At Christmastime, people often give gifts that are not-so-healthy and we want to empower you to give the gift of health instead! Just think about it: loads of sugar (tasty treats) and lots of chemicals (smelly body care & perfumes) are just the tip of the iceberg.
This year, join us in starting a NEW tradition and let’s bless the people around us with healthy gifts that will truly be appreciated!
In today’s episode, we’ll explore the best gifting options to fit any budget. Whether it be a DIY gift that you pour your heart into, healthy events that you can do together, or simple gifts like an essential oil, we have you covered. We’ll even tell you how to figure out what to give, and how to put it together super fancy!
We’ll also share lots of recipes and other ideas to bless loved ones and the people with natural gifts that help them share in the abundant life this holiday season.
Join us to get your holiday gifting started!
Table of Contents
Listen Here
Episode Highlights
- Diffuser reveal, testimonial time & topic introduction (3:06)
- Why give the gift of health? (9:37)
- Healthy gift-giving tips and ideas (16:32)
- DIY gifts & recipes (25:46)
- DIY toothpaste gifts & recipes(33:15)
- More DIY gifting tips (37:43)
- Gifting single essential oils (49:06)
- The gifts of the magi (1:00:21)
- Natural living tip and episode wrap (1:05:25)
Quotable Quotes
“What are you giving people this year? Are you going to give people things that might not be healthy for them or are you going to give people something that could do them good?” – Dr. Z“To get some gift ideas on what to make, ask people how things are going to discover what they need.” – Mama Z“If you have a friend or a loved one that you want to spend time with, there’s nothing better or more valuable than giving the gift of your time.” – Dr. Z
“If you don’t have time as much to DIY, you can simply add essential oils to shampoo, hand and body soap, or a good quality unscented organic body cream.” – Mama Z“There’s nothing like giving someone a gift that reaches them where they’re at and lets them know that you are really blessing them with your time.” – Dr. Z
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The contents of this presentation are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This presentation does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
[0:00 – 1:36] Prelude
Dr. Z: And I’ll never forget when this man came to me one day, this was now 15 years ago, almost 14, 13, 15 years ago. And he was talking about how well-behaved his son was. His son had a great day, fantastic. And he’s like, you know what he told me? “I blessed my son,” and I’ll keep names out in case anyone’s listening. But he goes, “You know, I blessed Jimmy and I took him to McDonald’s, and I got him an ice cream cone.” He was just bragging on his kid and he looked at me in my face and my expression was very just blah. I wasn’t encouraging him, I wasn’t nodding.
Mama Z: No, I know your facial expressions when you do that and it’s one of those your face contorts and you lean your head to the side.
Dr. Z: Yes, I can’t hide my feelings very well.
Mama Z: No, you don’t hide your feelings.
Dr. Z: And so he looked at me, he goes, “What did I do wrong?” And we’re talking, he’s a man, this isn’t a child. He’s older than me, old enough to be my… at very least, very, very much older uncle, if not young father. I mean, he’s an older man than me. And he looked at me and I’m like, you… and I said to him, “You blessed your kid with McDonald’s?” I go, “Brother, you poisoned him. You cursed him.” And he looked at me and he’s like, “I never thought of it that way.” I’m like, “That’s exactly what you did.” And so next time his daughter, let’s call her Jill, his daughter, a week or two later, it was awesome and he was bragging on his daughter after church
Mama Z: Yes, didn’t she get A’s after… something at school?
Dr. Z: Something.And he goes, “Guess what? I blessed her with carrot sticks and raisins.” And I looked at him, I go, “Good job brother.”
[1:37 – 2:02] Intro
Dr. Z: Hi, this is Dr. Z.
Mama Z:And Mama Z. Welcome to episode 47 of the Natural Living Family Podcast.
Dr. Z:Each week we invite you into our home to talk about how you can master the art and science of natural living, and we share the same tips our family uses each and every day to enjoy an abundant life. And you’re going to love today’s talk.
Mama Z:So come on in and get comfortable. After all, you’re one of the family: our natural living family.
[2:03–3:05] Sponsor Spotlight: Air Doctor
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[3:06–9:36] Diffuser Reveal, Testimonial Time & Topic Introduction
Dr. Z: Well, happy holidays everybody. We are finishing this year’s episodes with all sorts of stuff about holidays, happiness, holiday healthiness and holiday goodies. We just covered a couple of few weeks on Thanksgiving and now we’re transitioning into Christmas and New Year. I hope you’ve enjoyed this…basically, it’s almost two month’s series, this has been good.
Mama Z: Yes, absolutely. And this is the most wonderful time of the year, truly is.
Dr. Z: It is. And just so you know, Jesus is the reason for this season and we glorify God, and we thank Him for all the great things that He’s given us. And as the weather gets chilly, we are just preparing our hearts and drinking warm lattes and matcha lattes, and nice herbal tea, and we have our space heater on here because Mama Z’s feet gets cold. If you hear anything in the background, that’s the hum, hum, hum of the space heater and we’re just here. Yes, if you’re watching on YouTube or Facebook, we got the Christmas tree behind us, we are ready.
Mama Z: Yes, and I must say that the kids were so excited that our tree would appear on the podcast, that they took it all seriously. And actually I have a couple of really cute pictures of the four kids, including Bella at three years old, decorating the tree.
Dr. Z: Yes, this actually is a Christmas tree honoring the children. It’s a children’s ornament tree.
Mama Z: It is, so, what I realized was, is their ornaments that they made at school over all these years, were starting to take over our traditional Christmas tree. So I wanted it to be something fun and this tree, believe it or not, is a half Christmas tree, it’s a corner Christmas tree.
Dr. Z: Corner, it fits in the corner of your room.
Mama Z: It’s a half a tree and so it fits in the corner, so it doesn’t take up as much room. And the kids were so excited to put all of their favorite ornaments that they created at school, at church and every other place. And they’ve been really creative and they’ve pretty much done it since they were two or three years old.
Dr. Z: My vote is that we keep this tree up all year.
Mama Z: My vote is that we keep it up during the times of the year that relate to our holiday season.
Dr. Z: Well, we actually, a big shout out to our friends Jim and Patty, because our friends Jim and Patty actually gifted us this tree. They’ve been empty nesters now for many, many years and they’ve moved recently, and they’re cleaning out their beautiful basement and attic full of stuff. And I remember, because we went to a Bible study at their home, I think it was in June or July a few years back, but it was in the middle of the summer and I saw this Christmas tree. I was like, “How cool is that Christmas tree? It’s a corner tree, I’ve never seen it.” And it was on.
Mama Z: And then you just happened to say, “Patty, if you ever decide to get rid of that tree, I would love to get it as gift.”
Dr. Z: I don’t think I said it that way.
Mama Z: Yeah, you did.
Dr. Z: Well, you know you’ve got to put it out there sometimes.
Mama Z: So she says to me, “You know, I am getting rid of that corner Christmas tree and I remember that Eric said that he would really like to have it as a gift, so If you still want it, I have it.”
Dr. Z: Hey, it’s either me or a neighbor that they don’t even know that well. Seriously, I’ll take it. Praise the Lord.
Mama Z: And we love them.
