I’ve got a bit of a kink. No, I’m not talking about the kind of local-lovin’ happening at the Lusty Locavore workshop at Come as You Are next week (I’ll be blogging about that later). I’m talkin’ about a kink I know a lot of you openly share with me: our heart-on for all thing’s local! I get way too excited about the zebra tomatoes nearing ripeness in my garden and much too giggly about biting into some farmer’s market zucchini flowers (especially after you deep fry ’em and stuff them with locally made sheep ricotta!). There’s something deeply soul-tinglingly satisfying about knowing, seeing, feeling where your food comes from. So what about our bodycare?

When I got a question about 100 mile bodycare I was, naturally, super pumped to look into it. When you ask around for 100-mile creams and shampoos, you’ll find people mostly direct you to the many wonderful indy companies physically making all natural and/or organic personal care products in your hometown. Companies we should all be supporting as much as possible to keep our sustainable economies humming. In fact, I asked you all about your favourite hometown brands in an Ecoholic Facebook poll last week and the answers came flooding in with love. But what about companies actually weaving in ingredients grown spitting  distance from their studios or plucked from three towns over? For the answer, you’ll have to read this week’s column. It’s also loaded with a bunch of ideas on growing your own bodycare or using farmers market ingredients to make DIY zit zappers, face scrubs, moisturizers and more. If you’ve got other ideas for using blueberries, squash, sweet potatoes, local yogurt/eggs/milk in DIY bodycare recipes, please post ’em here for all to share!

Thought I’d leave you with a DIY recipe that had to be cut from Ecoholic Body when I was shaving off 50 pages because the book was too darn long.

VAL’S WILD WEED HEALING OINTMENT

You don’t have to live in the Kooteney ranges of BC like family friend “grandma Val” to make this healing ointment. All you need is some super healing yarrow (a white wildflower that grows like weeds all across Canada and whose healing powers are the stuff of Greek legends, literally).

Start by filling a 1-litre glass jar with clean, well-dried chopped up yarrow (roots too), top with olive oil (though if you want to go totally 100 mile look for a local oil from your home province), heat the whole jar up in a pot of boiling water, cool then store for a few months in dark cool place.
Once it’s deeply steeped, sieve out the yarrow, reheat the oil in a double boiler and add 1/8 cup of beeswax. Once melted, stir and pour into small glass jars, cool, then seal. You’ll have enough magical remedy to hand out to friends and family.

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