These healing and ritual oils were dreamt into existence through the song of the plants themselves. A combination of shamanic journey, dreamwork, and oracle cards revealed these recipes, and they are meant to support you not only through their fragrance, but also with their essence and their spirit.

To use these oils, you can dab them on your wrists and behind your ears as you would a perfume oil. You can use them on your chakra points, or specific areas of contraction and tension, where a stuck emotion lives. Use them throughout the day, during meditation, or however you feel guided. Trust yourself.

The oils are most supportive when they are used intentionally over a period of time, allowing you to connect and pray with the plants and ask them to open themselves to you. The medicine will unfold and evolve as you move through your process. The plants are ready for you, will you invite in their healing?

Agua Florida, or Flower Water, is a cleansing and purifying mist that carries the essences of healing plants and flowers. Traditional recipes include specific aromatic plants, but different versions of Agua Florida are made by many cultures across the world. Agua Floridas are not perfumes, although their aroma can be very pleasant. It is the essence and spirit of the plants, and the prayers that they have been infused with that give the Agua Floridas their medicinal power.

These healing flower waters were hand-crafted with sacred spring water from Kaua’i, which I hike up and collect from the mountain, and organic plant material either harvested by myself or ethically sourced from someone I know personally. I follow ancestral medicine making practices that I have learned from my teachers in the Andes of Peru, the same way that their ancestors have made it for millennia. The whole process is a ceremony and each step a prayer.

To use these mists, spray them into the air around you to cleanse your field and invite their medicine. Spray on your body and into your face to purify if you feel any density. Spray rooms, vehicles, spaces for purification. For deep cleansing, Spray your hands, clap three times, inhale through your nose in your cupped hands and exhale to the right. Repeat to the left, and then finish again on the right. Brush your hands over your body for a full energetic cleansing. Cleanse and bless sacred objects and ceremonial spaces. The mists are most supportive when they are used intentionally and regularly, as part of your energetic hygiene.

The collection of Agua Floridas is not static, as new plants become available to me at different times.

In her book Hydrosols: The Next Aromatherapy author Suzanne Catty says:

“Hydrosols contain all of the plant in every drop…

“Here we have the water-soluble components, the essential oil molecules, the very fluid that was flowing through the plant cells when the plant was collected. It’s all there in a matrix of water that is so much more than water…”

Hydrosol, sometimes also called hydrolate, refers to the water that becomes infused with the plant’s water-soluble components when aromatic plant materials are steam-distilled. Hydrosols are not blends of essential oils with witch hazel or alcohol. The only ingredients in a hydrosol are, in this case, pure sacred spring water from Makaleha Mountain on Kaua’i and the water soluble components of the organic plants I lovingly steam distill in my copper distiller.

When essential oils aren’t the right choice, a hydrosol can be a lighter and more delicate option. They can help rebalance the body, especially when used regularly. While they’re gentler than essential oils, their medicine is potent, and their effects can be profound.

There are different ways for us to extract and concentrate the medicinal compounds within a plant in order to receive their healing support.

A tincture is extracted using ethanol, a glycerite using glycerine, an oxymel using apple cider vinegar and honey, and an infusion using water. A double extraction is a combination of water and alcohol extractions.

Different solvents extract different compounds, so depending on what parts of the plant we are wanting to work with, we’ll choose a different solvent. You’ll see in the apothecary that I make both tinctures and double extractions for different blends to make sure we are getting the best medicine possible.

Some tinctures are taken as needed (for inflammation, for acute anxiety, etc.) whereas others take time to fully register in the body (chaste berry in Cycle Support being one that takes up to two months of regular use).

Dosage and consistency are key.

The healing oils can be used as liberally and as frequently as you like. Sometimes just opening the bottle and smelling the fragrance is enough, and other times you may feel compelled to massage a certain oil into your hands, arms, chest, neck, feet...

When I'm working with a certain oil I will keep it on my bedside table and apply it before bed, letting the medicine inform my sleep, and then I'll apply some more first thing in the morning. Then I'll put it in my purse and reapply throughout the day as spirit moves me.

You can also use them as a massage oil by first oiling your skin with olive or coconut oil, or any oil of your choice, and then rubbing a little of the medicine over top and giving yourself a deep, loving massage. This is an excellent self-care routine that not only encourages the absorption of the medicine, strengthens your connection with the plants, but also supports the regulation of your nervous system. Body oiling is an ancient and powerful healing practice.

The Agua Floridas can be sprayed anywhere and anytime you’d like to cleanse, purify or protect. You can simply spray them over your body and face when you’d like some clarity and uplifting, or when you want to energetically and spiritually protect yourself before going into an area with many other people. You can do a deeper cleansing of yourself, others, spaces, or sacred objects by praying with the plants, holding the intention of purification, and using a feather to help the mist move the density.

With both of these medicines, I encourage you to let Spirit move you, and to trust that it’s you who ultimately knows the best way to be supported.

Hydrosols are delicate and gentle, and can make great facial toners. Most hydrosols can be sprayed onto the face undiluted. Depending on the blend of plants, they can be used on the face and body to receive different healing properties and achieve different effects.

In addition to their spiritual and energetic applications, hydrosols can be used as air fresheners, for belly support, care for damaged or sore skin, to cool hot and tender skin, as calming facial toners, for immune support, as insect repellant, for lymph support, to open the breath, to relieve stress and anxious feelings, for wound healing, and much, much more.