Dr. Z: Jim and Patty, we love you. Thank you.
Mama Z: They’ve been one of our biggest fans and they’ve been great friends over the years.
Dr. Z: But seriously, this tree is right next to the kids’ play area down in the basement, and this is where our basement studio is when we do these podcasts. And I really do, I think it’s a great idea. But anyway, we don’t want to get too much into it. We got a couple of fun announcements, but before we do.
Mama Z: Absolutely what’s in the diffuser? My Christmas trees blend, it is three drops of orange essential oil, either a wild or sweet, three drops of Cypress essential oil, two drops of Douglas Fir, and two drops of Nutmeg.
Dr. Z: Awesome. And here’s a fun testimonial that is perfect for today’s episode, and I don’t think we’ve even announced today’s episode, its episode 47, giving the gift of health this holiday season. That’s why we chose this wonderful, wonderful five star rating. Thank you so much. And the title of this five star rating is “July 1st episode.”
Let’s go back a couple months and this is from Healthier, I love that name, Healthier from Canada. She left this to us a little while ago. “Thank you so much Dr. Z and Mama Z for this episode on raising kids, the N-L-F way (Natural Living family way). One of my frustrations is the constant shower of candy and junk food that my child receives at school and at sports.
My son is 8 years old and this year I’ve had a very frank discussion with him about how to politely decline junk food after a soccer game, from cupcakes to freezies, popsicles and candy. I just don’t understand this need that some parents have to reward with junk. And I’m so glad to be part of a group of like-minded people who teach their children how to truly take care of themselves. Thank you for all that you do. You two are the greatest and congratulations to Mama Z on all your success.” And that was in regards to Mama Z winning Mrs. Georgia earlier this year. Well, first of all, thank you Healthier from Canada.
Mama Z: Yes, thank you.
Dr. Z: And I love this testimonial, by the way, we love these. We love when you all leave them. Please keep on leaving them, whether you listen, wherever you’re listening on these podcasts. Just leave a review, leave a remark, we’d love to read it on the next show.
Mama Z: And it was perfect timing because actually yesterday, a school sent home Esther’s two big Ziploc bags that said “Esther snacks” and then it said “Zielinski snacks,” so it’s the community bag and her large bag. And then we went through and got a whole variety of my approved,“Mama Z approved” snacks to go back to school. And it’s really neat because my son’s first grade teacher does reward him with… they have money in their class, and anytime you have a healthy snack, you get money.
And so he actually gets more excited about the money and then if there’s a birthday tree and you decide to forego even one of the Mama Z approved snacks, then you get extra money. And so for whatever reason, both of the boys, not Esther, but both of the boys decided money was a lot more important than snacks.
[9:37–16:31] Why Give The Gift Of Health?
Dr. Z: Yes, yes. And the reason I really like this testimonial and this review was because we’re talking today about giving the gift of health. So we have a choice right now, and for those of you who are overachievers, I’m sure you’ve already bought or gift wrapped your gifts for Christmas. But for those of you who are waiting or who may be have an open heart, what are you giving people this year? Are you going to get people treats, going to get people candies, are you going to get people fruitcakes, you’re going to give people things that might not be as healthy for them or are you going to give people something that could do them good?
And I think that’s important because like that testimonial, that review just shared, now’s the season really. Whether it’s sports, whether it’s school, now’s the season that people are passing around all kinds of goodies under the guise of, “Hey, it’s just the holidays. We’re just doing it once a year.”
Mama Z: Well, right, absolutely. And to give a shout out to our handyman Mike, he was like, “What do you give the health people that have all this health stuff?” And so he was like, “I found a box of nuts that had all different kinds and I’ve seen them in your pantry, so I know you’ll like these.”
Dr. Z: Thank you Mike.
Mama Z: It was so sweet. And that blessed us because one thing to think about is when you give a gift, you want to think of that other person in mind, just not the giving for you to receive, but what they would actually like. And so that really is so important to remember because he was thinking about what that person would like. And I think that that’s really important.
And as we talk more about gift-giving and some of the things that you can do, I go back to writing lists because, you know, Christmas gifts don’t happen overnight. Now, believe me, I went on December 24th one year, I will never do that again, I had a friend that said, “Let’s go shopping together. Let’s go shopping together.” And it got pushed back, pushed back. I went on December 24th. This was when Tickle Me Elmo was actually popular, and I saw people actually get in a fistfight over Tickle Me Elmo at the store. And I thought, “No, never again. I will never-”
Dr. Z: Well, we’ll cover your late shopping, but we’ve got to set the stage here. Why are we talking about giving the gift of health? This is really important for stocking stuffers because most people stuff stockings with candy canes that’s just loaded with sugar. Our kids have never actually have ever had a candy cane. Yes, you can call them deprived, but you know what? Their teeth are not riddled with cavities and they’re healthy and we’re not sick with the flu, yucky, yucky every year. And so whether it’s stocking stuffers or whether it’s something that you just give somebody, whether it’s a… that proverbial cheese and meat basket yuck thing that I see at Walmart.
I mean, you know, these baskets that people give themselves, they pass around, you know what I mean? What are they called there? It’s unbelievable what’s in this stuff. Here’s the bottom line. We’re going to give you today. We’re going to give you more than a dozen recipes. We’re going to give you more than a dozen tips on things that you can make that give the gift of health. And I would love for you to have the money to be able to buy like a $300 AirDoctor air purifier and bless your family, but most people don’t have the budget for that, but you do have five bucks, and you can make something for five bucks, put a bow on it, put it in a nice bag and someone will have no idea because you would pay 25 or 30 bucks for the same thing.
And this goes to what I used to give you every year. Your stocking stuffers before God showed me the truth about body care products. When we got married, you’re stocking stuffers used to be bath and body works and Victoria’s secret shampoo, and all the things that are filled with chemicals. So again, these are the things that we buy people for each other, right? You’re buying your smelly stuff, you’re buying your colognes, this doesn’t go toward food…
Mama Z: You’d buy it for the year when you did and so you still kept your good… what you did to do it, but the gifts were a lot different and a lot healthier.
Dr. Z: Yes, so what are you giving people? And so when it comes to body care, when it comes to food items, when it comes to drink items, when it comes to any kind of treats, we want to invite you to join us and give something to someone that they would actually appreciate. Give it to them in a way that will bless them. And the story that I always go back to is one of the old elders at our church.
And I’ll never forget when this man came to me one day, this was now 15 years ago, almost 14, 13, 15 years ago. And he was talking about how well-behaved his son was. His son had a great day, fantastic. And he’s like, you know what he told me? “I blessed my son,” and I’ll keep names out in case anyone’s listening. But he goes, “You know, I blessed Jimmy and I took him to McDonald’s, and I got him an ice cream cone.” He was just bragging on his kid and he looked at me in my face and my expression was very just blah. I wasn’t encouraging him, I wasn’t nodding.
Mama Z: No, I know your facial expressions when you do that and it’s one of those your face contorts and you lean your head to the side.
Dr. Z: Yes, I can’t hide my feelings very well.
Mama Z: No, you don’t hide your feelings.
