From Potion-Making to Clean Beauty: A Journey with Captain Blankenship Founder, Jana Blankenship

Jennifer Norman:

Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. My name is Jennifer Norman, founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. The Human Beauty Movement is a social lifestyle platform dedicated to inspiring radical inclusion, true holistic, well, and environmental sustainability in our world. We're a global human collective that connects to inspire diverse modalities of self-expression, personal growth, and individual journeys of self-love. I created this podcast to have open conversations about all aspects of the human experience. When we're curious, kind, and courageous, we evolve powerfully as individuals and thrive as a human race. So take a moment now to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Jennifer Norman:

And while you're listening, share this episode with someone who comes to mind. There's a reason why that person popped into your head. It's your intuition telling you to connect and show you care by saying, hey, I'm listening to this episode right now and I thought of you. Share this episode with them so they feel the love and can benefit from its message. I'm so glad that you're joining me here for today's show. When we learn to pay attention to the natural world, we can access beauty in all its many forms and feel a deep kinship with all forms of life. These are the words of Jana Blankenship, a humble yet renowned herbalist, artist, entrepreneur, author, and passionate educator about plant-based beauty. Jana first started making herbal potions as a child, and she's still in complete awe of the intelligence of nature.

Jennifer Norman:

Her passion for plant-based formulations led her to found the clean beauty brand Captain Blankenship, which alchemizes the magic of foraged and garden grown ingredients. Jana is the co-author of Seasonal Family Almanac: Recipes, Rituals, and Crafts to Embrace the Magic of the Year, and the author of Wild Beauty: Wisdom and Recipes for Natural Self Care. I share Yana's fascination with art, herbalism, and natural ingredients, as well as her commitment to ingredient transparency, social change, and environmental care. It's my honor to have Jana on the Human Beauty Movement Podcast as my guest today. Welcome, Jana.

Jana Blankenship:

Oh, thank you so much. That was such a beautiful introduction and I'm so honored to be talking to you today. I can't wait for conversation.

Jennifer Norman:

I just want to let you know I only have beautiful humans on my show! So your beautiful words are really just so inspiring and you have led such an inspired life. I would love for you to share. When you were a little girl, you apparently had a run in with perfume that ended up being a major part of your brand's origin story. You have to tell us what happened.

Jana Blankenship:

Yeah, it's funny how something that in the moment seemed so negative could really turn into a positive. As a child, I was always in love with the natural world and with plants, and I would go out into our garden and pick roses and pine needles and mint and infuse them in water and make my own potions. And my mom was actually a fashion designer and she kind of saw this penchant for alchemy that I had and let me mix all of her perfumes together. And she had this amazing mirrored vanity in the bathroom and it was just stocked full of beautiful perfume bottles. They really don't make bottles like that anymore. They were so exquisite. I was seven when I started making perfumes. They had names like Obsession and Poison, all these bad things.

Jennifer Norman:

Isn't it funny?

Jana Blankenship:

Like what is that? And in the end, they really did poison me. I was in love with scent and I would make my own signature scents and after adding a drop of this perfume, I put it up to my nose. And so from all of that heavy mixing, I ended up developing a sensitivity to synthetic fragrance that I still have. From the tender age of seven, I stopped wearing anything that was “fragrance” fragrance. And as you know, synthetic fragrance is everywhere. From personal care products, to perfumes, to scented detergent, everywhere.

Jennifer Norman:

So what would happen to you if you came in contact, your skin came in contact with synthetic fragrance?

Jana Blankenship:

I still have the same reaction I did then, which is immediate migraine, visceral, nausea, dizzy. I feel hot and not in a good way. It's a full body reaction and it's hard. I try to stay away from synthetic fragrance, but even I feel so bad. I live in the Hudson Valley in New York. But I was just in New York City for a conference last week. Walking down the street and smelling cologne on someone. It's like I was just going to.

Jennifer Norman:

Say, if a loved one was wearing a synthetic fragrance, you got to be very careful about who you kiss and who you hug!

Jana Blankenship:

And the crazy thing about the word synthetic fragrances or the word fragrance, if you see it on a bottle is that that one word is a Pandora's box that could yes, if not thousands of unregulated chemicals. And the fragrances are meant to just to last forever. You bury it, dig it up in 5000 years and it would smell the same because they're really meant to last.

Jennifer Norman:

And phthalates, which are endocrine disruptors, I mean, they have more of an impact on our health than we will ever really probably know.

Jana Blankenship:

Yes, and I mean, so many potential allergens within synthetic fragrance that do not need to be disclosed. In my opinion, it's very criminal. And I think the good thing is that a lot of major retailers are now demanding fragrance transparency and yes, the brands who use fragrance. If all of a sudden you were able to use this one word fragrance and disclose anything and now you have to disclose this pick list of chemicals that one recognizes, it's like it's really drawing attention to what the problem is and what fragrance is made out of.

