Archive: I Love Love ,,, and Crafts!

While many of my workshops at Community Pharmacy were oriented towards holiday gift-making, I also taught about DIY body care, women's health, chemical sensitivities, and aromatic herbalism. Here is an article in the spirit of those workshops, which was originally published in CP's newsletter, Infused, in Feb. 2010.

Valentine’s Day is my second-favorite holiday, a fact that most of my friends find eye-rollingly silly. Even though it may have originated as a greeting-card marketing scheme, Valentine’s has become the one day every year when we are all encouraged to think about love, and sensory pleasure. Think about it: an entire holiday for contemplating the infinite variety of loving expression in our lives. Whether you are happily relating or happily single, emotional wellbeing and sensuality are a part of a healthy life.

If our brains are our largest erogenous zones, then intentions are our strongest aphrodisiac. When we take the time to infuse oil with fragrant herbs, or flavor a honey with delicious spices, we spend time attending to our wellbeing. This attention, and time, helps us not only to slow down and focus on the important things in our lives, but also to create a durable niche in our lives for those important things. And just as there are many healthy ways to express emotions and explore sensuality, there are many delightful and daring delicacies for all your senses.

Herbs traditionally used in aphrodisiac formulas are gentle and effective, offering subtle fragrances, delicate flavors and unique medicinal nourishment. These herbs may calm the nervous system, stimulate the circulatory system and tone the adrenal system; each in their own ways soothing or exciting the body so it can more easily find pleasure. Getting to know these herbs, and the ways they benefit your individual physiology, is another exploration in sensuality.

Relaxing herbal aphrodisiacs calm the mind, lift the mood and alleviate any tension or anxiety which may be interfering with libido: Catnip, Fennel, Jasmine, Lemon Balm, Oatstraw, Rose, Vanilla

Flirting Tisane – a fragrant, floral and feisty hot drink

• 1/2 C rose petals
• 1/4 C damiana
• 1/4 C catnip
• honey to taste

    Steep 1 tablespoon tisane blend in 1 cup boiling water, covered, for 10-20 minutes, and strain before enjoying.

Pillow Talk Infused Body Oil - a sweet and fresh skin oil

• 2 C almond oil
• 1 C catnip leaves
• 1 C damiana leaves

    Combine herbs in a quart jar and cover with oil. Place jar in a pan of simmering water and heat in this double boiler for 2-3 hours. Remove from heat, strain and discard herbs. Store in dark glass and use for moisturizing, massage or as a base for salve and lip balm.

Stimulating herbal aphrodisiacs increase circulation throughout the body and raise energy levels and alertness. While strong stimulants (horny goat weed, yohimbe) should only be used occasionally and on a short term basis, gentle stimulants may be used on a regular basis: black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, damiana, ginger, maca, ylang-ylang

Sun’s Spices Honey - a warming, stimulating sweet treat

• 1 C raw honey
• ½ T powdered ginseng root
• 1/2 T powdered ginger root
• 1 T powdered maca root
• 1 t powdered cinnamon bark
• 1 t powdered cardamom seeds

    Combine all ingredients in a tempered bowl placed in a pan of simmering water. Stir constantly, till honey melts and the herb powder is incorporated, then heat for another 30 minutes. Remove honey from heat and transfer to a clean glass jar with a tight lid. Allow the honey to further infuse in a sunny spot for 2 weeks before enjoying. Drizzle 1 teaspoon into your favorite tea, onto fruit salads, or a friend!

Spice Garden Aromatherapy Body Oil - floral with a kick

• 1 C almond oil
• 35 drops lavender eo
• 25 drops cardamom eo
• 10 drops bergamot eo

    Combine essential oils in a dark glass bottle, then add almond oil. Shake well. Let steep for 7-10 days to allow scent to mature before using as a moisturizer or massage oil.

Tonic herbal aphrodisiacs are used regularly to maintain good health and improve strength, stamina and vitality: Basil, Dong Quai, Ginger, Lycii, Maca, Oatstraw, Sandalwood, Sarsaparilla (for men), Shatavari (for women), Vetiver

Bright Eyes, Big Smile Body Oil – a sunny, come-hither moisturizer

• 3 oz almond oil
• 1 oz calendula-infused oil
• 12 drops bergamot eo
• 8 drops ylang-ylang eo
• 4 drops sandalwood or cedar eo
• 4 drops vetiver eo
• 2 drops ginger eo

    Combine essential oils in a dark glass, 4-oz bottle. Add infused and almond oils, shake well. Letting steep for 3-7 days will allow scent to mature. Use after bathing, or for massage.