Dr. Z: And so he looked at me, he goes, “What did I do wrong?” And we’re talking, he’s a man, this isn’t a child. He’s older than me, old enough to be my… at very least, very, very much older uncle, if not young father. I mean, he’s an older man than me. And he looked at me and I’m like, you… and I said to him, “You blessed your kid with McDonald’s?” I go, “Brother, you poisoned him. You cursed him.” And he looked at me and he’s like, “I never thought of it that way.” I’m like, “That’s exactly what you did.” And so next time his daughter, let’s call her Jill, his daughter, a week or two later, it was awesome and he was bragging on his daughter after church
Mama Z: Yes, didn’t she get A’s after… something at school?
Dr. Z: Something.And he goes, “Guess what? I blessed her with carrot sticks and raisins.” And I looked at him, I go, “Good job brother.”
So that’s what we’re trying to share with you and we live this way. We will not give someone something that they might want knowing that it will hurt them. I don’t care who it is. I’m not going to go buy a candy bar and give it to someone just because they want it. That’s not blessing them. I’d rather go buy something unique that they want and they’ll appreciate and I know that it will be life-giving.
[16:32 –25:45] Healthy Gift-Giving Tips
Mama Z: Right, so a few tips, so I know we’ve talked about when we go on our car trips, every hundred miles, we give the kids a gift. Well, we basically do the same thing for our stocking stuffers because each child has a specific wrapping paper for them and those things carry over. We set the stage long ago, so it’s always going to be things that they’re going to need. It’s going to be underwear, it’s going to be socks, it’s going to be all of those things. And sure, intermixed in all of that is other things that they want.
And so every fall, the school does a book fair. Sometimes the classroom will actually put a list out… and I remember having these when I was a kid, but they would put a list out of all the things, you went through the book fair and these are my top five favorites. And so if I haven’t gotten their top five favorites after Monday, the week that I know is the book fair, then I have them go to the book fair and write their top five favorites. And then I talked to their teacher because it’s right during when they have fall conferences at school.
And I talk to the teacher about what types of books and other things would be something that they would be interested in or series. Because I remember getting into a few different series when I was in elementary school and then junior high and high school. I also include that kind of stuff as well, not to mention some of the other things that they want, but I think it’s really important to have an educational component, definitely if they need different body products and stuff, taking an inventory of their bathroom and what they need.
Because I’ll tell you, our kids can tell you exactly what they want in their body oil. They’ll tell me, they’re like, “Oh mom, this one’s real good.” They’re like, “Oh, can you make this one again or whatever?” I look at that kind of stuff and then I make sure that they get what they wanted. And so you can set the stage for things and make it fun, and it doesn’t have to be a whole bunch of goodies. Because I do remember so many gifts opening up as a child that were all candy.
Dr. Z: Oh yeah, oh yeah. And so just to paint the picture of what we’re going to be sharing a lot more in just a few minutes is simply put, D-I-Y, do it yourself, add a bow, you got a great gift. Whether its soap, whether it’s a lotion, whether it is… it could be… you could buy a diffuser online for 25 bucks on Amazon, get a five or six, $7 bottle of lavender-done!
Mama Z: I’ll tell you that one diffuser we got the last time when we were on television, I had no idea. It looked like a normal diffuser in the picture, but you bought it on Amazon, and so we had to send things to the TV studio prior to. And this was under $25. It was only $18.99. This diffuser takes 20 drops of essential oils and it runs over eight hours. It says eight hours, but it runs over eight hours. I’ve tested it. It was the best $18.99 I ever spent in my entire life.
Dr. Z: It’s cool. It’s good, it’s cool looking.
Mama Z: When we got it, I never… when I saw it in there, at the TV studio I thought, “Oh my God, I definitely didn’t think it was that big.”
Dr. Z: For those of you who follow us, and if you’re a distributor for Young Living or doTERRA, or you make money selling oils, you’re going to love this show because this show really is all about helping people use essential oils. And I’m telling you something y’all. Get with one of your friends that sells essential oils. Buy one of these $15, $20 little starter kits that typically have lemon, peppermint, lavender, maybe rosemary or something, whatever. Get a little starter kit for 15, 20, 30 bucks, buy someone a diffuser, boom. And the wonderful thing is, well, what do I do? How do I teach people how to use it?
Well, you could as simply go to our website and you can type up lavender, print up the article on lavender, give it to someone or hey, buy my book, The Healing Power of Essential Oils, give that to them and be like, “Hey, here’s a book. Here’s some essential oils. This is going to be great for you.” That’s one approach and the other approach is to make something that’s really, really personal. But before we go into the DIY, I want to encourage you all with a couple of other things about giving the gift of health. If you have a friend or a loved one that you want to spend time with, there’s nothing I don’t think better than giving the gift of your time, and there’s nothing more valuable than giving the gift of your time.
So why not buy a gym membership for you and a friend and be like, “You know what, Jill, Susie, Jim, and we’ve been talking about getting in shape for 5 years. Let’s do it together. I got one, you got one, let’s do this.” And a lot of these places like local, Planet Fitness, YouFit, whatever. 10 bucks a month, that’s super cheap. Why not go pay at the local YMCAs, get like three classes worth of whatever fitness class or rock climbing or something and buy, again, a gift certificate for you and your friend or whatever, and say, “Look, I got us tickets. I got us class passes to do some health classes. Let’s try Zumba, let’s try palates, let’s try yoga.”
But again, you’re not just… here’s the thing I’m trying to say, you’re not just giving it to someone, you’re not giving it to your fat friend. You’re like, “Hey fat friend. Here, exercise to be healthy.” No, we’re not doing that. We’re saying… no, we’re not saying that way. That’s how you offend people. What you’re saying is, “Hey, my loved one, my sister, my brother, my wife, my husband, my daughter, we’ve been talking about this for a while. Let’s do it together. Here’s what I bought for us.” That speaks volumes. Why not get a pass for a pottery class or an art class or something? Say, “Look again, I got a couple of passes for us. Let’s do this together. Let’s have a date just with us.”
Mama Z: Well, and I remember, and this was… I mean, I always joke because I said, “Yes, we had two rubber nickels to rub together.” Actually, the kids really liked it when I said this morning that I took Bella’s fake money and we had maybe two of those nickels to rub together. And I remember you made me a coupon book with all kinds of things in it. Do you remember that?
Dr. Z: Oh yes, and so-
Mama Z: And there was back rubs and foot rubs and-
Dr. Z: I’ll do the dishes tonight, I’ll vacuum.
Mama Z: Yes, it was good. And one time you made one and then one time you actually bought a coupon book and both of them were really good. And I-
Dr. Z: Those have expired by the way. You can’t-
Mama Z: What?
Dr. Z: That was 15 years ago.
Mama Z: No, no, no, I still have a couple of those.
Dr. Z: Yes, those expired in 2011.
Mama Z: Now, one of these times I’m whipping one of those out.
Dr. Z: That’s the other thing, for your spouse.
Mama Z: There was no expiration date.
Dr. Z: I’m telling you, that’s something that goes gold and it’s something cute. And again, hey, I can’t afford 50 bucks from me and my friend to go to an art class or we can’t to a Zumba class. Okay, I get it. I was broke too. I understand. That’s when I created some really fun little things like date night coupon. Whatever it is, let’s go on a walk, let’s go on a hike, let’s spend some time together.
