Essential Oils

I've been interested in essential oils for a long time and have used them mainly to refresh potpourri and in a spray bottle as a room freshener. I spray my pillow at night with a lavender mixture. Mmmm.

On discovering that "wipes" made to clean yoga mats were pretty expensive, I looked for a recipe to make my own.

There are lots of natural cleaning recipes online for all kinds of specific purposes, and I found several for cleaning yoga mats. They differed in whether they used soap, borax, vingegar, distilled water, vodka, etc.

I finally filled a 2 oz. spray bottle with distilled water and vodka and added drops of spearmint, eucalyptus, tea tree oil, and lavender essential oils until I was satisfied with the scent. Started with about 8 drops of each, but less of tea tree oil because while it has effective antiseptic and antifungal properties, it has a very strong, medicinal scent. I kept adding drops of spearmint and lavender until I loved the freshness.

Spray a little on the mat after practice, wipe it off, done. Mat is clean and smells good, and there is little effort involved.

I also made some wipes using a similar combination of oils out of extra thick paper towels and can use them on feet or hands. Cut the thick paper towels to the size you want, fold, put in a plastic freezer bag, and saturate by spraying into the bag.

Three of my favorites scents.