Daily Delight Tisane – a long-steep tisane to drink every day for ongoing stress relief and deep reservoirs of wellbeing

• ½ C oat straw
• ½ C lemon balm leaves
• 2 T rose petals

    Combine herbs in a quart mason jar, fill with boiling water. Cap tightly and let steep 8 hours or overnight. Drink 1-4 cups per day, warm or chilled.

Essential oils (eo) are the concentrated distillations of aromatic herbs prized for their therapeutic scents. In aromatherapy, there are two families of scents that are classically romantic in many people's minds: florals and sweet spices. Just as roses are a symbol of love, essential oils distilled from flowers offer us the aromas of beautiful bouquets and have nerve-calming, mood-lifting benefits. Essential oils distilled from sweet spices offer us cozy, comforting aromas with body- and heart-warming effects! Through the aromas of beautiful blooms and comforting kitchens, many people easily find feelings of affection, joy and intimacy. Using essential oils from these families in perfumes, massage oils or room scenting can be and an ideal way to invite aroma into a sensory feast for yourself and your home. 

Silk Sheets Aromatherapy Spray - a warm, sweet, spicy and deep bedroom scent

• 3 oz distilled water
• 1 oz 100+ proof vodka
• 10 drops rose geranium eo
• 5 drops cinnamon eo
• 5 drops clove eo
• 3 drops patchouli eo

    Combine in a spray bottle, let steep 3-7 days for scent to mature. Shake well before spraying anywhere.

Hothouse Flower Aromatherapy Perfume

• 2 t jojoba oil
• 35 drops petigrain eo
• 20 drops ylang-ylang eo
• 5 drops vetiver eo

    Combine essential oils in a 1/3 oz roller vial, then add jojoba oil. Letting steep for 3-7 days will allow scent to mature. Apply as desired.

Making your own Personal Lubricants can be an excellent alternative to commercially available lubricants, which are often made with synthetic ingredients that may upset delicate skin, contributing to irritation and infection. These simple recipes are made with food-grade ingredients. They are intended to be made and used fresh; having no preservatives they will only stay good for a week or so.

Flax Seed Lube – a totally organic mid-weight lube

• 1/2 C organic flax seeds
• 3 C distilled water

    Boil water in a non-reactive saucepan. Rinse flax seeds in warm water. Add seeds to water and reduce heat. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat, cover and steep another 5 minutes. Immediately strain liquid thoroughly (through a mesh strainer and 3 layers of cheesecloth). Discard seeds and store in a very clean bottle. Latex-friendly. Makes approx. 2 cups.

Lube of the Future – a light, superslick, nontoxic lube

• 1 t xanthan gum powder
• 1 t sea salt
• 2 C distilled water

    Combine salt and xanthan gum in a non-reactive saucepan. Whisk in water, a few tablespoons at a time. Bring water to a boil, stirring constantly while formula thickens. Remove from heat and strain immediately through a mesh strainer. Discard any remaining solids and store in a very clean bottle. Latex friendly. Makes approx. 2 cups.  

Sauna #4: Kalma Saun

Kalma Saun even looks like the edifice from a different hybrid era it is. It's graceful, but monolithic; sheathed in marble and institutional tile and deep orange wood. Another unique tumble of the competing Slavic/Scandinavian/Rossiyan pachinko game like Estonia, like Finland. In all of Tallinn, it seems to be the only still-functioning, always-was-a bathhouse. Spas are everywhere, mostly tucked inside hotels and convention centers (which are also everywhere, outside Old Town), running a gamut of size and purpose. Some are salons with advanced manicure/pedicure offerings, others more like indoor water parks with swimming pools and waterslides, steam rooms and saunas.

If Kamla is their predecessor, I imagine I can understand the abundance. If we'd gone This is a more-is-more bathhouse, a bring-your-own full-service spa, a day-long ritual committed to complete restoration of personal purity. In the women's side (up the stairs to the left from the hotel-lobby-like attendant station), the atmosphere is relaxed and functional, the dress code is completely un-, and the complicit camaraderie between bathers is total. Women come in pairs or alone, and spend hours in ablution. They bring apothecaries of potted unguents and elaboratives, soaps and scrubs and masques and henna for their hair. They manicure and medic themselves, tend to exfoliation and eczema with equal focus, and perform every bit of body caring to be done. Kalma is, in fact, a large-capacity, well-resourced, bathing room. And it's wonderful!