Mama Z: Yes, and we went Frisbee golfing, we did all different things on those date nights.
Dr. Z: Lot of free stuff out there. And if you do have the money, I would say don’t give a gift card to Amazon. Don’t give a gift card to something that you don’t know what they’re going to get. Why not give them a gift card to your local health food store? I would challenge you on this. Support your local health food store. No offense to whole foods, no offense to Sprouts or Trader Joe’s. They get enough business. Go to your local health food store and buy a gift card to them, support them, but also encourage your friend or family member to go there to be exposed.
Mama Z: Buy local.
Dr. Z: Yeah. And if you have it, get a gift card to your local farmer’s market. That’s the other thing you could do. These are just little quick little things you could do.But again, we’re not buying cheese blocks. We’re not buying junky bottles of wine. And by the way, the more that I learn about everything, olive oil, essential oils, believe me when I say this, 95 plus percent of the wine that people see on the supermarket shelves are some of the worst chemical-laced products on the planet. You’d be horrified what’s in your wine, by the way. So if you’re buying a bottle of wine, I don’t care how expensive it is, I’m telling you there’s five wine producers in the country, that private label, 99% of all the bottles that you see and it’s scary.
Mama Z: It’s junk.
Dr. Z: It’s bad junk. I’m saying that, don’t buy a fancy bottle of wine and a cheese block and think you’re blessing somebody.
Mama Z: Right, it’s not, it’s the gift of hell.
Dr. Z: No, it’s not, it’s bad. And that’s the other thing. We actually had to do a wine class because we’ve done oils, we’ve done olive oil, I mean, it’s just bad. Anyway, what else do we got? Giving the gift of health. Are you ready to kind of cover some DIY recipes?
Mama Z: Yes, I am.
[25:46 –32:04] DIY Gifts &Recipes
Dr. Z: All right, all right. One of our favorites, and how about this? Let me go through the recipe and then you can chime in after I give the recipe, okay?
Mama Z: Perfect.
Dr. Z: All right, so hand sanitizer. You go to Bath & Body Works, I used to. They are selling dozens of different flavors and sense of hand sanitizer. They sell them by the boatload during Christmas time and they, these are perfect stocking stuffers. Why not make your own? Here’s a recipe to make your own hand sanitizer that you can gift to your loved ones. You want to start with a one ounce glass spritzer bottle and you can get that on Amazon, all right? Super cheap, only a buck or two, and this is reason why we wanted to host this episode so soon and early in December to give you guys at least two weeks to make this before Christmas.
And so you want to follow the 10, 10, 10 rule. 10 drops of some organic grain alcohol, 10 drops of witch hazel, 10 drops of Vitamin E and 10 drops of an essential oil, and it all depends on what essential oil you want to use and Mama Z will share her favorites, but you add 10 drops of each of those in that glass spray bottle, fill it with purified water, shake it up, put the lid on, you’re done. What oils you like to use?
Mama Z: Well first stuff too, you mentioned that the grain alcohol, and one of the comments I get a lot is, we don’t have that at our house. Well, we don’t either for that stuff. What I’ve found works really well is doing 10 drops of an extract, vanilla extract or one of the other ones that maybe goes with your scent because you might have that for cooking and then you can actually use that in your healthy hand sanitizer and it makes it very easy and we want to make our healthy hand sanitizer to be stable.
One of the things that I love to use are any of the citrus flavors. That could be orange, that could be lemon, lime, grapefruit. I like to use peppermint, lavender, and a combination of any of those. One of the ones that I’ve gotten lots of good feedback on is using tea tree and lavender together, tea tree and lemon together. Combining the citruses together, and when you have the vanilla extract in there, it gives it a well-rounded smell as well.
Get creative with the scents that you may really enjoy and, you know, try a few things that you have never tried before either. When I was putting together gifts for all of the ladies at Mrs. America, this was one of the components that I used, and I actually fell in love with spearmint as one of the options because I had run out of peppermint and I thought, “Oh well, spearmint is one of those ones that smells good.”
And another one that really blew my mind, because I was thinking, “Well, you know, if spearmint is good, I wonder if other healthy gum flavors would be good.” And actually cinnamon was very good. Get creative and I always mark the bottle, so I know we’ve talked about our little label maker, but the label maker works really, really well.
And if you didn’t have a label maker, you could always buy a set of labels at your Office Depot, Office Max type store, Staples, and print them on there and some of them are more waterproof than others. But the good thing to remember is, even if you use a label from your computer or it’s handwritten really well, what you can do to help solidify that label is actually take clear strapping tape and put it in front of that label so that none of the essential oils or any other hand oils get on it so that it wouldn’t damage the actual labels so they can still know what they actually have in their bottle.
Dr. Z: So here’s a couple of blends you might want to consider using and these are some of the most popular blends that not only people that follow us like to use, but the ones that we’ve seen that are most popular for the main essential oil companies. Every essential oil company has a sleepy time blend or an immune boosting blend, or something along those lines. And so, our immune boosting blend is equal parts of cinnamon bark, clove, eucalyptus, rosemary, orange and lemon. That would be the first one I would think of.
Whether or not, again, it all depends on the essential oil that you buy and from the company, but look up immune boosting blend or something along those lines. And if you sell the essential oils, you know which ones I’m talking about. Our favorite sleepy time blend are equal parts of lavender, Roman chamomile and vetiver. We have a, what we call a happy blend. It’s pretty much all kinds of different citrus oils with vanilla absolute; and that’s orange, lemon, bergamot, grapefruit and vanilla absolute. If you can’t get your hands on vanilla absolute, you do what Sabrina suggested and you can actually use a couple of drops of your vanilla extract that’s in your kitchen.
What about a deep breathing blend? This is something, especially for the holidays and the Christmas time sniffles, a lot of people have their flus and their colds, it gets people through the winter. Equal parts of cardamom, eucalyptus, lemon, peppermint, rosemary and tea tree. And we have our favorite Christmas blend as well, which is really what we’re smelling right now and what are we smelling right now?
Mama Z: This is our Christmas trees blend, which is three parts orange essential oil, three parts cypress essential oil, two parts Douglas fir, and two parts, nutmeg.
Dr. Z: I love it. It really is wonderful and that’s it. It’s that simple. And if you want to, you can get a two-ounce spritzer bottle. If you want to make it bigger, you can make it 10 or 16 ounce. If you want to give someone like a spray, this sort of thing actually works also as a countertop cleaner and an all-purpose cleaner as well. You just have to make sure that you double or triple, or quadruple all of the other drops if you’re increasing the size of the bottle. We have more, many, many more little tricks, little tips for giving people the gift of health this year, but before we do, a word from my sponsor.
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[33:15 – 37:42] DIY Toothpaste Gifts & Recipes
Dr. Z: All right, for those of you who are really ambitious, what about toothpaste? Oral health is really important and we don’t want to get too personal, right? You probably don’t want to give this to someone who has notorious bad teeth because it might offend them.
Mama Z: Oh gosh.
