Taste of colors

Have you ever wondered how the colors smell and taste? I am sure they have their own energy that is not easy to exactly perceive, but we can play with associations. I will take a risk and show my inner self by giving you an example.

Red, when I close my eyes and ask for red, I feel the blood – wet and sticky blood with ferocious taste on my tongue. Something bleeds and calls the fragility on the border between life and death. My second attempt for red was juicy fruits of red color with a large amount of seed inside. This time life and fertility have beaten death 😋 But still I feel a kind of potential danger in red. It might taste great, I stay in alert.

Yellow. I smell the freshness of the lemon, but its sour taste is balanced by a ton of honey. Sweet and fresh sour mixed together, that’s how I taste the yellow. Yellow is the light why I’m not afraid to go to a dark cellar.  Yellow is the tool through which I can see the truth, even it could bring a huge shock.

Blue is an ocean at night, wide and deep, full of dark secrets. I feel how cold and wet the blue is. Anyway, for me the blue doesn’t represent the purity because I’m fully aware of millions microorganism living there. Plus I feel the salinity inside of blue and each grain of salt means the impurity which separates sterility from viable environment, with too high salinity of death on the opposite side. For me, the blue brings the alchemy of living environment or better to say how much secrets and impurities are acceptable in our lives.

Orange is a sun for me. I feel friendly sunshine on my skin or even a hot sunny day in the middle of desert. Orange is always smiling in my imagination, enjoying every second of life. Orange is fun, a sense of humor, a celebration of life alone and with friends. Orange is a must otherwise you would fall into sadness or depression.

Violet makes me feel lavender in the old cabinet, in which the spiritual robe hangs and only lavender prevents moths from destroying it. In my image the violets is full of grey as if the dust covered the spirituality.

And finally green, this is the place where I can freely run and truly be who I am. I smell all the shades of the forest, the resin of the conifers that improves my breathing and breaks the boundaries of my options in life. Inside of green, I can always touch my heart and read what is written inside.

So, this is my honest imagination of colors at the moment, I’m staying naked in front of you.  I’ll tell you next time how to read it, how to detect a possible problem and how to bring some harmony into it. Would you like to guess? Feel free to write comments, I’m curious. And if you like to share your imagination through colors, I will be honored.

With love, Ivana

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Ugly soap with beauty inside

I have recently asked whether herbal soap without fragrance is acceptable because I found only two major groups of homemade natural soaps. There is either a large group of beautiful soaps with artistic look of many kinds, or a bit smaller group where the combination of interesting fragrances is emphasized. Briefly, the homemade soaps attack directly your eyes or nose.

I love to admire creativity of both groups as well as I admit that I don’t have enough capability to do anything comparable. Still I feel the necessity to wash my body with my own soap and fill it with herbs of my choice.

The last “soaping” post described my history from feeding wishes of the others to the understanding I need to follow my inner voice although the result looks so poor.

And here it is, unattractive with no additional fragrance. You hardly find anything less common to look at, although there are hidden treasures inside.

Among herbs, there is lot of violets inside. Some of them were infused together with plantain and strawberry leaves into Babassu and Coconut oil, some of them were distilled in water environment to get my own “floral water”, in which I then dissolved sodium hydroxide.

The rest of violets were dried and powdered, so they gently peel your skin while enjoying the bubbles. For the same reason I powdered a pinch of oatmeal, which also plays a nourishing role as well as range of high quality vegetable oils like hemp, almond, olive and castor oil, plus my lovely shea butter infused with plantain.

I count days until the soap is ready, looking forward to enjoy my ugly Cinderella in shower!

With love, Ivana

Is herbal soap without flavor acceptable?

I love to make soaps loaded by herbs. I love to experiment with various combinations, listening to my inner voice and remembering University knowledge. I’ve learned how to infuse herbal energy and active compounds into the soaps effectively and I am happy to apply them on my body. Each time in the shower my lovely soaps remind me the whole adventure from harvesting herbs to final bubbles.

