Miss Jennie had been using essential oils and natural products for oh, so many years. And when she started working at a natural product farm with a gazillion different essential oils, she brought some home and made interesting and wonderful items. Of course Stella Julianna wanted to make something too!
“What does apoth-the-cary mean?,” she asked Miss Jennie. She learned that a modern apothecary is a supply of essential oils, herbs, waxes, butters, and other natural ingredients, and their organization and storage place. She thought that the colored glass jars, bottles, and crockery were very pretty.
Stella Julianna thought of all the wonderful things she could make with healing and sweet scented essential oils. She could make bath salts with herbs, shower melts, lip and cheek stain, lotion, hand and lip balm, whipped body butter, soap . . . She decided to make hand and lip balm with shea butter.
She needed to gently melt the ingredients to blend the butters and wax. Water in the pot under a glass cup holding the ingredients simmered gently to slowly melt them. Don’t forget to check the water level so it doesn’t simmer dry!
Now to choose the scent for the balm. Stella Julianna liked so many of the fragrances. She could use lavender and rosemary, or peppermint, or lemon, or frankincense and sandalwood, or . . . In the end, she chose cinnamon orange, and added a few drops of each to the melted wax. Now to work quickly and carefully, and get the balm into the mold before it firms up.
Stella Julianna was so proud of what she had made. The seashell balms were pretty, useful, healing, and smelled soooo good! She imagined what it would be like to be a green witch and live in a cottage by the edge of the woods. Of course, her cottage with the herbal apothecary in it would have a view of a mountain and lavender fields. Then she could wear a pointed hat like her best friend, Hazel. The kitchen clean-up was so quick that she barely had time to think about the next recipe to make.
