WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED IN THE WORLD?

We are currently based in the state of New York, USA. We grow and harvest primarily in the Western Catskills mountain region of the state.

WHAT IS THIS "PLANT MEDICINE FOR LIFE" THINGY I SEE EVERYWHERE ON YOUR SITE?

PLANT MEDICINE FOR LIFE is our credo and practice. It represents our respect and devotion to the plant and living world as our ancestor and kin.

ALRIGHT, BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS PLANT MEDICINE?

Plant medicine is the practice of using various parts of plants to heal an issue or to support a healthy response in the body. The body already innately knows how to heal itself but sometimes there are roadblocks that impair this natural response.

Plant medicine can offer many ways in which to heal without the harmful side effects often seen with pharmaceutical use. This doesn't mean that plant medicine isn't powerful or that it can never cause harm. Plant medicine can be extremely powerful and it requires proper understanding and dosage for safe use. It is also not a replacement for an emergency situation or a judgment of life saving pharmaceuticals.

It is important to consult with your healthcare provider prior to taking any medicines, especially if you are on pharmaceuticals. However, if we are to generalize, there are tonic plant medicines and system specific plant medicines. Tonic medicines are generally considered safe for most folks, have nutritive and tonifying qualities, and are taken over a longer period of time to affect support in the body. They often have no contraindications with other medicines, are well-tolerated, and sometimes are taken as an actual food, like oats or nettles. Our Reishi tincture would be an example of a tonic medicine (even though reishi is not a plant).

System specific plant medicines point to use in a particular issue that needs physiological addressing, usually in a specific body system such as the respiratory system, the limbic system, the urinary system. These medicines are usually used on a more short term basis, sometimes for an acute condition, and often require  specific dosing guidelines. Our Be Better tincture would be an example of a system specific medicine that is taken for the short term. The plants such as boneset and yarrow contained in this formula address support in the respiratory system during the exposure and recovery phase.

Plant medicine can look like many things: it can be a balm you put on the skin, a tea you drink, a smoke you disperse, or it can also be a tiny bottle of liquid ingested in dropperful doses. This is a called a tincture.

BUT WTF IS A TINCTURE? A GLYCERITE? AN ELIXIR??

Tinctures, glycerites, elixirs, extractions…

These are all words that describe a technique of preserving and concentrating certain qualities in a plant so they can get into your body system in a quick and effective way. Our ancestors walked and walked, and gathered and nibbled their medicines as they needed, and as they had access throughout the seasons. Some people still do this to this day. Tincturing plants is just another way we can take the qualities of these plants with us.

The tincturing process basically involves soaking plant material in a liquid, usually alcohol, to pull and preserve the medicinal qualities. The liquid is shaken and tended to for several weeks by hand and then pressed, strained and bottled for use. And that’s your tincture!

A glycerite is basically the same process but instead of using alcohol as your soaking liquid, vegetable glycerin is used. Additional steps like using some type of heat also helps in the extraction process for glycerites.

An elixir is typically a combination of an alcohol extraction and sweet based extraction, usually in the form of honey or glycerite. The consistency is often a bit thicker and more pleasant tasting, especially when using plants that contain more bitter compounds. You also are getting a different spectrum of compounds when you combine two forms of extraction this way.

An extraction is just another word for the process described above in pulling chemically active qualities (constituents) from plants using different mediums (also called menstruums). A tea could also be considered an extraction because it is using water as the "pulling" medium.

You may see herbal products on the market that have what is called a "standardized extraction". What this usually means is a "desirable" compound has been identified in a particular plant for it's specific benefits. This compound is isolated from the whole of the plant, usually in a laboratory setting, and sold in a specific measurement known as a "standardized extraction". An example of this is the extraction of a compound called curcumin from the turmeric plant. 

While standardized extractions have their place, we want to emphasize that this is not our particular medicine making practice. We use whole plant extraction techniques because we believe compounds in plants are synergistic. Plant medicine works in many complex ways, sometimes in ways not fully understood, but it is conceptualized in wholism: the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. When in isolate, with plants divided into their chemical parts, an allopathic notion tends to be applied to a much more enigmatic system of practice.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BALM AND A SALVE?

Not much! They are both semi-soft substances typically made from oils and waxes and applied topically to the skin. A salve is generally used to support some sort of problem, while a balm is generally used to offer some sort of protection. Sometimes these uses are interchangeable with a product. For example, our Sunny Toolkit salve offers support for wounds, while our Balm For All Kind offers protection and support to dry and irritated skin.

The oils in both a salve and a balm can also be infused with plant materials to give additional benefit and the waxes can come from a variety of sources. All of the oils in our products are plant based and carefully chosen for the specific benefits they provide to the skin. Almost all of our oils are also infused with our plants to provide even more benefit. The only wax we currently employ in our products is New York sourced raw beeswax.

OK, BUT WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOW ABOUT INFUSING PLANTS IN OILS?

Much like the tincturing process described above, infused oils are simply using oil- rather than alcohol or water, for example-as the extracting medium or menstruum. We take fresh or dried plant material, usually grown and harvested by us, place it in a carefully selected oil, and we steep it until the beneficial effects of that plant are extracted. Our oils are shaken daily with attention and typically steep for a minimum of a month in a nice warm place before they are pressed and ready for use in our products. It is also important to understand that these are not what is know as essential oils.

Essential oils are not technically an oil as we would normally think of one but rather a variety of volatile and aromatic compounds. These are extracted from plants commonly either through steam-distilling or chemical solvents. The process uses a massive amount of plant material to obtain a very tiny yield. These essential oils are extremely precious and used in very fine amounts due to their potency. It should go without saying that the production of essential oils can put an enormous strain on plant harvests and we seek to be mindful and conscious about our use of these highly valuable gifts.

Any essential oils we use are in very small, thoughtful amounts and meant to contribute to the beneficial qualities of the final product. We only source from two  highly transparent, sustainable companies that only obtain organic plants.

CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR CUSTOM PRODUCTS?

You may request to work directly with us to design your own personal product. Send us an inquiry about what your needs are, what you are looking to achieve, size and format of what you need, and we can work with you to provide a suitable consult within the parameters of our access and stock of materials. Please note, we are not a contract manufacturer or private label. We are a teeny, tiny, handmade business with limitations to our production line. Custom products are specifically for folks who have a personal request for a product.
 We offer this service not only to serve you but to get a grasp of the needs out there.

We want you to be happy. If a product is defective or damaged in transit, we will gladly replace or exchange it for another.

We seek to stay as close to our sources as we can. Wherever possible we are growing or ethically wildcrafting the plant materials we use. We use ingredients from communities and businesses as physically close as possible to where we live and with whom we are familiar. Some examples of local sourcing outside of what we personally harvest from the land: the sunflower oil in our Heart Shaped Cream and Sunny Toolkit is grown, harvested and cold-pressed in NY State; the apple cider vinegar, ginger (yes), and honey in our Fire Cider is all sourced in the Western Catskills; the beeswax in all of our skin care products including Heart Shaped Cream, Sunny Toolkit, Balm For All Kind, and the Succulent comes ethically sourced from the Hudson Valley. If you have specific questions about material origins, please don't hesitate to get in touch!