Offered: April 9, 2011, 10am - 4:30pm
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Rachel Berry

Gain independence from store-bought personal care products and all those plastic bottles that liter your bathroom.  Make safe and effective hair and body care products using ingredients from the garden and the kitchen. Save money, reduce your exposure to unwanted chemicals, and reduce your carbon footprint!

No prior experience with making herbal remedies is necessary.  You will learn basic techniques in how to collect and process herbs, from picking to preservation.  We will focus on plants that are safe and easy to grow in the garden and/or abundant in nearby wild lands. Together as a class, you will make and take home a set of the following products (a $35+ value):

Herbal Shampoo: Using a combination of herbal infused oil, strong herbal tea, and castille soap, we’ll make a shampoo you can customize for your own hair type and make again and again at home for less than $1 per batch.

Toothpowder: Safe and effective toothpowder can be made with variety of household ingredients.  We’ll blend these with local herbs and some essential oils to create a pleasant, extremely economical alternative to the flouride-free herbal options at the health food store.  Customize the flavor and scent to your own liking.

Deodorant: We’ll use abundant, local wild plants to create a pleasant and effective deodorant.  Customize the scent if you choose with essential oils.

Anti-bacterial Mouthwash: Did you know the active ingredient in Listerine is derived from thyme? We’ll use the strong anti-microbial actions of the plant world and leave out the chemicals and dyes included in commercial mouthwash.  We’ll add other herbs known to help promote dental and gum health.  This is an incredible product for dental health!

All products are made with local, organic herbs and other pure ingredients that are chemical free.  We’ll also discuss approaches for making other personal care products such as hair rinse, facial scrubs, and more.  

You’ll leave class with:
- a set of organic herbal products to take home
- the recipes and know-how to make them again and again at home
- basic knowledge of how to make a medicinal oil and tincture
- a list of resources for getting started at home and expanding your herbal repertoire, including a list of very useful plants that are relatively easy to grow in your backyard.

Course Fees

Class size is limited - register early!

Click here to register.

Class fee: $95 per person (includes all materials)
               $85 per person if you bring a friend (and register together)

Instructor: Rachel Berry

Rachel blends her background in community health, women’s health, medicinal herbs, and sustainable living practices to inspire and promote home-scale herbalism.  She created Backyard Botanics, a family herbal body care business in the Sierra Foothills, to offer high quality herbal self-care made with local ingredients. Her training includes years of self-study and practice working with herbs for home remedies; formal training programs with Donna D’Terra, Kathi Keville and Candis Cantin; and studying health and health care practices among traditional healers in Chiapas, Mexico.  She holds a master's degree in Health Psychology and worked many years as university instructor in women’s health and as a public health advocate for women and children. 

Commonweal Garden is familiar ground for Rachel — she lived and worked there for the first several years of its development as the Regenerative Design Institute. In these gardens, she learned to connect more deeply to the natural world, use the local plant life to nourish herself, offer herbal first aid to course participants, and create pure and effective herbal care for her family.

Return to the Re-Skilling Series home page