Ebook Master Recipes from the Herbal Apothecary 375 Tinctures Salves Teas Capsules Oils and Washes for WholeBody Health and Wellness JJ Pursell 9781604698527 Books

Product details Paperback 288 pages Publisher Timber Press (March 19, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1604698527

Master Recipes from the Herbal Apothecary 375 Tinctures Salves Teas Capsules Oils and Washes for WholeBody Health and Wellness JJ Pursell 9781604698527 Books Reviews

• I am an Aromatherapy certification student and I purchased this book to help increase my knowledge of non-oil, herbal based remedies. I was disheartened to see unsafe recommendations for adding essential oils directly to bath salts, without any carrier oil or method to solubilize the oils. This was also true for an acne facial spray, which added essential oils to witch hazel and herbs - witch hazel does not provide proper dilution; and for room sprays which included only essential oils and water. A room spray must include either high-proof alcohol or polysorbate in order to prevent the oil floating on top of the water. It will also need alcohol or a preservative to avoid growing bacteria or mold - which begins immediately at the time of blending. I believe the herbal, non-oil recipes are sound, and she provides good guidelines for how to make tinctures, teas, and salves, but she loses credibility when she ventures into the essential oils. As I am not an herbalist, I honestly don't know if her herbal recipes are safe for certain.
• As an herbalist and holistic health advocate, I really like this book! It has fantastic recipes on herbal medicine, natural health, wellness, self-care and holistic healing. The layout is extremely clear, so you can find a recipe for your ailment quickly and easily. I'd prefer if there was a bit more depth of info on each recipe, but there is a larger quantity of remedies instead. This book empowers you to care for yourself and loved ones using natural, plant-based remedies. I make a lot of natural health supplement capsules, so I love that there are plenty of recipes here for them, as well as many other forms of natural medicine, including tinctures, tisanes, flower essence blends, aromatherapy blends, suppositories, fomentations, syrups, massage oils, poultices, lozenges, and more.
  
  Master Recipes is great for beginner healers and more advanced herbalists and naturopaths as well. It has an overview of important herbs to have on hand, as well as basic formulation methods. There is something for everyone here, with recipes for treating and preventing a very wide array of health concerns, from the everyday to the chronic. It's informative, easy to understand, and full of useful homemade remedies and anecdotes. JJ Pursell never disappoints with her knowledge, research and writing. This herbal recipe book is fantastic!
  
  (I'm disappointed that the book costs $4 less now than it did last month. I should've just waited instead of jumping to purchase it brand new.)
• Love this book. As a new user of herbs this book is clear and concise.
• Master Recipes from the Herbal Apothecary is a practical book for people who pursue health and wellness with herbs. I find the list of kitchen supplies needed to get started and the table with types of preparations, their uses and the dosage guidelines very helpful. The only thing that confuses me is the size of capsules the reader is supposed to use in capsule preparations. Other than that the book is very comprehensive. There are very good step-by-step photographs that show how make the different kinds of preparations. For each health concern you can choose between a couple of recipe alternatives, for example a tea, a tincture, or an essential oil blend. Overall, there is a broad variety of really good recipes in the book with herbal combinations I have not thought of before. The recipes are not only for different medical conditions, for example a cold, but also for the general well-being and emotional support, which in my opinion is as important for our health. The recipes that caught my eye for example are the Screen Time Relief Mask, The Get-Up and Go Tea , the No-Monsters-Allowed Spray, the Child-Calming Massage Oil, and the Happiness Balm, to mention just a few.
• I would like to thank Timber Press for providing me with a free – temporary – electronic ARC of this book, via Netgalley. Although I required their approval, the decision to read this book is my choice and any reviews given are obligation free.
  
  Regular readers of my reviews will know I am interested in herbalism. And, indeed this book had been on my radar for a while. ‘Master Recipes from the Herbal Apothecary’ is a highly detailed, well researched book on herbalism for health, beauty, and well-being.
  
  I do have some quibbles, but they are very minor, so feel I should get them out of the way first. Firstly, in the section where it lists all the most commonly “useful” herbs, I do wish it included where they grew/ the climate they preferred. As I know for a fact not all of them are going to be able to successfully all grow in the one backyard, as some were cold weather plants, some temperate, some tropical. So, actually stating this for all readers would have been good, as not everyone is going to have that plant knowledge. That way people would know their limits as to which plants they could grow themselves, based on their location, and which they will always need to source from shops.
  
  Also, in the recipe sections, a clear statement of when dried herbs vs fresh herbs were used in a recipe would have also been beneficial. Yes, some recipes actually ask for some herbs in powder form, so I knew that meant they were dried and, well, powdered. But in other cases it wasn’t stated as to whether the required amount was in dry or fresh herbs. I would have liked this for every recipe. Simply for the reasons I’ve given above. Not all the herbs can be fresh as no all grow in the same place.
  
  But, other than those tiny issues, this was still a fantastic book. So informative and extremely thorough on the areas covered. Men’s health, women’s health, children and infant’s health, animal health, and overall well-being. I loved the different sections and all they entailed. This is a very comprehensive book for any herbalist’s home.
  
  It’s not all recipes though, it is also the storage, preparation, conversions of metric to imperial… everything a home herbalist will require. Including that all important message that this book should only be referenced for minor ailments and that a holistic general practitioner should be seen for anything too serious or major. This is the best balance of herbalism – the ability to look after health, beauty and well-being for the whole family for all things every day and minor, but the knowledge that sometimes modern western medicine may be needed.
  
  Formatting and layout were up to the usual high standards I have come to expect from Timber Press.
  
  Would I recommend this book to others?
  
  Yes I would. For people interested in herbalism at beginner level through to the more experienced. I would mention my minor issues with it, but emphasise they do not ruin the book, but are simply things the reader and home healer must take into consideration when stocking their own apothecary’s pantry.
  
  Would I buy this book for myself?
  
  Yes I would. In paperback form, as I just prefer my recipe books in that form. But I can indeed see this book being squeezed into the ever diminishing spare shelving of my herbalism section of the bookshelves.
  
  In summary A very comprehensive and information book of herbalism.