How Natural Beauty Loving Hippies Vacation

After working at Clinique for a few years, my mom decided to get her esthetician license. This happened while I was in high school, working at Lancome. That Christmas, I bought my mom Janice Cox's Natural Beauty at Home book.

Needless to say, natural beauty was not as trendy back then. It was more for us to play with ingredients in the kitchen than for actual application on her clients. When I moved to college, all things beauty were put on hold. My mom would give me awesome facials when I went home to visit, but that was about it.

Then a couple years ago, I found a giant aloe leaf in my sister's bathroom. She always struggled with her skin, even with an esthetician for a mom. My heart goes out to people with trouble skin because it is not easy. My sister was using aloe gel straight from the plant for a moisturizer. While I knew aloe was healing, I thought she should be using some kind of oil to help moisturize her dry skin too.

Source www.janicecox.com

Enter Ms. Janice Cox. That winter I pulled her book out and started researching recipe ideas to help my sister. That one conversation got my beauty juices going again, and now two years later I'm attending the first Florida Herbal Conference this weekend in Ocala.

My second beauty book was Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Recipes, and I'm so excited that I will get to hear her speak at the conference. I'm also looking forward to the nature walks through the Ocala National Forest to learn about native plants and herbs. There is going to be lots of yoga, which is so healing for my hyperactive mind. I will also be first in line for the natural beauty and healthy cooking workshops. The best part of all, no offense to anyone, is that there are a bunch of earth-friendly, natural beauty loving hippies gathering in one place. It sounds fun and relaxing all at once!

Here are the workshops I plan on attending:

• Growing Herbs in Florida Climate
• Healing Belly Dance 
• Walking Over Medicine: Edible & Medicinal Weeds of North Florida 
• Natural Beauty and Body Care (of course!)
• Ethnobotany Walk
• Food as Medicine, Medicine as Food 
   

If you are interested in learning more about the conference, follow @HerbConference. If I have reception, I'll tweet periodic updates after the workshops @floraesthetics, hashtag #HerbConference.