Dr. Z: You know what I mean? Like you know your cousin so and so who just lost all their teeth because they’ve been smoking and they don’t have good oral hygiene, you don’t want to give this to them. But this could be a gift, something that you give to a loved one. These are perfect secret Santa gifts, by the way. I mean, you just make something and let someone do it. But we have a remineralizing toothpaste or tooth powder, and here’s a note, the color of this finished product will vary depending on the color of the clay. Yes, clay and the essential oils that you use.
So we really don’t know how this is going to look, but it’s going to work wonderfully and people are going to love it, especially if they’ve never had all natural toothpaste before. You start with a half a cup of bentonite clay. Simply go on Amazon, type up – and all this stuff you can get an Amazon. A half a cup of bentonite clay, ¼ cup hot water, 1 and ½ teaspoons of Stevia powder, ¼ teaspoon of pink Himalayan salt, one teaspoon… I’m sorry, one tablespoon carrier oil, and that could be jojoba, coconut oil, sweet almond, doesn’t matter. 10 drops of essential oils.
All right. So what you do, first step, you mix all the dry ingredients in a food processor. Step number two, in a separate bowl, you mix the hot water and coconut oil together, and you let that stand till the coconut oil melts. You add to the food processor gradually till they combine. And while the food processor is still on, you combine and add the essential oils all at once and process just a few more seconds. This mixture should be granular and slightly damp. Step three, you want to store in a nice glass jar with the lid. And the prettier the jar, the prettier the bow, the nicer the gift’s going to look. And that’s it.
Mama Z: And I recommend the four-ounce jars. They’re called apothecary jars.
Dr. Z: Yes.
Mama Z: And one thing that you can do in order to make it really pretty is get yourself ribbon and little ornaments that you would use on a little tree. And you can feed those in there and then literally just take a drop of glue and put a bow on it that you’ve made. And I’ve done that so many different times and it’s beautiful. And you can go right around where the threads of the jar close so that you put that around there and then you seal it on there, and then it looks absolutely gorgeous.
Dr. Z: Yes. And here’s some, just a few, here are just a few blends that we know that will help with oral health. You can just think of your toothpaste. Your toothpastes are typically cinnamon. You might get vanilla, peppermint, like just there are typical toothpaste flavors, but there’s a reason for that. So when you combine lemon, lime and grapefruit, it’s actually nice, citrusy kind of flavor, but it is great for oral health, antibacterial, antifungal, even antiviral. That’s one blend. Another blend is orange, clove and peppermint. That is my favorite, personal favorite, best oral health blend, cinnamon, clove, and orange. That’s another one.
And that would be cinnamon bark if you have it, Roman chamomile and wintergreen, that’s another blend, and frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh is actually a really nice blend. We’ll talk more about that too in the spirit of Christmas, right? The magi gave the Christ child gold, frankincense and myrrh, and there’s something very sweet, very special and very spiritual to frankincense and myrrh that we can talk about in just a minute. Pretty cool.
Mama Z: Do you want to know one of my favorite blends for that? Is taking two parts of clove, peppermint and myrrh, and one part of oregano.
Dr. Z: Whoa.
Mama Z: Yes. And that is what I use in my homemade mouthwash as well.
Dr. Z: And by the way, we’re giving you some really good recipes here. If you go to NaturalLivingFamily.com, type up the natural beauty or the natural home tab, and there are dozens, dozens, if not a hundred plus right now of all kinds of different recipes for mouthwash, for oil pulling, all sorts of things.
[37:43 –49:05] More DIY Gifting Tips
Mama Z: And one of the other things to think about too, and this is one thing that I do, is I make a list. So whether you work at an office or you’re a business owner, I make a list of people that I’m going to give gifts to. Both, not just in my family, but also at work, and then, of course, our friends. And one thing to think about is if you’re going to DIY, you’re not going to do this all in a week and please, don’t wait until December 22nd. But if you start it now and each time when you talk to these people, kind of see what… and don’t be like, “Yeah, yeah.” So, you know, as you’re talking, “How’s it going? What’s going on?”
Start to get comfortable with what they actually need because you might be able to fill that void in that need that they actually have. And one of the things that I’m doing this year is I have my fat burning blend, and I have a girlfriend who… well, she was using essential oils and unfortunately, incorrectly with her skin rehab and other things like that. So it was one of the things that was really, really important to her, but within the fat burning essential oils, it’s also pain-relieving. So, if you know somebody that really does want to burn fat, but you want to take the pressure off of that label that says just fat burning, it’s fat burning and pain-relieving.
Dr. Z: Hold on, you’re not going to… hold on, you don’t give …
Mama Z: Yes. Oh, yes I do.
Dr. Z: Yeah but no.
Mama Z: But we’re talking about somebody who actually is doing these things with essential oils now.
Dr. Z: Yeah, yeah, this is not a gift that you give to Aunt Susie-
Mama Z: No, no, no, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Dr. Z: -that you haven’t talked to in five months. You don’t get going and give Aunt Susie the fat burning roll-on.
Mama Z: Don’t give Aunt Susie the fat burning gift.
Dr. Z: You’re going to get a slap in the face, that’s a surefire way of getting her offended.
Mama Z: But for the people that know us and know… as I talk to people, I find out what their needs are, and-
Dr. Z: Yeah, people that ask for help, yeah, and they basically ask you for help in losing weight and I can give them the fat burning roll-on.
Mama Z: And think about all of the different diffuser blends that we have talked about over the last four to five weeks, have all been Christmasy scents, and you can use and make your own essential oil blend and then add those things to your body products. One of the things people overlook, which is something that I talk about all the time, is I have people ask me, “How can I find a shower gel that’s even clean? In every shower gel that I find that’s clean, has no scent to it. What can I do about that?”
Well, you can buy clean and/or organic soap, whether it’s the unscented Desert Essence Organics shampoo and conditioner, or different hand soaps that are very clean and then they’re unscented and add essential oils to it. And people are like, “Okay, well, do I use the bottle or what do I do?” You can use the actual bottle that it comes in. You can actually take the label off with your lemon essential oil and then put a label of your own on it. Or you can buy on Amazon, the size of container that you want in a pump bottle of the PET plastic, the P-E-T plastic that’s still very good, but especially if people have kids that PET plastic is usually the way to go.
I know we’ve had a few glass containers there in the shower that they didn’t make it very far.
Dr. Z: Be careful with glass.
Mama Z: And we still have a few glass containers that have definitely bounced a few times there in the shower.
So, but then doing the same kind of thing, so that you can wrap it up in the way that you want to. So don’t think that your options end and then you have to make all of these elaborate recipes. If you don’t have time as much to DIY, then you can simply add essential oils, and it’s six to eight drops for every one ounce of your mixture that you are making, whether it’s shampoo, hand soap, body care soap, a combination of those things. Or you have a really good unscented body cream that is organic or has very pure ingredients in it, and start to get creative. And like I said, find out what the people who you are gift-giving to, what they need or want, and then definitely fill those voids.
Dr. Z: Now, I love these fancy lotion bar things. I love them. And you’ve been getting them at Farmer’s Markets and Whole Foods has them. They’re super expensive when you buy them though.
