Aug 21, 2019 | Aromatherapy, Body & Beauty, Health & Wellness, House & Home
You’ve got your Tea Tree oil, but now what? How exactly do you use it to experience the popular benefits of this renowned essential oil? Here are some simple tips to rock your tea tree oil use for a healthier, more holistic lifestyle.
Remember: Tea Tree oil is a powerful, potent oil. Just a few drops will go a long way in providing symptomatic relief. Because of its strength, however, Tea Tree oil should usually be mixed with a carrier oil to avoid side effects. This doesn’t dilute the power of the essential oil; it simply protects the contact area.
Mix It
Scalp Treatment: If you suffer from dandruff or dry scalp, Tea Tree oil will remove dead skin cells and moisturize the affected areas. Simply add 3-4 drops of Tea Tree oil into your favorite natural shampoo to defeat dandruff. This will soothe the itchy skin and promote healthy hair growth.
Cleaning: To make your own natural cleaning spray, mix a few drops of Tea Tree oil with hot water or distilled white vinegar. This will disinfect the areas you spray, plus deodorize your room with the warm, astringent scent. You can also add a few drops of tea tree oil to your washing machine to thoroughly disinfect laundry.
Swab It
Acne: If you are prone to breakouts, Tea Tree oil may be the remedy you need. Using a Q-tip or cotton applicator, carefully dab a bit of the oil straight onto the acne. Since Tea Tree oil is very strong, which can cause severe dryness, dilute the oil by first dipping your Q-tip in water.
Wounds/Scars: Tea Tree oil is the perfect addition to your first aid kit. In fact, it’s been hailed as a “medicine cabinet in a bottle.” It can minimize itching, disinfect wounds, and soothe the redness of sunburns, bug bites, and minor scrapes. It can even promote healing of scars by helping to reduce inflammation. Add 1-2 drops of Tea Tree oil to a healing carrier oil such as Macadamia Nut oil and apply it to the affected area. Or you can use it “neat” (without a carrier oil) directly on the area.
Breathe It
Steam Shower: When you are suffering from allergies or sinus blockage, Tea Tree oil can act as a decongestant. Inhaling the scent will open up your nasal passageways, allowing you to breathe easier. The best way to experience the aromatherapeutic benefits is during your shower. Our Tea Tree Infused Pure Eucalpytus Oil ShowerMist, which combines Tea Tree oil with 100% pure Eucalyptus Oil, works with the steam to open up a stuffy nose.
Diffuser: An essential oil diffuser can allow you to breathe in the purifying benefits of the warm, clarifying scent of Tea Tree oil. Add a few drops of Tea Tree oil to the water tank in your diffuser to help you breathe better, remove bad odors, purify the air, create a lovely smelling ambiance for your room, and uplift your mood.
How else do you use Tea Tree oil? With these ideas, we know you’ll be ready to rock your Tea Tree oil and fully experience the benefits of this amazing essential oil.
Apr 17, 2019 | Health & Wellness, Seasonal
With summer quickly approaching, many of us have a vacation or weekend getaway planned. Did you know that you can use essential oils to improve your experience? Essential oils can be used for multitudes of reasons, from helping with sicknesses to repelling bugs. What’s not to love?
Here are a few essential oils that get help with your travel experience:
Peppermint
Peppermint is a very popular essential oil because it has a wide array of uses. Peppermint can help tremendously with nausea. If you are feeling motion sickness, sea sick, or ate something that didn’t agree with you, sniffing Peppermint directly from the bottle can greatly improve how you feel. You can also use our Mint-Infused Pure Eucalyptus ShowerMist as a pillow mist to help ease your nausea while you rest, or while you take a hot shower.
Tea Tree
Tea Tree is a great essential oil for bug bites, bumps, or scratches because of its healing and purifying properties. It can be applied directly to the skin to help with any healing wounds and bug bites (avoid applying to open wounds or bites — it will burn).
