The Herb Lover's Spa Book. Sue Goetz

were used in the daily lives of our ancestors. The specific label officinalis or officinale, meaning “of the druggist’s storeroom,” signifies that in past recorded history the plant was used commercially as medicine. In the eighteen century, as Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus was bestowing names on plants, many herbs were already common and familiar to herbalists. Linnaeus had to decide between a plant’s official status to identify it or another descriptive word for the species – and so officinalis was tagged onto an herb that was being regularly used for medicine at the time. It gives us a much deeper sense of history when we encounter ordinary garden herbs with the species name “officinalis.”

      HERBS FOR SKIN CARE: NATURAL VS. “NATURAL”

      Cosmetic use of plant material is rooted deep in our collective past, with records and recipes handed down through the ages. The awareness of plant material used as healing and aromatic skin preparations has been with us since biblical times. And then came Theron T. Pond, a New Yorker who learned about a wonderful herb that the local Native Americans were using as a topical application for the skin. In 1846, Pond mixed a simple blend of witch hazel, oil, wax and water that was developed as “Pond’s Extract.” This was the early beginnings of what is now a multi-billion-dollar cosmetic industry.