Mama Z: Oh yeah, because you buy them by the pound.
Dr. Z: Oh, they’re just expensive. I love them though. I love the smell. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind regular Dr. Bronner’s peppermint, whatever, rosemary or tea tree, but there’s something really special about these. The smell, the aroma is just so powerful. So-
Mama Z: One of them, I can’t remember what it actually had in it, but I called it the healthy old spice, because everybody’s grandpa smelled like old spice. Right? So and it brings back memories, of course. And but it was like the organic healthy version of orange spice. And I know it had like myrrh and other things in it. And so, you know, honestly, if you need ideas on some of the blends to do and some of the ones that we’re talking about are not as exciting as you want to go, then definitely go to your local health food store or Whole Foods and see some of the scents and the varieties of combinations that people are using to get additional ideas even outside of what we’re talking about.
Dr. Z: Yup. And is equally as nice as those soap bars are, lotion bars are really cool. And here’s a nice recipe that anyone can do really on the cheap because beeswax is pretty cheap when you get down to it, especially when you buy it on Amazon. So here’s a cool recipe for Mama Z’s homemade lotion bar. You start with one cup of yellow beeswax pellets, one cup of a carrier oil, 1/3 cup kokum butter, 1/3 cup Virgin organic, unrefined Shea butter, 1/3 cup mango butter, 1/2 cup Mama Z’s oil base. And you can go on our website space and you can cover your oil base in just a minute because that’s another great gift to give to someone who doesn’t know where to start with essential oils. It’s the best carrier oil. And you want some essential oils and some quart or pint wide mouth mason jars, and you want empty deodorant containers or glass salve jars.
So how you do this, step one, use a double boiler and you make by setting a glass jar or measuring cup in a medium pot with about one to two inches of water. You bring the water to boiling and then you turn down to medium to medium-to-high. Then you add all those ingredients I just listed, but the Mama Z’s oil base, you save that aside and you save the carrier oil. You add all those things to the jar. Now you get everything, step two, you get everything completely melted and immediately removed from heat. Step three, after about 5 or 10 minutes before everything starts to solidify, you add the oil base. Step four, store the mixture in a quart or pint wide mouth mason jar. And step five to make a lotion bar, you simply add five drops of the essential oil that you want per one ounce of this base and fill up an empty deodorant container.
That’s it. You can actually use an empty deodorant container that just costs a few pennies on Amazon and then they were and then they have their own lotion bar. That is another…
Mama Z: And please definitely sanitize it for sure. Like as soon as-
Dr. Z: No, it’s not dirty, you buy them empty.
Mama Z: You buy them empty, but I actually, if I’m going to make it for someone in our house, I actually reuse our deodorant containers and I actually sanitize them.
Dr. Z: Oh you can do that too. So yeah, if you want to reuse old deodorant bars or containers, you can put them in your… how do you do it? Put it in the dishwasher?
Mama Z: Yeah. You can do one of two things. You want to soak it in your natural dish soap and then use a toothbrush and scrub out. Because when.. it has like a coil on the inside, that’s the thing that you push up when you roll it up. And so you want to use a toothbrush if yours has coils in it and get in all of those areas. And then I like to put it in the top of the dishwasher. And we have like a third shelf on the top of our dishwasher, which works out perfectly for that. So one other thing to note about that, when I make different recipes that involve a double broiler, I like to do a designated wide mouth, one quart canning jar for those things.
Because what happens is, is that if you do it in one of your staples in your kitchen, like a glass measuring cup or whatnot, you’re going to have a lot of extra cleanup after the fact. So I like to use and reuse the same kind of thing, whether it’s a body butter that I’m making or it’s a deodorant bar or it’s a lotion bar. That way, I have something completely designed just for that. So if it’s going to get messed up, that I’m not going to worry about it as much. And the nice thing about that is when it does come time to sanitize that, you’ll be able to soak it in hot or warm water, and then you’ll be able to reuse that same canning jar.
But you definitely want to stay away from using your glass measuring cups, because what happens is too many times in a glass measuring cup in the dishwasher or in a hot setting like that, and you’re going to actually peel off, especially if you’re using essential oils, eventually, your glass measuring cup isn’t going to have measurement marks on it anymore. So definitely, utilize your quart jars, pint jars, depending on the batch of what you’re making.
Dr. Z: And for the natural living tip of the day, stay tuned to the very end and we’re going to give you Mama Z’s oil base, which is by far the most popular and the best carrier oil we’ve ever used. And the feedback we’ve gotten from our Natural Living Family members has been profound. All right, so why are we talking about this? We’re trying to help you give homemade gifts from the heart. There’s nothing like giving someone a gift that just reaches them where they’re at and lets them know that you really bless them by spending your time.
If you’re into woodworking or needle work, any sort of thing, crochet, how sweet is it every time one of your cousins gets pregnant and has a baby, your aunt makes a wonderful quilt. Like that kind of stuff, these are heirloom things, but not everyone has time to make a quilt for everybody, but everyone does have time to make some DIY stuff. And so if you even don’t have time to do what we did, I get that.
[49:06 –1:00:20] Gifting Single Essential Oils
Dr. Z: If you got a couple of bucks, buy them essential oils. I really think that’s the best thing.Get with a friend, if you have a friend or yourself, if you’re a distributor, get with a local friend or distributor and say, “Hey, what do you have? What you have a special on? And can I get some little five milliliter bottles?” And that’s where I would start. You don’t want to break the bank and spend 400 or 500 bucks on a kit. You can’t afford that for everybody, right? But you can afford 5 or 10, or 15 bucks. What’s your budget? Especially for secret Santa gifts, usually it’s about $20, right? Most people spend 20, 25 bucks seems to be about the price of people-
Mama Z: And teachers gifts too.
Dr. Z: Exactly, and our teachers love it when we give them a little thing. And so when you do though, what you want to do is you really want to educate them. Like I would be honored and privileged if you were to get my book. My book is 12 or 13 bucks on Amazon right now; The Healing Power of Essential Oils. If you were to give them my book and say, “Hey, here’s a bottle of lavender, have fun,” or, “Here’s a bottle of orange, here’s a bottle of peppermint.” All these oils are not much at all. That would be great. Another strategy, get those same oils or buy a $15 or $20 diffuser from Amazon. Again, you’re sticking within that $20, $25 range. You could do it.
So here’s some oils you might want to consider getting your hands on. These are perfect single oils, single oil… what am I trying to say? These are perfect oils to buy single without blending that can help with many things and they’re not going to intimidate people. Like if you buy for someone and give them Buddha wood, they might be like, “What is this? What do I do with this kind of thing?” But I would start with lavender and if you’ve never used lavender, real lavender, you haven’t lived. It’s calming, it’s healing. It’s an analgesic, it’s an antibiotic, it’s an antidepressant, it’s anti-inflammatory, it’s antiseptic, it’s a diuretic, it’s a disinfect it. It’s even a sedative.
