A New Direction

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Lazy Cat Oils, Music Toronto, Reiki, Shannah Rose, St. Lawrence Centre

Things are official now! A few weeks ago I decided to leave my full time job and everything is now worked out. So on August 23rd I will finish working at the St. Lawrence Centre and go back to being self employed! The time has come to move on to a new stage in my life.

So what is the plan? Basically it is two fold.

First I’m going to work part time with Music Toronto in Communications. In the short term that will essentially be ramping up their social media with an eye to long term involvement at Music Toronto. For those of you unfamiliar with Music Toronto, it is an organization that presents classical chamber music. I have been involved with them for production over the past few years since they present their concerts at the St. Lawrence Centre. I have really enjoyed working with MTO in my current capacity and am looking forward to this new chapter in my arts career!

Secondly I am going to focus on building my Lazy Cat Oils business. I will continue to make and sell my body care products. I’m already looking at shows in the fall. I will also finally be able to spend some time developing some of the new items that are in my head! On most Wednesday’s I’ll be up at Shannah Rose in Orangeville. http://www.shannahrose.com/ I’ll be helping out at the store in general those days and will be available to talk about my Lazy Cat Oils products to customers up there.

The fall will also allow me to finish off my initial set of courses and start offering treatments. I will be offering Reiki treatments, Aromatherapy consults, and eventually Qi Drop treatments (an essential oil treatment that I will be learning this fall). I have recently starting doing Reiki treatments again and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. I look forward to being able to have some ‘regular’ office hours for treatment appointments.

And I will continue to study as I follow the holistic health care path. I’m going to have to take that Anatomy class at some point soon!

For all of my theatre friends and connections who are wondering ‘but what will become of your involvement in theatre?’ Never fear I shall still be around. In the short term I may look at the occasional short term stage management gig and I shall always be a faithful audience member. Besides the Arts are good for your health and that is what my future is all about – what is good for a healthy life!

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Lavender Essential Oil

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calming, cosmetics, essential oils, lavender, skin care

Lavender is a scent that most everyone is probably familiar with as it is so popular! The essential oil seems like one of the most widely used for both treatments and cosmetics. I have a Lavender line with my body care products – lotion, oil, bath crystals, body scrubs, soap.

Lavender EO is distilled from the flowers of the plant. It is probably best known as a calming and relaxing scent. Rejuvenating and balancing, it is a favourite for skin care products. And it can be used on all skin types – another reason it is so popular I’m sure.

For treatments, lavender has analgesic and antibacterial properties making it great for soothing minor burns and healing scrapes. These are the two main things that I use it for at the moment. Lavender EO is also a great ‘bring together’ oil, helping harmonize a blend of essential oils.

And even though it is generally a calming oil, in large quantities it is actually a stimulant. So all you lavender lovers out there – pace yourselves!

Going BIG!

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Big On Bloor Festival, festivals

Next week I will be working my first outdoor street festival! To be honest it is both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. While this past week has been busy with theatre going, the weeks leading up to this have been filled with product making. And there is still more to make. Yikes! It will be a busy week to come and that old self doubt pops up occasionally that I won’t be ready. But I’m not listening to it this time. I am moving ahead and doing the best that I can do. That is all anyone can ever do.

I am looking at this as a jumping off point for a new direction in my life. There are lots of big changes ahead for me. There will be more on that later in August. I have more hands on courses to take in September, online studying to finish, another therapy to learn, and treatments to offer. In the meantime, I’m focusing the next few weeks on promoting my products, launching a makeup line (it is coming, really it is!), and starting to do Reiki treatments again.

If you are in Toronto, come and visit my booth next weekend at the BIG On Bloor Festival. I’m not sure yet of my exact location but I’ll be somewhere on Bloor Street between Lansdowne and Bloor. I’ll be posting more info on facebook and twitter as I get it. Not in Toronto? Tell everyone that you know and I’m sure that somewhere along the connections someone will come and visit me that you know.

BIG On Bloor Festival – July 20, 2013 – noon to 9pm; July 21, 2013 – noon to 6pm.

Palma Rosa Essential Oil

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body oil, cymbopogan, essential oil, geranium, Indian Geranium, palma rosa, skin care

I have switched things up for a couple of weeks in my day to day routine and have been using my Palma Rosa body oil daily instead of my Geranium. Palma Rosa EO is an essential oil that still catches me off guard. It has a very lovely floral type of scent but it actually comes from a grass. One of the active ingredients in both Palma Rosa and Geranium is geraniol. This similarity between the two is probably why I like the Palma Rosa almost as much as the Geranium. In fact, Palma Rosa is also called Indian Geranium.

All essential oils have a Latin name. This gives us the Genus and the Species of each plant. The genus is the larger group that related species belong to. Let me use citrus fruits as an example. Citrus is the genus for the citrus fruits and is at the beginning of the Latin name for each type of fruit. The word following is the species. The following are the Latin and English names for some citrus essential oils:
Bergamot – Citrus bergamia
Grapefruit – Citrus paradisi
Lemon – Citrus limonum
Lime – Citrus aurantifolia
Sweet Orange – Citrus sinensis
Neroli – Citrus aurantium

Hopefully that makes the difference between genus and species a bit clearer.

Palma rosa’s Latin name is Cymbopogon martinii. Cymbopogon is the genus name for quite a number of grasses. Lemongrass is the name generally associated with Cymbopogon. Citronella is also part of the Cymbopogon family. As far as I know, martinii does not refer to the alcoholic drink here. I’m not sure if the following is correct but so far what I have found is that the Latin martinii comes from the name of Claude Martin. He was a Major General with the British East India Company’s Bengal Army in the late 1700’s. Seems pretty famous – couple of towns and schools named after him in India. Quite an extensive list of things he did on the Wikipedia bio. And apparently it gets him a Latin word based on his name. I’ll keep looking to see if I can find out if this is really true.

Palma rosa EO helps your skin tissue keep in the that all important moisture. It helps keep the skin soft and it promotes cell regeneration. A great oil for aging skin! It’s worth a look if you haven’t used it before.