Not sure what the weather is like where you are, but summer came with a bang and then quickly exited the back door. Since the beginning of August, it’s been mostly gray, wet and chilly. The kids have snotty noses, and this morning I got up and made one of our favorite wintertime breakfasts – crispy pan-friend sweet potatoes with eggs, but with a little something extra this time – a sprinkle of Nettle Seed Salt!
Have you tried the Nettle Seed salt blends yet? We’re in love here. Perhaps because of the weather. I suppose we’re in need of a little energetic boost. I’m sprinkling or stirring it into something everyday. Yesterday a teaspoon went into a Greek yogurt sauce to go with our lunch – so. yum.
This weather is getting cozy, but I wasn’t quite ready for autumn yet. I was hoping summer would linger a bit this year since it arrived so late. At least lasted long enough for all of the tomatoes in my garden to actually turn red? But alas…
Have you taken our quiz, What’s Your Element? I love seeing how my dominant element changes throughout the seasons.
This time of year, I’m starting to feel all of those earthy, grounding, hunker down vibes. I find that I’m using our big soup pot more often than our smoothie blender. In my closet, sundresses are being replaced with sweaters. And my skincare rituals are shifting as well. My skin seems to be asking for less water-based hydration, more oil and cream based hydration. The wyld spruce oil, in particular, has been hitting the spot.
I’m washing my face with it at night, pressing it into my skin each morning, or just dabbing it on as perfume oil.
Wyld Spruced Grooming Oil
So many new people discovered this oil last winter. A sudden bestseller after years of hardly selling at all. Only now am I starting to wonder why, since I, too, find myself reaching for it every single day, while my partner cuts his eyes over toward me. He has been the biggest fan of this product since day one, and now he’s a little bit anxious that it will sell out (came very, very close last winter). He uses it as a pre-shave oil or aftershave moisturizing oil, or to condition his beard and skin underneath when he’s not shaving at all.
Why the sudden love for Spruce? Was it due to covid isolation policies? Were we looking for those stress-relieving, mood-boosting properties of wise, old trees that indoor environments just can’t mimic? (Granted, even a fresh spruce infusion can’t mimic the experience of really being in the forest, because spruce is one isolated part of a vast forest kingdom.) Maybe it was just coincidence?
One excited customer emailed me a few months ago to ask if I’d ever heard of gemmotherapy. And I had not.
I still don’t know a whole lot about it, but I’ll share what I’ve learned and try to explain why she was so excited about the fact that her new favorite skin oil contained the fresh spring shoots (granskudd in Swedish) of Spruce.
What is Gemmotherapy?
To my understanding, gemmotherapy is the use of a plant’s new spring growth – the buds, young shoots, fresh rootlets, etc. – rather than the mature plant parts. It is believed that these new parts contain the embryonic tissues and genetic information of the future plant – so they hold ALL of the properties of ALL of the parts of the plant. As the plant grows, these properties get separated out into the plant’s leaves, roots, stems, flowers, sap, sheets, etc. But the new spring buds and shoots hold them all in very concentrated form. They may also contain nutrients that aren’t present in the mature plant at all.
As I began to look into this concept, I learned that certain plants are used more often in gemmotherapy. And to my surprise, many of them grow right around me, like literally within a 1 kilometer radius!
Silver Birch, Sea Buckthorn, Hawthorne, Linden, Dog Rose, Wild Blueberry, Alder, Currant and more.
True gemmotherapy involves macerating the plant material and then ingesting small doses of it, which I have absolutely no experience with, so please look into it further if you’re interested. The customer who I exchanged quite a few emails with said that it greatly helped her with chronic allergies and sinusitis.
Harvesting Spruce (or any other conifer) parts
When harvesting anything, we strive to operate according to The Honorable Harvest so please start there for basic guidelines.
But how do we actually do it? Like when do we harvest spruce? Where? And how?