The changing and resting room is outfitted like a den, there's a big fireplace that looks like it sees regular use when it gets truly cold, and overstuffed couches and chairs. The 13 wooden lockers are large and solid, ringing the lounge without a trace of privacy. This is where modesty ends. I was probably the youngest woman both times I visited, and was welcomed both times with a maternal lack of curiosity. Besides stashing away street-clothes so the bathers can attend to more important aspects of themselves, the lounge also acts for a comfy and dry cooling room, where you can sit in your new skin til you are ready to return to the world.

I visited twice because I love a fully-functioning and vibrant bathhouse, but also because I really wanted to get it right. In Helsinki's saunas, the meat of the visit is the stove room, the purging bouts of sweating, and a bracing scrub in cold water afterwards. At Kalma, its DIY spa day. The main activity swirls around a tiled room lined with showers and filled with stone benches that are equipt with hot and cold running faucets, like so many luxurious lab tables. Stationed at these, with buckets of water as hot as you like, with any tool and potion you desire, personal devotions begin. There is laughter and smalltalk, and susurations of comfort. The place smells like fresh-cut conifer wood, good green tea, and delicate soaps.

The sauna actual is a fierce place, where no one spends more than 5 minutes, and there was no question of me keeping up my (now solidly toned) usual sweating routine. The room is no more than 15 feet long, but baking with two electric stoves. The thermometer flexed between 100-110 degrees, and I believe every decimal. This is heat that stings you skin, and you don't adjust to it. The first time I sat on its wooden benches, my skin immediately prickled into goosebumps, and started itching. Still flush with pride in my sauna skills, I made it longer than the woman who came in with me, but only by seconds. Shocked and appalled moments later in as cold a shower as I could find, my skin cooled but remained a piebald of too-pink and distressingly-pale splotches. I scrubbed down until my skin was at least a uniform color, and spent much of my first stay in the lovely cool water pool.

So the second visit I came geared up. I brought my sauna kit (hat, sit-upon, sisal mitt), I brought a fragrant sliver of soap and my nail clippers, and I brought body oils. I also bought a whisk of leafy birch twigs from the attendant, because I'd been dreaming about them since reading about Traditional Sauna, and Kalma was the first place I'd seen anyone using them. I copied the other women, soaking my whisk in hot water til the twigs were soft and whippy, and the whole affair smelled like the woods in spring. After I was warmed up and had undergone my first layer of cleansing, I took the whisk into the stove room. I sat as long as I could, breathing the steam off the whisk while the heat pried open every one of my pores, and then set about slapping my skin. It was amazing! Suddenly, the prickly itch was met and overcome, and I swear I could feel endorphins flooding my body. As I finished whisking my back it was as if all my muscles, whether in affirmation or sensory overwhelm, all relaxed at once. Success! I stepped out of that dragon room, skin completely new, to finish my bath.  

Kalma Saun: Oldest bath in Tallinn

Sauna #3: Arla

Sauna Arla's website completely defied deciphering; google translation spat it back out, and anyway there didn't appear to be much actual website. All the pertinent details hide out in the logo block, and otherwise I only got that they seem to be hosting a lecture series. I'd heard a rumor it was a sauna/art gallery, sounded like a hip place. Something about murals on the walls...

The entrance gate is an impressive bit of welding, and the tunnel leading from the street into the courtyard tightropes between folksy kitsch and angular impressionism. I admit, the walk in got me hoping for tattoos and day-glo sauna hats. There are mysig lights beside the door, and it looked like the courtyard serves as a cooling patio. The attendant's booth is hung with Sauna Arla logo t-shirts, bedazzled AC/DC flipflops and framed magazine pages. There's a little basket of cherry tomatoes on the counter, and carafes of water topped with new glasses like an outdoor cafe. The changing room is painted bright colors, and there are a ton of excellent art-scene magazines in the very sparse cooling-area. So maybe Arla is arty, but its no gallery.

