Gather year round
There is always something available to gather that you can put to good use in skincare – whether in hedgerows, gardens or perhaps a windowsill plant. For ideas and inspiration look out for my ‘5 to forage’ posts which each month give you 5 plants to add to your skincare repertoire. Learn about each plant individually, getting to know them one at a time, so you can be confident in what you are picking and competent in storing and using it.
Gather to use fresh
The advantage of using gathered plant material is, of course, that you can use it absolutely fresh. Gathering for skincare use is much simpler than gathering for food as you only need a few leaves to make something effective that will last a couple of days (or much longer, depending on your methods).
Gather to store
Some plants are available to gather all year round – bay leaves and blackberry leaves are examples, and there’s rarely a month (or place) when you can’t find chickweed. You can also keep a few plants in a greenhouse or windowsill if they’re favourites to gather, though do be aware that every plant has a dormant season when it’s best to leave it to concentrate it’s energy, rather than pick it. Houseleeks are an example here – a great plant to have around as its leaves offer a gel like aloe. In spring and summer it grows and multiplies, in winter it still sits attractively and could be picked, but it is dormant so will not replenish itself until spring.
To ensure you have abundant supplies of skincare ingredients throughout the year, and can put your hand on just what you need, when you need it, gather plentifully when plants are in abundance and then store them carefully.
Ways to store gathered plant material
There are many ways in which you can work with plants to ensure you have stores all year round. In separate blogs I’ll take you through each of these methods in detail. In summary the three best options that are easy to achieve at home are:
Drying (click here to know more about how to successfully dry plant material for storage)
Freezing (click here to know more about how to successfully freeze plant material for later use)
Macerating (click here to know more about maceration)
The best time to gather
There is a seasonal and a daily pattern to gathering which makes it simple to know what to gather when.
The seasonal gathering cycle
To know what to gather when, think about the growing pattern of the plant.
Spring
In spring plants will put on a lot of fresh growth as shoots emerge, new leaves form and they stretch out to the sun. They are gathering in energy, the photosynthesis factory is running powerfully.
Summer
Autumn
Winter
The daily gathering cycle
Early morning
Morning
Afternoon
Evening