Marshmallow
Althaea Officinalis
As I was listening to some free training from Common Wealth Holistic Herbalism, I wanted to try their 'HERB OF THE MONTH' suggestion. This will help me become more familiar with the herbs. They suggested finding a safe herb and drink 1 quart of tea made from this herb, each day for a month. I started with an herb called Marshmallow (the root of it).
I chose this plant because I was having some issues with dry skin patches on my face (not sure if it's eczema or what). I learned there's a class of herbs called DEMULCENT, or herbs that can provide moisture, and figured that would be good for my eczema / dry skin. Some DEMULCENT herbs are marshmallow, corn silk, comfrey, slippery elm & licorice.
Since I knew I had bulk marshmallow root at home, I started with that. The first night, I put approximately 1 cup of marshmallow root in a quart mason jar, filled it with room temperature filtered water and covered it. I let is sit on the counter all night. In the morning, I strained it thru a metal sieve and put the 'tea' back into the mason jar and drank it throughout the day. Let me tell you... at first it was kind of weird, cuz it was a little slippery, but not too bad. I got used to it and it felt good going down my throat when I drank it straight. In the morning I usually do a protein drink so I used 12oz of this tea as my base, and then added my protein powder. Throughout the day I had to remember to shake my glass since there was goop-like substance at the bottom.
I was able to continue doing this for 7 days. By day 8, I was done. I guess I'll call this 'HERB OF THE WEEK'. :) I stopped because my body was just telling me, ok, enough, I don't want to swallow any more of this slippery stuff! Besides, I noticed the dry patches had calmed down (not as puffy and red), and, I was running low on the herb. Overall, I was happy with how my body responded to this herb. Another thing I noticed was when I had to blow my nose, it seemed like the mucus wasn't as dry and sticky (gross... I know). I'll definitely try this herb again, when needed. If you'd like to try it, feel free to use my Amazon link here to help support my work.
