Lavender

In this group, mothers who used essential oils had higher rates of spontaneous vaginal delivery and lower rates of epidural use.

Lavender was the most common essential oil for alleviating pain, followed by frankincense.

Lavender was rated as helpful by 54% of women and frankincense by 64%.

Similar to those that used aromatherapy for anxiety, there were higher rates of spontaneous vaginal delivery and lower rates of epidural use.

Peppermint oil was used to treat nausea and vomiting.

It is empty now, but it holds the memory of ten thousand simmering brews, and if you lean close, you can smell them.

Lavender and something sharp, like crushed mint, like old parchment, like the first cold air of October.

You hang your cloak on the hook by the door.

The hook is wooden, carved into the shape of a serpent biting its own tail.

Others are made of dark clay, sealed with wax the color of plums, and labeled in a script so small and careful that you would need a magnifying glass to read it.

There are dried herbs too, hanging from the ceiling in small bundles tied with twine.

Lavender first, always lavender, because the professor who taught this room before the current one believed that lavender was the foundation of all good magic.

Beside the lavender, bundles of sage, their leaves gray-green and papery, smelling faintly of something clean and ancient like a kitchen that has been scrubbed with rosemary and left to air.

[laughs]

Lavender is the gateway [laughs] to herbalism-

Yes

...

Mm-hmm

... 'cause I feel like it lasts longer that way, and you don't have to put it directly on your skin if your skin is sensitive.

Lavender is the only essential oil that you can put directly on your skin without diluting it, so I have done that as well or, like, put a tiny dab on your palms and then inhale in between your hands.

It's just amazing for anxiety in general, but it's also really good for sleep.

A hydrosol is part of the distilled medicine of a plant, so it has to go through the process of distillation.

And I really do, I lean on lavender hydrosol quite a lot here.

Lavender is just so cooling to the skin.

It's also an antimicrobial.

And so that combination of cooling and antimicrobials also can help with pain or itching.

You can use the essential oil.

Like I mentioned before, I don't use them much.

Lavender is a bit of my exception.

Yeah.

Next up, Dano with the Knight's Lavendula.

Lavendula.

Lavendula.

Lavendula.

It's got like a Spanish kind of twist.

Yeah, no, that's really cool.