix” the sugar or pressure regulation in your body? Or would diet, exercise, and addressing the why actually fix it? I’m speaking in general terms here, but I think you get my point.

The only way I am able to think about getting and maintaining a healthy body is following the way that I got here. After many failures with conventional Western medicine, I turned to functional medicine (my voodoo) and naturopathy. On my journey, I learned that we should only use whole food supplements to fuel and try to correct things that are missing from or are misfiring within our bodies. Whole food supplements are not the dead garbage that most of the population buys in the vitamin stores, but actual supplements that are made from food, herbs, and depending on the use, desiccated animal organs. Functional medicine gets to the root cause of the symptoms that we experience and can actually help correct, even retrain what is malfunctioning. I may have the same symptoms as my best friend, but our bodies are experiencing them because of completely different reasons. The supplements that we each would need to address and correct the issues will probably be very different. Individual treatment. I’m not going to say that this cures everything as that is way too strong of a word, but it comes as close as possible. And yes, some things have pretty much been eliminated from people’s lives or thrown into remission, including mine, but other things can be managed with supplements. I could babble on and on about this topic, but will save that for another time.

Aside from engaging in functional medicine, which included whole food supplements and homeopathics, NAET (allergy treatments), and BRT (body restoration technique) treatments, the deeper change had to do with my lifestyle – diet, exercise, drinking, smoking, the environment, and stress. We are a whole unit, a body, so why don’t we ever look at the bigger picture? Deep down, we can trace almost everything back to diet and exercise. (The environment has been playing a much larger role in our lives for the past few decades, but I will save that for another post.) I had already learned what foods work and don’t work in my body in the years before I started learning about naturopathy, but I didn’t necessarily know how or why my body reacted the ways that it did. I digress. Let’s get back to the oils.

Can oils help? I say yes. Emphatically! Things I have personally experienced and witnessed:

  • Deeper, more restful sleepHalf-Crunchy Mama
  • Little to no snoring (the Russian)
  • Relief from aches and pains (muscular)
  • Back pain relief
  • Anxiety gone
  • Calming atmosphere for the entire family
  • Less bloating
  • Increased digestive health
  • Clearer, healthier skin
  • Healthier hair
  • Insect bites disappear
  • Stronger immune system
  • Nicotine craving support
  • Increased energy and adrenal support
  • Allergies
  • Fighting colds and coughs
  • Safe and healthy cleaning in the house
  • Safe and healthy air purification and odor elimination
  • Hangover relief
  • Arthritis in pets

There are more, but that’s what I’ll share for now.

Do I ingest them? A few I do. I have found great results with bloating, cravings, and weight loss adding a few drops of grapefruit, lemon, and peppermint to my water. (I would only recommend ingesting Young Living oils as they are the purest available.) Those are the only ones that I personally have ingested, but I know a few people that have had amazing success with improving their gut health by ingesting others, like DiGize.

What do I love? I am obsessed with Joy. I huff this sh*t all day long. Okay, I’m not that bad, but some days it feels like it. It makes me happy and has really evened out my hormones…or at least it feels that way. The other one that I love is called Tranquil. I’ve been using it at night and I haven’t slept this good in a very long time.

Am I careful what I use with Sugar Bee? Of course I am, not only because of her age, but because she is so sensitive to everything around her. I almost always dilute them and only apply them to her feet as her skin is extremely sensitive. She loves them and has responded really well (future post). She will ask for her lavender for any bug bites and that is the only one that I don’t dilute. The huge, swollen bumps disappear before our eyes. I can’t debunk actual proof, as hard as I may want to. I was skeptical at first, even though my voodoo doc was helping guide me. It took a little time for me to get comfortable with them, and now here I am, spouting about what they can do.

Does the Russian use them? You bet he does. He has learned that all the crazy, crunchy crap that I do really does produce results. Lasting results. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Actually, I never knew anyone to actually say that outside of using it for a case like this, but whatever. Through the years, he has seen the dynamic changes in my body and how it operates, and this is no different. The results that he has personally had with some skin issues and his snoring alone has made him a supporter of this oil craze…that has been going on for decades in the real crunchy world. Other countries around the world have used essential oils to aid in treatments throughout history, and still do. Oils have been used for centuries, but to our society it just looks like another fad. It shouldn’t be this way.

Am I going to tell you to throw out all your medications, never go to a doctor, and only try to fix things with oils? Hell no. My daughter has a life-threatening allergy to pineapple. We actually have Benadryl in the house for the first time ever, but we MUST have it in the house, along with her Epi-pen. We are aiding the natural treatment of her other allergies using the oils and have been very pleased so far. Anything that can help!

If we can get away from all the pain medications that we take that make it even harder for our bodies to operate the way they are supposed to, I’m all for it. PanAway has helped me incredibly with my back issues and Deep relief is awesome for muscular things, including headaches and muscle aches from my workouts. This doesn’t mean that I’m never going to go to my back doctor again, but if I can save a little time and money without doing harm, finding relief when I need it, I’m game. I personally don’t take anything (unless I can’t move), but in general, we make our livers work so hard already without adding Tylenol, Advil, or whatever that has to get filtered through this important organ that we should jump at a form of natural relief. When you add in allergy medications, hormone replacements, anxiety and antidepressant medications, ADD/ADHD treatments…the list is endless…our livers get full of junk that make it weak, thus weakening many other systems in our bodies. We can look for other ways to support our bodies and help ourselves.

Will the oils help? Most likely. Will they fix the root cause? I don’t think they will. Some things they do and it’s obvious, like with Sugar Bee’s mosquito bites disappearing after applying lavender, a pimple clearing up with melrose or purification, warts and body tags leaving the body using Thieves and Frankincense. Most importantly, they can ease the symptoms of other aliments while you figure out the cause and find a way to naturally heal and help your body to thrive.

If we can get away from the barrage of harsh and toxic chemicals in our homes, stressing our respiratory systems, our brains, and our organs, then let’s do it. Bug sprays, household cleaners, scented candles, plug-in air fresheners, and so many other things that we don’t even realize are exposing us to chemicals on a daily basis, disrupting our endocrine and neurological systems.

I have had issues with household cleaners for years. It took me so long to realize why I would feel sick for several days after cleaning the house…weeks if I cleaned the oven. Thieves cleaner has been a gift from heaven for cleaning the floors, the kitchen, and my oven. I had to stop using the plug-in air freshener things when Sugar Bee came along. Her little body couldn’t handle them and what an improvement when we removed them from the house (not to mention the carpet in her room). We almost never use scented candles, despite how much I love the smells. Now that I have diffusers in the house, I don’t have a need for them. I can make my own scents to fill the house and they will have an added benefit (or 3 or 4 depending on what I’m diffusing) for us all. Even the pup! Peace and calming has been diffused every evening and now the witching hour in our house is all but gone. Bonus!

I would think that this society of instant gratification would love the oils right away because of how fast they work. I’m not exaggerating at all. I get relief in minutes, whether it’s emotional, physical, or physiological in nature. I have shared some of my experiences this far on my Facebook page and in one of my first posts the I have linked in a few places already, Snoring? Backache? Hangover? Allergies? Bug bites? My oil solutions (Part 1). Essential oils have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier as they are made up of such tiny molecules. Relief comes fast. We love them.

Give them a try. What have you got to lose?

If you are interested in trying one or two, visit my store at https://www.youngliving.org/sraesid

If you want to get your own 24% discount on everything with no requirement to sell or order a minimum per month, sign up at http://bit.ly/1ulrqzU

Ask me anything. I’m just here to help and share my knowledge.