On my own again (I guess the place is full on weekends, but not in the post-dinner hours of Thursday evenings), the attendant showed me around, making sure – “since it is your first time at Arla” – that I knew how to steam the stove “safely.” Not properly. Safely. You see, the stove at Arla is the size of a phone booth. It's electric, but electric like the power plants of your favorite 1930s monochrome industry-and-man photo. Through a hatch exactly at head height, dark stones smolder and mutter.

The whole room was colorless tile and concrete. The stove dominated a full sixth of the space. The heat dominated everything. The kind of heat that wants you to submit to it, and is very confident. Heat filled every corner, every crack. Walls and floor and stairs and stove were locked in a thermal feedback loop. The benching on the top stair was hot to the touch. (Its hard to make wood hot to the touch.) Standing on anything put my feet in danger of blistering. Leaning against anything was a Very Bad Idea. I made myself comfortable with extra sauna “pillows” (little lengths of benching meant to lean against, or sit upon if you're making use of one of the lower stairs); one at my back, one under my feet. From this refuge, I set about my sauna in a safe (and awed) manner.

You steam the sauna at Arla like you're practicing boxing, it's all timing and accuracy. The ducking and retreating are also like combat training. You nimble your way down to the floor, scoop up a good-sized ladle of water, take careful aim, and heave it into the maw of the stove. Then you best duck, drop the ladle back in the bucket, and scurry like an edible thing back up to your seat. With this technique you are almost certainly guaranteed to 1) minimize time toasting your tootsies on horizontal surfaces, 2) show proper respectful genuflection to the fire-monster in the room, and 3) avoid scalding your face with water vaporizing at velocity.

And if you do, you are then rewarded with the most astonishing, embracing, muscular steam a sauna-lover could hope for. It rolls towards you in bellows, digging its fingers into shoulders and neck, reaching around to prod your back muscles. And you relax, all at once, thoroughly surrendered to the Great Beast Healing. “Lovely” is too pastel a word for this steam, “impressive” is too clean-edged, “overwhelming” too violent. What's wanted is a word for a particularly elegant excavator, or some prehistorically large animal galloping. “Majestic” works, so does “behemothic.” I imagine the wrathful compassion of daikinis would be similar.

About an hour into this ritual, I finally realized the addictive quality of sauna as an endurance sport. In between the thrilling steam drill, I sat on the top stair being massaged by the steam-mastadon, and sweating. I did so for as long as seemed reasonable, then went out for quick cold showers. My usual sauna cues seemed not to manifest; I felt no giddiness, no palpitations, no woozyness, no ineffable feeling of resolution. I did feel as if I was being completely wrung out, but as this is not one of my personal sauna-sensations, I felt more curious about What Would Happen Next than anything. I kept going back for mastadon. I tapped into the sauna archetype known as the Heroic Sufferer. I fidgeted, and tried out different positions. I spent a lot of time trying to decipher the thermometer. It seemed stuck, patinaed to the point of permanence, topped out at 140. But that didn't seem right, since I wasn't, y'know, dead. (I expect the needle should have been hovering between 90-100 – Mr. Attendant agreed.)

Eventually, and all at once, I knew I Was Done. My scamper had been massaged into a wobble, and I thought it best to just keep my head down and bow my way past the stove and out the door. The shower couldn't get cold enough to calm the fire now living inside my skin. I felt like I had been given some kind of Monster Fire Transfusion, and I was positive I would never be cold again. But neither was I in any state to put street clothes back on. So I spent a completely, serenely limp half an hour catching up on the Helsinki art scene, and called it a night.

Sauna Arla Bastu: "Washes All"

Sauna #2: Hermanni

I almost missed it, hawk-eyed though I was, perched in the #6 tram. Hämeentie Street plays cute little games with it's address numbers – the left and right sides don't keep pace, and are happy to skip a decade or 2 on a whim. I'd almost begun thinking I'd gone too far, when I saw a little sign, shining through the rainy gloom, from the corner of a large apartment block.

Ducking around back I found that magical door named Sauna, and headed down to the basement level, and a hallway that would have been at home in any midcentury school building. A smiling lady in a marquee-booth between women's and men's doors later, I was in the locker room and on my own for the next 2 hours. (Being alone, I took the liberty of taking pictures, which I somehow always feel hesitant about in bathhouses.)

Hermanni Sauna is what I imagine any neighborhood bath could be like; comfortable and straightforward, not leaning in any particular direction. A clean, well-used, commonly-loved bath. The showering room is only for showering, the drying and dressing room for exactly what it says. Not much room for socializing or luxuriating, high function-to-form ratio.