I believe the desire to share passions with close people is natural. So I did and proudly offered my herbal soaps to friends. All of them did the same thing. They skipped a visual survey and immediately began to smell intensively. As if the smell could reveal everything about the quality. One by one they told me the same thing with the same disappointment: “It smells only like soap!”

Looking at my disappointment, they listened to my lecture on the effects of herbs and natural oils I had used, but it was obvious that there is nothing to compensate a lack of proper smell.

Next, I wanted to make the others happier, so I made a lot of various herbal soaps with various added flavors. I did my best and used essential oils labeled “natural”, considering it was a compromise. The others gave me compliments for innovation, but I felt somehow that I was moving away from myself.

Because I am not a big manufacturer, I only make a few soaps for a while, the whole process took a couple of years. I have to admit it now. I lied to myself in trying to be successful in the eyes of my friends. The truth is, that I need to have my soaps full of herbs but with no added flavors, doesn’t matter how much they are “natural”.

Today, I have a bunch of violets on the table ready to become a part of soap soon. They are so beautiful with hidden power for skin treatment and I finally know that I am not allowed to kill their uniqueness by added flavor. And just time will show if such decision is acceptable to more people than just for me.

What do you think?

With love, Ivana

Pink beauty for healthy lungs

It looks that spring is finally ready to manifest itself! Despite strong frosts and snowfall recently, sunshine calls nature to start unrolling buds. Even though it’s too early, I’ve been already checking my places and searching signs of new life among dry and brown last year’s leaves.

First what I’m looking each spring for, are wonderful flowers of Lungwort. I’m hungry for the moment when I see the incredible tenderness of pink and purple. In my daily life I always prefer yellow before pink, but the first spring flowers of Lungwort are probably the only exception.

I really love the unique colors of Lungwort, sweet to look and also sweet and juicy to taste. It’s like a promise that the whole season could be such sweet and delicious. Once I discover the first Lungwort flowers of the year, I gather them directly to my mouth and eat them immediately 😋

My second choice for Lungwort flowers is still eating them directly, but in more civilized way like adding them into salad or put them on potatoes with cottage cheese. It looks and tastes fantastic!

Lungwort belongs to the plants that bloom before their leaves grow fully. So you can enjoy the beauty and taste of flowers before serious harvest for healing purpose. And there is one big purpose of the Lungwort, clear by the name, the healthy lungs!

Lungwort has strong anticarrhal and demulcent effects, so you can successfully use it in case of cold with cough. It reduces unwanted mucus caused by pathogens and protects irritated tissues. The content of silicon and allantoin accelerates skin regeneration, so the Lungwort can be also used externally for longterm wounds even with pus. But the most common use of Lungwort is still in wide range of lung diseases like bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, etc.

Even though the Lungwort looks so useful and kind, there is one warning for all who have problems with blood coagulation (clotting) because the Lungwort slightly increases the level of it. A few fresh flowers should be fine, but be careful about longterm use.

I hope to see the pink and purple flowers soon and this year herbal season will really start!

Which plant is the sign of spring for you?

With love, Ivana

Intensive Beauty of Violet

Even if you really love winter and white snow, the first spring sunshine and the first tentative flowers must cheer your heart.

Among the spring flower pioneers Violet has unique position. It has a power immediately hit your nose by penetrating sweet aroma. Later you will see a beautiful green carpet with tiny violet flowers.

You can be so intoxicated by the scent of violets that you start to eat them. You will find that violets are delicious! I love to add them into spring fresh salads.

Violets intensive aroma has also healing effects. For those who are little bit depressive after long winter nights, violets bring light and sweetness into their minds.

But there is one important skill of violets which can be successfully used in whole year. As much as the scent of violets is pungent, the healing energy can penetrate through the skin and treat various problems like acne, eczema or hemorrhoids.

In that case Violet likes to cooperate with deep earthy ingredients like oak bark or chocolate.

I do love my lip balm “Violets in chocolate” so much!

What is your favorite use of violets?