BLOG 150: THE 5 BENEFITS OF USING FLOWER ESSENCES FOR WELLNESS AND SKIN

This blog post is all about the healing power of flowers and how we can use them to support our minds, bodies, and souls, as well as our faces.

I had a great chat recently with Katie Hess, an expert in flower alchemy and founder of Lotuswei. Katie joined me on the Face Yoga Expert Podcast to share some of her insights into how we can all use flower essences to awaken our true potential.

A lot of what Katie talked about on the podcast aligns beautifully with the holistic approach to beauty and wellness that we take in Face Yoga. Using flower essences is all about connecting to your intuition and understanding how your emotions and thoughts affect your physical body.

Since this form of energetic medicine complements face yoga so well, I wanted to share some of the benefits of using flower essences with you in this blog post.

You can also listen to my full conversation with Katie via the podcast.

WHAT ARE FLOWER ESSENCES?

Essentially, flower essences are liquid infusions of wildflowers. Traditionally, these are made using a solution of alcohol and water, but Katie has also incorporated them into body oils, bath salts, and aromatherapy mists.

Katie explained that flowers contain the most life energy of any part of the plant. Flower essences capture and preserve that life force and allow us to introduce it to our own bodies, either internally or externally.

The life force or Qi of the flower then moves through the meridians of the body. These are the same energy pathways that have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years. We use them in face yoga when we stimulate the acupressure points or use facial tools like gua sha.

Flower essences were reintroduced to the modern Western world quite recently. They were popularised in the 1930s and 40s by Dr Edward Bach. You might be familiar with Bach’s Rescue Remedy, or others in Bach’s flower remedies range.

Katie says that people sometimes think flower essences are a new thing because of this. However, that’s not the case at all. Many traditional healing systems have used flower essences for thousands of years. They’re part of the indigenous practices of people in areas as diverse as Central America, Australia, and the Himalayas.

There’s a long history of using flower essences in Europe too. Before modern medicine, doctors and alchemists would often tell people to seek out specific flowers and drink the morning dew from them to improve their wellbeing.

However, it wasn’t until Dr Bach developed a method to scale that dew and bottle it that it became easy and accessible for anyone to incorporate flower essences into their daily routine.

HOW CAN FLOWER ESSENCES HELP OUR SKIN AND OVERALL WELLNESS?

Katie is passionate about flower essences and their ability to support us with anything and everything about being human. Whether you need help with something that is challenging you or want to bring forward a certain positive aspect of yourself, there’s a flower for that.

Of course, I was especially interested to learn how flower essences can help our faces and skin, as well as our overall wellness. Here are five of the benefits that Katie identified:

1. WORK WITH THE ENERGETIC BODY

Flower essences are a form of energetic medicine, which means they work with the energetic body instead of focusing on the physical one. 

Katie explained that physical issues normally don’t start in the body at all. They begin in our energetic bodies and move into our mental and emotional fields. If we don’t manage those issues or fail to address them, they manifest in our physical bodies.

Since the skin is the largest organ in the body, it is often where we manifest how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world. While other factors, like hormonal changes or external toxins, can also have an effect, skin issues often reflect something that needs addressing in the energetic body.

While Katie’s work with flower essences usually focuses on accelerating personal growth, she’s noticed that people also start to look more radiant, healthier, and younger after incorporating flower essences into their lives. The essences may work with the energetic body, but this has a happy side effect of also improving the skin.

2. ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSE

One of the reasons that working with flower essences helps to heal skin issues and give us a natural glow is that it goes beyond treating the symptoms and instead addresses the root cause of the problems we’re experiencing.

For example, many people struggle with redness and irritation. Katie says this can often be a sign that we’re feeling irritated or frustrated in other areas of our lives. In which case, taking a flower essence that helps to shift that emotional and mental energy can also improve our skin.

Holly hock is a great example. It helps when we’re feeling stuck and irritated in a relationship, something that often manifests as irritation in the skin.

3. RELEASE STRESS AND TENSION

If you are a long-term reader, you already know how important releasing stress and tension is in face yoga. We tend to hold emotions in our muscles, especially the muscles of our faces. Over time, this tension can cause lines and affect the health of our skin.

One of the main benefits of Face Yoga is that it releases this tightness from our facial muscles and helps us to feel calmer and more relaxed. Flower essences can also help to tackle the underlying emotional and mental causes of this stress.

By helping us get unstuck from emotional patterns and ways of thinking that don’t serve us, flower essences also relieve tension in the face. We can change so much about how we look by changing how we think, feel, and behave.

Although external factors, like diet and skincare, can also have a great effect, it is often a change to our inner landscape that has the biggest impact on our skin.

4. GET A BETTER NIGHT’S SLEEP

Sleep is so essential to all aspects of our physical and mental wellbeing, including the health of our skin. But an increasing number of people have problems sleeping well. I’ve certainly noticed an increase in people experiencing sleep issues in the past couple of years, due to the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic.

Katie too has seen a big increase in people struggling with sleep issues since she first founded her company, which she thinks also relates to the increased use of electronic devices. She says that flower essences can help by balancing our biorhythms, making it easier for us to fall asleep at night.

Lotuswei offers a blend called Quiet Mind, which contains flowers like passionflower and bird of paradise. These essences won’t make you fall asleep during the day but do help to establish healthy biorhythms so that you can more easily release your worries and relax at bedtime.

5. CONNECT TO YOUR INTUITION

Finally, something I have found incredibly powerful is learning to connect to my intuition and let my inner knowing guide me, both in taking care of my wellness and in making decisions for my personal and professional life.

Katie agrees. She says that working with flowers is a fantastic way to learn to trust your own wisdom. Instead of depending on someone else to fix what’s wrong, you begin to realise that you are the master of your own wellness. Even if you don’t intellectually understand it, you’ll find yourself drawn instinctively to the flowers you most need.

Certain flowers can also enhance your connection to your intuition. Katie recommends eyebright, water lily, fern, and shell ginger as some flowers that help you trust that you can take the first step and figure out the rest as you go.

PLANT-BASED SKINCARE

The flower essences that Katie works with support our skin and our overall wellness by helping us to release stress, shift our mindsets, and embrace our intuition. Of course, plants can also be amazing allies when applied to our skin externally.

I love to use botanical skincare ingredients to nourish and moisturise my face from the outside. I’ve used my Fusion by Danielle Collins Pro Lift Facial Moisturising Serum for a few years now. Packed with high-performing seed oils, it works in harmony with our skin’s natural ability to heal and regenerate.

More recently, I’ve added a Pro Collagen Mask to the Fusion range. Made with French rose clay, rosehip oil, shea butter, and jojoba oil, it deeply cleanses and hydrates the skin.

Both are made with organic ingredients and are fully vegan. You can find them in my shop.