Jennifer Norman:

It's so true. And I know that since you were a young girl and you developed this phrase which was like, “follow your nose,” you just knew that you almost had to make your own concoctions. Your grandmother on your mom's side actually also loved to make homemade types of recipes for personal care and hair care. And so that seemed to have had quite an influence on you as well.

Jana Blankenship:

Such a huge impact on me. And I think the amazing thing about plants and just nature in general, nature is so generous and gives us so many plants. Often plants that are just growing right outside our door can be our allies in so many ways when it comes to working with essential oils, plant-based oil. The incredible thing about essential oils is they're not only incredibly beneficial for aromatherapy and can just boost our mood, but then they're also active ingredients in a formula. They're the most concentrated form of a plant's essence and can impart so many benefits to our skin, to our hair, to our body, to our spirit. So, yes, it's been my life's work now to learn about plants, to study them both as an herbalist and a cosmetic chemist. And I'm just so grateful.

Jana Blankenship:

And it's a constant journey. A path that I'm on that I'm learning from. And yes, my grandmother grew up on a farm, and she had studied cosmetology. And as a kid, she was always when I would go visit her, she was always putting oils on my hair, making her own lotions, and was such a huge source of inspiration. I always think about her when I'm out there.

Jennifer Norman:

That's such a love language. Oh, my goodness. And so it sounds like you were also influenced by the sea, given the name of your brand, which is Captain Blankenship.

Jana Blankenship:

Yeah, it's interesting. It's actually my father's mother, Sheila, spent every summer, as did her ancestors, up in this tiny coastal town in Maine called Sorrento. And now I go up there every summer with my kids, and I used to go and spend the summers with her up there, and she would teach me about the tides. She also was an incredible gardener and knew all about plants, so she taught me about the plants there. And I have to say, just swimming in the ocean there. Now I swim there every summer of my life, and now my children are swimming in the ocean. And just how I feel swimming in that ocean, which is so rich with marine life and sea, just I never feel better. And it is such an incredible form of self care.

Jana Blankenship:

And so that was a huge part of my inspiration for Captain Blankenship. And now one exciting thing is that we direct source five types of seaweed from afar. And that's the adjacent town over from where I go to.

Jennifer Norman:

Oh, my gosh, that's incredible. And now I wanted to talk a moment about ingredients because I know that you take such great care in the ingredients that you do source and ensure that they're either organic, foraged, wild harvested, and that just became such a given to you, like you didn't even think otherwise to do anything differently.

Jana Blankenship:

Yes. No, I mean, for me, from day one, this has been a special labor of love. It was a passion project that originated in my kitchen and it was always about using the best organic plant based ingredients paired with lush, experiential, essential oil based scents. And so a majority of brands, especially now there's the clean beauty market has exploded. But a lot of greenwashing and a lot of brands that come in and they just want to say that they're using Jojoba oil or shea butter, but they'll source it as cheaply as possible. But the thing is that in sourcing these ingredients, we can work directly with farmers whose families have loved their land, have cared for it, where there is the spirit of reciprocity and have been farming or while harvesting these ingredients for decades, if not centuries. And that is so important. All of that is important to the finished product and to the love and care that ends up on the consumer.

Jana Blankenship:

And so I couldn't do it any other way. The integrity of the ingredients is critical to the products. And if I started just sourcing from anywhere, I wouldn't believe in what I was doing anymore. For me, running a brand, just being able to connect directly with the people who are growing these ingredients and are so passionate about them and their efficacy and that's so important. These products would not be as effective if it weren't, if the quality ingredients wasn’t what it was.

Jennifer Norman:

It's so true, I think, that people are starting to wake up to the realization that there are so many health benefits to slowing down and becoming more intentional and really taking time to think about the present moment more than the go, go race, race, race. Let's just think about the convenience of getting something off the shelf for as cheaply as possible. And that has led us to really losing a bit of ourselves, like giving away a bit of our souls. And so I think that the last few years with COVID actually gave a lot of people pause and helped a lot of people realize and recognize. If we think about a lot of the issues in America, particularly the Western culture, where there is an obesity epidemic, there is diabetes, all of these, probably 83% of deaths are from diseases and states that could have been otherwise prevented. And so there's now more interest in Blue Zones and what can we do in nutrition and how are people living that can be centurions. And part of it is really getting back and just appreciating what is here in our own backyards, what's here in nature. The fact that you walk outside and the tree that you're looking at is actually giving you life.