The top five healing benefits of lavender are it can help people with blood sugar. It’s a diabetes management, neuroprotective, it helps with headaches, anxiety, depression, dementia, stroke, PTSD. It’s antimicrobial. It’s great, it’s great. Like we mentioned for homemade hand sanitizer, wonderful for skincare, heals sun burn, scrapes burns, rashes, cuts, eczema. It’s a wonderful antioxidant. And so you can give lavender, you could print out the article on our website or get the book and say, “Hey, enjoy lavender. It’s wonderful.”
Mama Z: And it’s really good to knock your husband out if he really needs some extra sleep. I know my husband is super-sensitive to the diffuser. I love the…
Dr. Z: Did you have the diffuser on last night in the kids’ room?
Mama Z: I did.
Dr. Z: Yeah. That’s no fair. I read the kids a story-
Mama Z: And I was like, he was supposed to come down and we had a meeting planned and everything, and no daddy. However, last night I had orange and peppermint in the diffuser, but you still got knocked out.
Dr. Z: Another oil you might want to consider buying for people is lemon. Lemon is healing. It’s clean. It helps freshen the mood. It’s a wonderful antibacterial agent, anti-cancer agent because it’s rich in d-limonene, it’s an antibiotic, it’s an antidepressant, it’s antifungal, it’s a disinfectant. It’s an astringent, it’s anti-viral. Lemon encourages the elimination of waste. It’s actually a wonderful detoxification agent. It helps reduce constipation, even eases arthritis. It’s invigorating. It’s refreshing. Can even help tone your heart, kidneys, liver and pancreas.
Mama Z: Wow.
Dr. Z: And it tastes great and what do you like to use lemon in?
Mama Z: I think lemon is such a happy scent. I love it as a hand sanitizer. I love it even in our homemade dish soap. But what I love to do with lemon the most is use it in not just the unscented lotion and oil that I use at the sink, but also to put it in the hand soap that I make at the sink because it is so vibrant and it gets off that horrible onion and garlic smell off of your hands when you use it in the kitchen and off of your cutting board. I can tell you many, many times that my dad would use the same knife and the same cutting board to cut apples after he cut onions or garlic. And let me tell you, it does not taste very good. But if you use those things on it and then you don’t smell like it at your cutting board and your knife doesn’t, and your guests will also thank you.
Dr. Z: Another wonderful oil, and this may be more fitting than anything is peppermint.
Mama Z: Absolutely.
Dr. Z: Right. Peppermint is probably the official smell of Christmas. Peppermint candy sticks and canes, and things like that.
Mama Z: Absolutely. And I just take, I do half peppermint essential oil and half vanilla oleoresin, and I mix those, and I created my peppermint sticks diffuser blend and other things like that. It softens it just a little bit and you can use that in your diffuser. You can use that in all kinds of body products and hand sanitizer. And it gives just an amazing scent, and it’s very uplifting.
Dr. Z: I call peppermint my MVP, or it actually should probably be MVO, my most valuable oil. It can help with, dig this, this is a quick list for you, allergies, asthma, bronchitis, colds, flus, colic, congestion, dermatitis, diarrhea, fever, headaches, indigestion, insect bites, menstrual problems, cramps, migraines, motion sickness, nausea. I had to breathe, man. I’ve got to try this next time in one breath, skin disorders, stomach aches, stress, tooth aches, bug repellent. It’s wonderful as a nontoxic energizer. It helps with all those bad itching that you might get from whatever bites or anything, heartburn, hives, that’s a lot.
Mama Z: Well, and I’ve got a funny story about that. So we had the internet guy that came last week. And he goes, “Do you guys like that essential oils?” And I said, “Yes, we sure do. And we write books on that.” He goes, “Well, that’s cool.” I said, “Well, what kind do you like?” And he goes, “Well, I like that eucalyptus and anything, you know, like peppermint.” I said, “Oh yeah, menthol. I love that.” So I went and I got that peppermint sticks blend that I make with the vanilla and the peppermint, put it in the diffuser in the room that he was in and then the diffuser in the room next to him.
And he goes, “I’m not going to lie. When I got here, I had a bad attitude, but that the diffuser and the things that you put in those diffusers,” he goes, “I’m leaving and I feel a lot better.” He said, “So, thank you.” And I wanted to just give him a boost, you know, and knew that that was the kind of things that he liked and stuff. And he ended up getting blessed by the deal.
Dr. Z: That’s pretty cool. That was pretty cool. One more for you, tea tree.Tea tree, one of the most famous well-used oils on the other side of our world, Australia and New Zealand, a tea tree.I’m going to take a big deep breath on this one, this is a bunch too. Tea tree is another VIP. It is good for everything from acne, bacterial infections, chickenpox, cold sores, congestion, respiratory tract infections, earache, fungal infections, especially candida and toe fungus, halitosis, which is bad breath, head lice, psoriasis, eczema. It can help with all kinds of things; sores and sunburns, boils, staph infections. I mean, next to peppermint, I don’t know if there’s any other oil that is as versatile and tea tree’s great for cleaning. If you want to make someone a homemade showered whatever or whatever it is.
Mama Z: And I love doing lemon and tea tree, and tea tree and lavender. You can get very creative with these MVPs.
Dr. Z: Yup. I’m telling you this is easy stuff. You get a little bottle, you put it in a nice… get a little bow. You get a little starter kit from your favorite essential oil company, you put it in a bag, done. And you just know that you’re helping people, you’re empowering people. And here’s the thing though, ideally, and another actually, probably even better, wherever you’re buying your essential oil from, that company should have a website that features how to use these oils.
Go to your favorite oil company.com, type up tea tree, type up peppermint, there should be a one sheet PDF, most companies have it that say, “Hey, here’s how you want to use it.” Whether you can ingest it, whether you can do top, you print that out and let me suggest splurge. Pay the 10 or 15 cents, print it out in color. This is a Christmas gift.
Mama Z: Yeah, laser color so that way if they get it wet, then it doesn’t run all over the paper.
Dr. Z: Yeah. Print it out in color. Don’t go cheap.
Mama Z: Especially when you have kids, you know it’s going to end up with essential oils on it with the water spills and everything else, or get it laminated for them, even better.
Dr. Z: Yes, I’m telling you, and this stuff works wonders and there’s so many other things that we’re just running out of time we can cover, and that’s one reason why we wrote the book The Healing Power of Essential Oils, and that’s why we’re writing our next book. And stay tuned because so many of you have asked us for more essential oil tips. As we prep for our January, now 2021 book launch of our book that’s going to be about essential oils for chronic disease, we’re going to be featuring little weekly tidbits, about three, four or five minutes. Just little tidbits. We haven’t figured out… what day do you want to do it on?
Mama Z: I liked your idea of Thursday.
Dr. Z: All right.
Mama Z: Like a power hour.
Dr. Z: Okay, Thursday. So right now these podcasts air Monday morning, maybe we’ll do something on a Thursday morning that we just issue out our special essential… we’ve got to come up with a name.
Mama Z: It’s got to be impactful. Like something The Essential Oil-
Dr. Z: Empowerment.
Mama Z: -Empowerment. I don’t know. It’s got to be something cool for five minutes.
Dr. Z: EL Empowerment Tip. How about that?
Mama Z: Yeah, but some people don’t know what EL means.
Dr. Z: Essential Oil Empowerment Tip.