If you are feeling a cough coming on that you don’t want to ruin your vacation, use our Tea Tree-Infused Pure Eucalytpus ShowerMist with a hot shower for a clarifying and purifying experience. The antibacterial and antiviral properties will help immensely to make you feel better.
Eucalyptus
If you are going camping, hiking, or to any destination that has bugs, you will want to have Eucalyptus oil in your arsenal. Bugs can’t stand the smell, so they stay away when it comes to Eucalyptus! Spray our 100% Pure Eucalyptus ShowerMist around the area that you want to keep bug-free. A little goes a long way. Additionally, you can spray directly onto yourself.
Lavender
If you’re traveling somewhere across the globe, you’ll have to deal with jet lag, which is never fun, but not something that you can avoid. When you’re trying to get some sleep in the middle of the day, make sure that you have Lavender on hand to help promote deeper and better quality sleep.
You can use our Lavender-Infused Pure Eucalyptus ShowerMist as a pillow spray so you’re breathing in the benefits while you snooze. You could also spritz it into a steaming hot shower to relax you as well.
All of these essential oils make it easy to have the best time while you’re traveling. Will you be bringing any of these on your next trip? Let us know in the comments!
Mar 28, 2019 | All About Eucalyptus, Health & Wellness, Seasonal
When the weather is warm and we start spending more and more time outside, dealing with bugs and bug bites is inevitable. But instead of giving up and not doing anything OR spraying yourself with harmful chemicals, first try some natural preventatives and remedies. These tips aren’t very difficult and they can make your journey to a more natural lifestyle a little easier (and bug bite free).
Here are some of our favorite essential oils to help with bugs this summer:
Lavender
Just one of lavender’s many uses is to keep bugs away. They just don’t like the smell! You can utilize lavender a couple ways, you can grow it around your home (or in your home!) or you can put drops of it on your skin. Lavender plants both look beautiful and smell great, so that is just an additional benefit of growing them around your home. If you choose to put lavender on your body, like on your wrists, behind your ears, or on the back of your neck to ward off bugs, you’ll also be benefiting from its calming properties.
If you’ve been bitten by a bug, lavender is one of the only essential oils that you can apply directly to a bite. Its calming and anti-inflammatory properties will also work to soothe your bites heal them more quickly.
Peppermint
Just like lavender, bugs don’t like the smell of peppermint. You can put some drops on your skin diluted with a carrier oil like fractionated coconut oil or jojoba oil, or around the area that you’ll be outside, like your tent or patio.
If you have been bitten, peppermint is great for itch relief and minimizing inflammation when rubbed into the area when diluted with a carrier oil. The cooling relief will really help to calm your itchiness and it will prevent more bugs from bothering you. Bonus points: you’ll also smell really great.
Tea Tree
This essential oil is best known for its pain-relieving, itch-stopping, swelling-reducing qualities. If you have bug bites that won’t stop itching, use tea tree oil diluted in a carrier oil for some relief as well as stopping bacteria from forming and making the bite worse. Studies have been done where tea tree oil has beaten out other medications. Amazing!
Eucalyptus
This essential oil is definitely one of our favorites! It is multi-functional and can be used to prevent bugs from biting you. The easiest way to do this is by bringing along one of our 100% Pure Eucalyptus ShowerMists (we also have travel sizes as well) and spray your body as well as the area around you. While you are spraying, you’re also getting all the other great benefits of eucalyptus. This essential oil is antibacterial, antifungal, antimicrobial, antiviral, decongestant, and anti-inflammatory.
If you want to get the benefits of eucalyptus AND the other essential oils mentioned above, you can pick up an infused 100% Pure Eucalyptus ShowerMist that contains them!
How do you keep bugs at bay with natural products? We’d love to know in the comments!
Oct 3, 2018 | Health & Wellness
Earlier this year we sat down for a chat with Greg Lutzka, pro skateboarding, two-time X-Games Gold Medallist, and eucalyptus oil enthusiast, to find out about why he wanted his own ShowerMist scent and how he incorporates it into his healthy lifestyle routine.
