Last week, when getting ready for our annual Foot Clinic Holiday Fiesta I put together around 30 aromatic inhalers to put in our winter care gift bags.  We dispense a lot of aromatic inhalers, aka sniffers, on our Herb Bus rounds.  They are useful for so many ailments and cheap and easy to make.  You can order the blank inhalers from most any essential oil supplier these days.  I order packs of 100 in the most lovely of greens from Aromatics International.

These particular inhalers were simply 9 drops of Olbas oil  (an essential oil blend of peppermint, eucalyptus, wintergreen, juniper and clove) dropped onto the cotton insert.  We often dispense these sniffers from the bus to folks suffering from sinus congestion and find they reliably provide relief.  The blend has a pleasant smell and is also generally uplifting and energizing.

This is a photo of our Aromatic Oils Kit, that travels with us on the Bus.  In it we stock around 20 different essential oils, a bag of blank inhalers, and a few other preparations (such as herb-infused oils and aromatic waters.)  We custom blend inhalers for a variety of issues.  Beyond the straightforward such as resolving congestion, essential oils also provide tremendous emotional support.  They are useful tools when dealing with a range of feelings from grief to anxiety to addiction.  One of my favorite books that I often refer to when putting together an aromatic remedy is Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit by Gabriel Mojay, a wonderful acupuncturist, aromatherapist, and teacher who travels over the pond from England to visit us here in Atlanta from time to time.

Aromatic inhalers are not only effective, cheap, easy, and convenient– they are a journey for the senses.

Update:  Here is another post on sniffers with a few blends to support the J-20 Defendants.

How to dispense the herbs from a mobile clinic to a homeless population with limited funding takes careful consideration, both in terms of ease of use for patients and the cost of packaging.

TINCTURES/GLYCERITES – For a long time I would only use glass bottles to dispense tinctures, however, after my experience at staffing the Rainbow First Aid Station, Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference Clinic, and Sandy Relief Clinics, I began to use 1 and 2 oz plastic bottles that have a lined cap — no dropper. Droppers and glass tincture bottles are a bit costly, and the plastic bottles with cap come to around 25 cents a piece for a 1 oz and 29 cents for a 2 oz. And while it’s true, I am not the biggest fan of plastic bottles, they do have a few things going for them other than affordability. First, they don’t break, and second, they are much lighter than glass.

And to answer the obvious question of how I control dosage without a dropper– I use the cap as the measuring device. For example, in the 1 oz bottle, the cap holds 4 mils and 1/2 cap holds 2 mils. If I want to do a smaller dose than that, I simply dilute with water. If I fill the bottle with 1/2 tincture formula and 1/2 water, then 1 capful contains 2 mils of tincture and 1/2 capful holds 1 mil.

One bottle holds around 8 capfuls total, so if I am using a drop dosage plant such as anemone, I must decide how many drops I want for each dose and multiply by 9. For example, if I want a 5 drop dosage, I multiply 5 X 8 which equals 40. I place 40 drops in the bottle, fill with water and on the instructions say “Take 1 capful as needed.” It follows that with each capful, the patient is getting 5 drops of anemone. Or if I want more doses in the bottle, I can place 5 X 16 = 80 drops in the bottle, fill the rest with water and say “Take 1/2 cap as needed” and thereby provide 16 individual doses of 5 drops each in the 1 oz bottle.

TEA – Loose tea is an absolute pain in the butt if you don’t have the equipment to make it with ease (such as a french press or kitchen, etc) so I pre bag my teas in hopes that will make it more doable for folks. Enter the iron-shut tea bag, also known as the Press n’ Brew. These are cheap and oh-so-handy. You simply blend your tea, fill the bag, and iron shut. In the picture above, I am preparing calendula tea bags, which do double duty as both an antimicrobial for internal use (as a gentle and tasty anti-fungal for example) or as a compress in first aid for infection. Other such double duty tea bags I keep in stock are chamomile and marshmallow. We can also custom blend personalized tea formulas for clients in the bus, with our electrical hook-up, but it’s a good idea to have commonly used blends already on hand.