Of course the plant’s fresh tips, or shoots, and buds need to be harvested in the spring. There’s quite a short window – just a few weeks – until those bright green shoots darken and toughen into needles.
But we also include the needles of Norwegian Blue Spruce trees in our oil blend. And the needles of conifers (spruce, pine, fir, juniper, etc.) can be harvested all year around.
Some say that the properties in a conifer’s needles are highest in summer, but I’m not sure that’s not always the case. Our ancestors definitely harvested them in winter months when fresh plants were scarce, using conifer parts as food, as medicine for winter coughs and respiratory issues, as pain relief medication, and as one of their main sources of vitamin C. And conifer needles are best when used immediately, as their nutrients degrade quickly with any sort of storage. Preserving them (e.g. infusing or macerating them into oil, vinegar, spirits, etc.) is the best way to store them.
When it comes to harvesting any part of conifers, honestly, the best guide is my senses. I use them all – sight, smell, touch and taste. Sight guides me toward healthy looking trees, and then it just took time to develop the other senses. To learn what the best conifer needles and cones should smell like, feel like, taste like. I tend to gravitate toward more citrusy notes, away from bitter ones. But your knowledge should develop according to your own environment. This is definitely embodied knowledge, which I’ve talked about before here. And what my senses have taught me is that highly potent conifers can be found in all seasons.
As for where, I always advocate for “wild” environments for their more high-quality raw material, without environmental impurities or pollutants.
Every Ingredient Matters
I’ve been asked how this product can function as so many things – face cleanser, moisturizer, beard oil, pre-shave oil, after-shave oil, perfume oil that both men and women love. I think that’s that the beauty of natural products, right? Think of all the ways a real soap can be used, like a bottle of castile soap or a bar of aleppo soap. Think of all of the many uses of a natural, all-purpose cleaning spray. Or a natural balm or cream when it’s infused with plants that promote overall wellness and broad spectrum healing.
Sometimes we do need very targeted products, but usually, for everyday living and being, a handful of high-quality, multi-tasking products are simply perfect.
While the spruced grooming oil is just one product, it has a lot going on inside! And each ingredient matters.
Spruce alone contains a wide range of potent properties – anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, antiseptic, expectorant, etc. Its spring shoots are exceptionally high in vitamin C, as well as carotenoids and other minerals – all things that can improve skin health and appearance. Its needles contain some of the same qualities as the shoots, but in varying proportions. Due to its powerful properties, Spruce can address a wide range of ailments and skin conditions, from soothing eczema to calming breakouts.
Here in Sweden, we have a spruce tree that has been standing for nearly 10,000 years. What endurance! The aromatherapy benefits are impressive too. Taking a whiff of fresh Spruce shoots can calm the nervous system yet energize the mind, offering clarity of thought. They can also help regulate adrenal and thyroid function, a much needed tonic for many these days.
Other than fresh green Spruce shoots and blue Spruce needles, Wyld spruced grooming oil is also infused with fresh lavender from our own organic garden, plus the exotic spices of star anise and cardamom. How I wish I could send you an olfactory experience of this oil, rather than a visual one! I could stand here sniffing this bottle all day, but applying it to my skin does that job even more beautifully, because then both my mind and body reap the benefits.
The plants are infused into a few of our favorite skin-loving oils – jojoba, babassu, macadamia and olive. And then, finally, it’s enriched with essential oils of organic marjoram, bergamot, siberian spruce, patchouli and lavender.
You can learn about all ingredients here to understand why we’ve chosen them for this product.
What we chose NOT to use matters too! Wyld products never contain any synthetic fragrances or colors, dyes, preservatives, sulfates, parabens, pthalates, PEG, SLS, GMO, chemical processing, fillers, foaming agents, high PUFA oils, cruelty, crap or compromises.
All products are handmade in our studio – here’s why we continue to handcraft and wildcraft – by a handful of people who all love this work and love being able to share it, and who are so very grateful for your support which enables us to continue.
Yours truly xx