In our blog post on Tea Tree Oil and Greg, Greg told us he uses our Tea Tree-Infused ShowerMist in his shower and sauna and in the steam room at the gym. Greg loves heat therapy for post-workout relaxation and mental clarity. In fact, he loves it so much that he got a sauna for his house, and uses it daily. “The sauna helped change my life to the point where I got one in my house now. The essential oils help in the sauna to clean it out and after the sauna, I feel the difference in my body, on my skin, the way I sleep. My mind feels clear, I let go of everything from the day, all the stress, and it just regenerates you.”
He also admitted that he loves our Lavender-Infused ShowerMist to help him sleep better at night. He sprays it all over his bedroom at bedtime to quickly help him get much-needed shut-eye.
Using our Pure Eucalyptus Oil ShowerMists is just one of the elements in Greg’s healthy lifestyle. Skateboarders usually aren’t known for their healthy living — Greg wants to change this and inspire the next generation of skateboarders to take care of themselves as top athletes do.
In our interview, he gave us the inside scoop on his daily routines and why he decided to make his health a priority in his life. “I just got up one day and was tired of feeling like crap. We’d party at night, we’d drink beers, and it’s not to say that I won’t go out and drink now, but I limit it now to very rarely. And when I do drink, I wake up the next morning feeling like crap.”
The party lifestyle starting hitting him hard at 28, and he quickly realized going out and drinking was affecting his skate performance. “I want to feel good and skate well and the only way to do that is to eat well and take care of my body. I also got into yoga, which I never thought I would do. Hot yoga is like stretching in a sauna, and stretching with heat helps tremendously with my skating. Plus I’m forced to drink more water and less soda. I firmly believe it’s so important to drink water, and I love drinking water so much that I partnered with AQUAhydrate and now I’m a part owner in the brand.” When he does drink soda, it’s only the all-natural stuff with no high-fructose corn syrup, like Zevia.
Greg starts the day by stretching, followed by a protein shake to build muscle and stay lean, or a Sambazon açaí bowl filled with fresh fruit (like berries and bananas) and hemp for fuel before a workout. Sometimes when he’s busy, he’ll grab a bowl from Banzai Bowls, who will make an açaí bowl or smoothie to-order. He then works out in his own home gym, which is conveniently located next to his infrared sauna. The gym he built for himself in his house includes a stationary bike, multi-exercise weight machine, and mats for stretching.
After the gym or at the end of the day, it’s a sauna or steam room time for a little sweat session, of course, for post-workout recovery and mental rejuvenation. “After the sauna, I feel the difference in my body, on my skin, the way I sleep. My mind feels clear, I let go of everything from the day, all the stress, and it just regenerates you.”
After Greg’s daily skate practice and filming session, he generally eats pretty clean but admits to indulging every once in a while to a very Californian In-N-Out burger because, “I’m like a normal person.” Instead of Taco Tuesdays that involves beer as well as tacos, he’ll opt for a ride on his mountain bike instead. He says, “I don’t really need to have tacos and a reason to drink beer.”
One of Greg’s favorite places to have lunch is Sessions West Coast Deli, which has three locations in Orange County. Greg is part owner in the restaurant, which will be opening another location in Newport Beach around Christmas. Sessions offers food that’s antibiotic-free, all-natural, vegetarian fed, animal by-product free, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, MSG-free and nitrite-free. Greg’s favorites are chicken or turkey sandwiches that have both high-quality antibiotic-free meat and organic veggies. Sessions sandwiches are served with salad as well, so Greg knows he’s getting his greens in for optimal nutrition.
For dinner, Greg admits he’s not the greatest cook but he still eats healthy to ensure maximum performance and to keep his head in the game during competition. When he eats at home, he’ll invite friends over for a barbeque, where he’ll grill steak, chicken, or turkey burgers with veggies like asparagus, potatoes, or corn. Other nights, he’ll steam broccoli and carrots and add it to pasta with non-dairy alfredo sauce from Mother’s Market, then throw in some chicken for lean protein. Greg’s current go-to home-cooked meal is a stir-fry with lots of veggies and chicken and jasmine rice.