The stove room is similarly simple, wood panels and wood benches, a lovely room long enough to feel a real heat differential from door-end to stove-end. The first public place here I've seen where the low bench could really be for sitting, maybe a nod to a multigenerational (multitemperational?) clientele. The stove is a monsterous thing; a cylinder of stones a solid 4 feet tall, caged by steel mesh. Through the gaps I could see long loops of heating element glowing orange. For all that it seemed a fairly timid stove, giving mild and even heat. Id guess somewhere between 70-80? (There was just a thermometer-shaped clean patch on the wall.) Throwing a ladle of water on it (really nice round-belly ladles!) didn't have a strong effect. The stove always stopped sizzling before any wave of heat rolled toward me, and the wave was short-lived. Smelled of hot metal and rainy asphalt. The heat was easy to spend long minutes in, easy to leave and return to, easy to tell when I was finished.

Sauna Hermanni -- Neighborhood bathhouse.

Sauna #1: Kotiharjun

“Smells Like Home” Sauna

As I walked up, men young and old were cooling themselves in towels under the huge red neon SAUNA sign, along the sidewalk to the front door. The neighborhood reminded me of any urban apartment district, a bright-lit restaurant-and-laundry street just around the corner.

The tiny foyer was high traffic, cramped with a deep freeze for birch whisks, a cooler for hard & soft drinks, brightly colored piles of towels, and photocopied instructions on the walls. The attendant stood in a tiny closet of an office with a half-door and a vibe like a maitre d'. One door, propped open, looked down a few steps into the men's changing/cooling room, wooden lockers and tables and dozens of body types roaming pinkly around. The air in the foyer smelled strongly of layers of sweat, and clean laundry.

Up the stairs out of the miasma and through frosted glass doors, the women's changing/cooling room looked similar, though less thoroughly used. The odd fake plant, wood lockers and varnished benches and picnic tables. The air smelled lightly like a half dozen kinds of soap, and delicious roasting sausages from a friendly gathering in progress.

Unrobed and farther in, the large shower room had nubby pebbled flooring and excellent showers, the kinds here with both mobile and static shower heads, and a toggle to switch between. Plenty of hooks to leave my towel, cement benches on which to commandeer a few square inches to stash my shower supplies, if I'd had any. (Note to self: bring shower supplies.)

At the far end of the shower room is a wooden-handled wooden door named Sauna. The stove room is cement, filled with piles of cleanly split wood, and walking in, it is simply warm. On the left is a giant, impressive (incinerator-, crematorium-worthy) furnace of a stove. There are stern warnings not to mess with this oven in 3 languages (the English one calls it the Owen.) Past the stove is a kind of amphitheater of cement stairs rounding 2 walls, the top level about 4 feet from the ceiling and decked with narrow pine planks. 2-foot lengths of similar benching are propped up for backrests.

On the top stair the room smelled of wood smoke, hot pine and clean steam. Standing on the middle stairs I caught the mammalian scent of warm bodies – it actually was very homey. Stepping off the stairs each time I left the sauna for a quick cold shower, I could smell chlorine, and the metal of the stove, but these scents slunk around the floor.

The heat built with each step up, at first I was surprised that only the top stair was decked for a bench, but it's only at the top that the air is finally hot enough to draw sweat. The wall behind me radiated heat, I was held on all sides by heat. The thermometer on the wall behind me kept its needle hovering around 90. Each time a woman entered or left the stove room, she would ask if we wanted more steam. She'd open a little lever on the stove for a second or two, and hissing billows would roll towards us. As it wrapped around us, the air got quiet and heavy, and everything seemed to go into soft focus. Soft and round, it was still the kind of steam that bows your head for you. My lungs felt bigger with every breath, my muscles longer and my skin smoother. Each time I left the room, I cranked the showers colder. By the end of 2 hours of bowing to heat and ducking under cold water, sitting on the top stair felt like floating.

Kotiharjun Sauna -- Helsinki's oldest wood-fired public sauna.

All Kinds Of Ready!

I have a mission today! A bright, golden glowing mission that will, can only, result in lovely sighs and victory! I've got a fancy new wooly hat, and a scratchy new mitt, and you know what that means? Today I sauna!

Sauna Aitta -- Helsinki's only all-sauna, all-the-time accoutrement store!