Mama Z: Maybe, I don’t know.
Dr. Z: I love that.
Mama Z: I’d like to see what anybody-
Dr. Z: Hey, leave a response?
Mama Z: Yeah, leave a response.
Dr. Z: Yep. Go to support@naturallivingfamily.com, you can email us or if you just want to join up on our weekly newsletter, you go to NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com.
Mama Z: Absolutely.
Dr. Z: If you sign up for a weekly newsletter and we’ll give you a welcome email, welcoming you to join her Facebook group and all kinds of cool things. Respond to that email and if you have any suggestions or requests about what you want us to talk about regarding essential oils, let us know. Because we’re going to continue these Natural Living Family Podcast episodes, which are about an hour longer or so every week. But we want to include these little sneak peek tips of what we’re going to be covering, and my thought is I’m going to be focusing a lot because I’m doing the research on chronic disease. So you’re going to get a lot of things-
Mama Z: But a good variety like… and you’re going to get a really good variety on a lot of different ways to utilize essential oils in a very quick format so that you can be inspired and empowered throughout the rest of your week.
[1:00:21 –1:05:24] The Gifts of the Magi
Dr. Z: Cool. And for those of you the brave, the strong, the few who have stayed with us this long, I want to end, as promised, talking about the gifts of the magi. You know what a really cool gift would be and you could get this super cheap too. Get little frankincense, right? Like your mom, how much does your mom sell the little gold, myrrh, and frankincense, little satchel kit?
Mama Z: Is it $2 or $3.50 something like that.
Dr. Z: And what is it? It’s literally just frankincense resin, right?
Mama Z: Yes. So what she does is she takes frankincense resin, myrrh resin in food grade bags, like little plastic bags and then she twists ties it with a gold twister. So yeah, frankincense, gold and myrrh, and then she has a card all about that from the Bible.
Dr. Z: So from the book of Matthew, chapter two, “After coming to the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother. They fell down to the ground and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they presented Him, Jesus, gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Well, in my first book, I covered that these were not essential oils, by the way. We’ll just, we can talk about that in another class. They literally gave Him gold, physical gold, frankincense resin and myrrh resin.
And for those of you who have been told that the magi gave Jesus essential oils, don’t believe it, essential oils didn’t exist back then. They did not have the steam distillation to distill frankincense and myrrh to an essential oil. All right? They use salves and they put frankincense and myrrh in olive oil to let it soak up to make emollients and things of that nature. So, don’t believe it. But what we have is we have this wonderful tradition that you could… Now, there’s two things you could do. If you have bookoo bucks, because it’s expensive, you could buy frankincense and myrrh and give it to people, that’s super expensive.
Or you can make a little blend. Well, like a body oil with a few drops of frankincense, a few drops of myrrh, a holiday blend spritzer, whatever it might be just so they could smell it. Combining frankincense and myrrh is wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. But if you give them the little frankincense resin, myrrh resin with that gold ribbon-
Mama Z: Yeah, and we use it as a-
Dr. Z: -it’s fantastic.
Mama Z: I mean, and you can take your… when you have guests over, as your table favor and if you roll up your napkin and you’ve used this… and we use like the gold pipe cleaners, so you actually make a bow with it and then you can hook that to your guests’ napkin. I’ve had people then we use it as an ornament on their tree afterwards. So it can be multipurpose, but it smells amazing as well.
Dr. Z: Yup, you’re going to love it. And we encourage you to do it. Folks, we’re going to talk a little bit more about this in the upcoming weeks is all, but we just thank you so much really for this past year. This has been a wonderful journey for us. As we approach our 50th podcast, we’ve gotten just hundreds of reviews, dozens and dozens of comments, and emails, and praise, and we thank you so much. I mean, we’re nearing 200,000 downloads and that’s just a lot of people that we’ve been privileged and honored to bless, and beyond this journey we hope to do something really special in the next coming weeks for the 50th podcast, and also let you know we have some cool things in the future as well.
We’re really excited and thank you so much for all your support, whether it was the Global Premier, the Hope for Breast Cancer documentary or whether it’s Mama Z’s upcoming exercise Fit 40 and Beyond class, or her salads and garden, and Italian cooking classes. We are committed to helping you and your family truly experience an abundant life. And so check out what we’re doing, send us an email, ask us anything that we could do to help you and we’re here to serve. And the thing is, one thing I like about your questions aligned with this, I love your questions.
By the way, we can’t answer medical advice. We just can’t do it, it’s illegal. And it’s quite frankly, unethical. Unless we could do a proper evaluation and do blood work, and do a health exam, we just can’t answer,“What do I do for this?” That’s just not fair to you or to us. But barring those medical questions that we get, the emails that you request, like, “Hey, what are your thoughts on this or could you do something on that?” You’re giving us ideas and that’s what we really appreciate. So as we ramp up our podcast show calendar for 2020, let us know, either ask us a question if we’re open to something or suggest we want to do this show for you. And that is our commitment.
We don’t charge for this. Something that we do out of our time and we have Chris here helping us with video and audio, and all the great things, and it’s really been a service and a ministry and we wanted to make sure that you’re getting the best out of it. Well, to wrap up today’s show, here is a Natural Living Family tip for you.
[1:05:25–1:06:44] Natural Living Tip: Mama Z’s Oil Base
Mama Z: My Mama Z’s oil base, as we call it, has been one of the staples that we use, not just in our household, but with a lot of our other recipes. And what that consists of is 54 ounces of raw organic coconut oil, 16 ounces of sweet almond oil, eight ounces of jojoba oil, four ounces of vitamin E oil. One of the things to note on that, as I do use organic when it comes to the almond oil and the jojoba oil, but especially if you have any skin issues, you can also add four ounces of Rosehips seed oil, which is a natural vitamin A.
And during the cold winter months when this particular mixture will more solidify, then you can add between four and eight ounces of Shea nut oil, which is a thicker oil. It’ll make it a lot less clear, but it will help keep it more liquid during the winter months. You can use this blend to use any of your essential oils with, and you want to do six to eight drops of essential oils for every one ounce of this mixture. All right, that’s our Mama Z’s oil base, enjoy.
[1:06:45 – 1:07:19] Sponsor Spotlight: AirDoctor
Dr. Z: And don’t forget, as a special gift or a Natural Living Family Podcast listeners, AirDoctor is giving you $300 off their portable air purification system so that you and your family can enjoy pure, clean air in your home all day long.
Mama Z: Simply go to NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com to find this special link so you can redeem this deal on the show notes from today’s episode.
[1:07:20– end] Episode WrapUp
Dr. Z: Well, folks, thank you so much again for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show. As a reminder, you can find all of the Natural Living Family Podcast show notes, transcripts on NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com. And while on our website, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter, which includes a personal invite to join Mama Z and I one-on-one. And you can connect with 5,000 other natural living lovers just like you. And don’t forget, please subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We love hearing what you have to say about our show. Well, as always, it’s Dr. Z.
Mama Z: And Mama Z.
Dr. Z: Our hope and prayer is that you and your family truly experience the abundant life. God bless you.
Mama Z: God bless.
Dr. Z: Bye-bye.
Mama Z: Bye-bye.