When he doesn’t cook, he opts for quick and healthy meal services like Freshly, who offer chef-cooked meals delivered to your door so you can skip the meal-prepping, cooking and cleaning. Freshly uses only high-quality all-natural ingredients, without artificial preservatives, added sugars or gluten.
When we chatted with Greg back in April, we also talked about what it’s like to be an athlete, and an aging athlete to boot. Greg admitted recovery is harder once he hit 30 — he feels more pain and doesn’t bounce back as quickly from injury as he did before. His feet and ankles take a lot of abuse from skateboarding, so he’ll do other activities to switch things up, give his body a break, and be out in nature. He loves to go to the beach and surf, hit the trails and hills on his mountain bike or dirt bike, go for a ride on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and in the winter hit the slopes on his snowboard up in Mammoth or Big Bear. On Fridays he plays pick-up ice hockey, a sport he started as a kid in Wisconsin. “I take vacations from skateboarding because number one I can’t keep beating up my body every day and number two, I like to keep my mind fresh and clear and stoked on skateboarding.”
Greg recently discovered the benefits of using hemp oil and CBD to promote relaxation and help the body heal after a friend introduced him to it. “I started taking CBD oil drops for relaxation and recovery. I use the CBD creams for injuries from skateboarding.” Cannabidiol —CBD — is a natural part of the hemp plant that has been shown to have positive health benefits, without causing psychoactive effects. CBD is a cannabis compound that has significant medical benefits, but doesn’t make people feel “stoned” and can actually counteract the psychoactivity of THC.
Scientific and clinical research has shown CBD’s potential as a treatment for a wide range of conditions, including: arthritis, diabetes, alcoholism, MS, chronic pain, schizophrenia, PTSD, depression, antibiotic-resistant infections, epilepsy, and other neurological disorders. CBD is also extremely effective for alleviating pain and inflammation without any of the side-effects that you’d normally find in prescription pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter pain drugs.
Greg recently partnered with Crafted Extracts Co. for a line of CBD and THC products that include two pain relief balms, three strengths of CBD Herbal Drops, and four flavors of oil cartridges designed to ease anxiety and promote relaxation.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Greg likes to collaborate with brands for products he likes and can stand behind. “I have signature lines with companies who are passionate about things that I like to incorporate into my lifestyle. I like to promote brands that I believe in.”
If you’d like to try the Tea Tree-Infused Eucalyptus Oil ShowerMist that we developed with Greg, check it out in our store. For more information on how it can be part of your healthy lifestyle, check out our Tea Tree product page.
You can follow Greg Lutzka on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Aug 8, 2018 | Health & Wellness
Whether you spend a lot of time at the gym or like to exercise at home, it’s important to make sure you’re disinfecting your workout gear regularly.
You probably knew that changing out of your workout clothes immediately after your workout is smart, but washing them immediately is even better. That’s because the longer you let your gear sit with sweat (even in the hamper), the faster bacteria can grow – leading to clothing stains and deterioration.
Can you imagine the bacteria that’s growing on your yoga mat, weights, or tennis shoes? We have some good news: Tea Tree Oil is about to become your new secret weapon!
3 Ways to Use Tea Tree Oil to Keep Your Workout Gear Clean
Tea Tree Oil is known for its amazing antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. Here are our favorite ways to use it in our fitness routines:
- Use an all-natural antibacterial spray to disinfect your equipment. Spray on equipment like yoga mats and weights then dry with a paper towel. You can also find our Lavender + Eucalyptus oil yoga mat cleaner here!
- Eliminate odors and bacteria with a spray for stinky sneakers. Spritz the soles of your shoes after a workout and leave overnight to dry.
- Spritz our Shower Mist on your gym towel and in the gym shower for a refreshing (and bacteria-fighting) zing!
What are your favorite ways to use essential oils for fitness?
Got any great tips? Leave them in the comments below!
