- Hi, my name's Amanda David, I'm a community herbalist,
and I've been working for over 20 years
to bring people and plants together, towards healing.
Everything that we're going to harvest today are weeds
for our facial toner, and then herbal decoction.
Today, we're in my garden,
and all of the herbs are growing either wild,
or in the garden beds as weeds,
and they're really common,
so I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find them
wherever you are.
We are coming to harvest burdock,
which is a wonderful plant for skin health.
When we're thinking about taking care of our skin
there's things that we can do externally,
and then there's things that we can do internally,
and burdock is one that helps our digestion
to work more efficiently,
and so that helps us to have clear, and glowing skin.
So, there's definitely enough burdock root
to make ourselves a nice cup of tea.
Herbalism though it can seem intimidating
if you're new to it, it is really, really simple.
To prepare the burdock root for a decoction,
which is just a simmered tea,
we're going to take off the tops of the plant,
and then we want to wash the roots.
We're going to chop them directly into the pan
that we're going to be making the decoction in.
Burdock roots are really great tonic for your liver
and your kidneys, and so it helps your body to process,
and expel waste,
and if our digestion isn't doing that job efficiently,
our bodies will send the waste out through our skin.
So, if you incorporate burdock,
and things to aid your digestion,
it's going to have your waste eliminated
through the proper channels,
and it will keep your skin clear and healthy.
We're going to add our water,
and now we're going to go simmer it
on the stove for about 20 minutes.
So, I think the burdock root tea is amazing and delicious,
but you try and see what you think.
- It's good.
- We are going to make our facial toner.
We're just going to chop up the herbs,
and goldenrod is high in antioxidants,
so it's going to help our skin cells, and our face
be healthy and vibrant, it will help to heal any blemishes,
it's also anti-inflammatory,
which is good if you have pimples or acne.
Now. we are going to chop up our plantain.
Plantain is a plant that is a super, super common weed.
Some folks refer to it as bandaid plant,
or boo-boo plant, because it's a great plant to teach kids.
So, if they're on the playground and they fall,
and they scrape their knee,
they can just take the leaf of plantain
and chew it up and put it on their boo-boos.
It's also really great for bee stings,
because plantain has a really special ability
to draw things out of your skin.
So, it can draw out stingers, it can draw out splinters,
it can draw out infection.
The last plant that's going to go into our toner is yarrow.
Yarrow is a really, really amazing wound healer.
It's something that you can use on infections,
cuts, scrapes, and helps to stop bleeding,
but it's also just a really lovely plant
to help tighten your pores,
and make your skin protected and strong,
and also can help fight any bacteria
that might be there causing acne.
Okay, so now we have all of our herbs chopped,
and ready to go into our jar.
We're just gonna put our plant material into the jar,
so now we're just going to add the apple cider vinegar,
and why we use apple cider vinegar for a toner
is because actually even without being infused in herbs,
apple cider vinegar is really, really healing,
and great for your skin. It's antibacterial,
so again, it's going to help with any acne, or blemishes.
Just gonna poke it down a little,
so that the apple cider vinegar is covering the top
of the herbs.
Because it's in apple cider vinegar,
vinegar actually will corrode metal,
so we're just gonna line our lid
with a little bit of parchment paper, and that's that.
We'll let this sit for a couple of weeks.
We'll give it a little shake every day,
just to keep the apple cider vinegar moving
around the plant material,
and then in a couple of weeks,
we'll be able to strain it and use our toner.
You want to just give the plants a little gentle massage,
to get all of the goodness out of the plants.
The only thing left to do is dilute it,
and put it into our toner bottle.
I like to dilute it about half and half with water,
and that's something that you can kind of, play around with,
to get the measurement that feels good for you,
and your skin,
and depending on kind of how sensitive your skin is,
will determine how much water you want to put in.
Also, if you have more oily skin,
you'd want to have more vinegar compared to water.
Then, we're going to just put on our spray cap,
and that's it.
We have our amazing herb infused facial toner.
(toner spritzing)
Amazing. Thank you all so much for coming in my yard today,
and coming in my home
to create this beautiful skincare ritual.
For folks who are watching
who haven't worked with herbs before,
it's always really important
if you're going to go and harvest herbs,
to make sure you know 100% that you're harvesting
the correct herbs.
Also, if you're trying an herb for the first time,
it's always good to start really slowly and in a small area.
Just put it on a little bit of your skin first,
before like, spraying it all over your face.
And, of course, if you have any questions,
you should always reach out to your healthcare provider.
(gentle music)