Jennifer Norman:

It's every breath that you breathe in, it is giving you, it's breathing out oxygen so that you can then reciprocate. And we have this whole environmental ecosystem that is in harmony with nature. And so we cannot forget that it demands our respect and for us to be able to honor local sourcing using as few pesticides and chemicals, doing things much more naturally and harmoniously. It doesn't always jive with modern business because we know that shelf stability and preservatives, all of these things had been made and create a lot of these synthetics to have that lasting power. But if we think about the way that food used to be made, it was just like go down to the garden and pick your vegetables, go down. And even in a lot of European towns, you'd notice that they would go shopping every day for the locally made bread and things like that, so that everything was fresh, everything was just alive, everything just had much more potency because it was just cared for and made in that moment. And so I love that Jana has taken all of that knowledge. And certainly there is with essential oils for those of us who have experimented with them before. You know that. I mean, it takes great care to know what kind of levels to use, which ones to use, because it can go wrong too.

Jana Blankenship:

Certainly it's one of those things and that you just said was so beautiful. And I agree. I think the biggest miss is that we aren't connected to everything.

Jennifer Norman:

Like man over plant or man over nature. It's like everything that we do had been so extractive rather than regenerative.

Jana Blankenship:

It is. And actually, I mean, that is a big part of Captain Blankenship, is that from day one, we've always been social. Environmental responsibility has always been at the heart of the company. And we are a climate impact company. Not only do we look to source organic ingredients, but we choose to source regenerative organic ingredients and blue carbon ingredients like seaweed. And we're always looking to work with plants like organic aloe vera, who are time honored ingredients, regenerative organic ingredients that have been used for centuries and are abundant and are never at risk for overharvesting. And it comes up with essential oils a lot because there are some essential oils that the plants have been overharvested for the creation of essential oils. And certainly, as I was saying, when you work with an essential oil, it's the most concentrated form of a plant's essence.

Jana Blankenship:

So it's very powerful. And it takes a lot of plant material to make essential oil. And because of that, they need to be used with caution. You really need to know what you're doing. And certainly they can be dangerous if you use too much in a formula. So it really is they're cheap and used sparingly, but they are very powerful and incredibly beneficial. To us, but you need to know what you're doing.

Jennifer Norman:

Yeah. And I'm so glad that Jana, you know what you mean. You put such great care into every aspect of your brand and you've just recently done a repackaging. I know that. I just wish that we could wave a magic wand and make everything so that it was much more responsibly packaged and there are not such great solutions out there just yet, but I know that they're coming. But we can do what we can in order to be able to manage the packaging, manage the way that we use it, and then the end of life cycle so that we can return it back responsibly, certainly.

Jana Blankenship:

And that was, I always say, a lot of companies, they pick their packaging and that's it, it never changes. And we are on the cusp of so many packaging innovations right now. So I always like to say that we're using the most sustainable packaging option available right now. That's not to say in a year or two it might change and then we're going to catch up to that. And the good thing right now is because there has been such a big movement within Clean Beauty because customers are demanding transparency with ingredients and they're asking for sustainable packaging options. So many of the larger companies are now investing in sustainable packaging and it's kind of trickling down and making those options available for smaller companies to invest in. Because it used to be that there might be an option you want to go with, but the minimum order quantities are like 50,000 units for something small business hard for a small business. Yeah, it's unsustainable.

Jana Blankenship:

So the good thing is that the wheels are really in motion right now. There's so much innovation even within. We're excited because seaweed is a hero ingredient across all of our products. We donate to nonprofits that help clean up the ocean and water waves, including Greenwave, which is a regenerative ocean arming technology. Through them, we've been able to source seaweed. But there's so much happening within kind of seaweed bioplastics. So we're so excited to kind of be on the cutting edge of all of those.

Jennifer Norman:

And the more and more that people become aware and are demanding these kinds of solutions, the more effort and funding will go towards those good businesses which are creating these innovative solutions which are more regenerative rather than extractive. And speaking of which, I actually wanted to talk about product for a moment because in my earlier beauty days, I remember working for companies where it's like when you do a product launch, you can't just launch one item. It was like, oh gosh, it'll just sit alone on a shelf and it won't be able to attract enough attention. We have to come up with a whole line and introduce a whole line at the same time so that it has shelf presence. And so therefore, you come up with seven or ten products so that you can just push them out onto the shelf at the same time and market them. And then the question always became it's like, okay, well, how can we make sure that we get more people to buy more, more often, more and more? And it was just really all about trying to get people to have this sense of urgency. You've got to buy now all these promotions, all of these flash sales, all of these things that would entice people to just continuously consume. And yet I know that that is antithetical to this whole concept of slow beauty and of being mindful.

Jennifer Norman:

Can you talk about the choicefulness that you've put into the products that you've put out and maybe some of the lessons that you've learned along the way?

Jana Blankenship:

Sure, yes. And definitely I started Captain Blankenship in 2009 and at that point there were so few clean beauty options on the market that the brand was really created out of necessity. And part of it was, as I mentioned before, I have an allergy to synthetic fragrance in natural perfumery. So the brand really did have a point of differentiation then and there's some brand founders, we all started our companies around the same time and we're still in touch. And the integrity of what we're doing has never changed from day one. But in the beginning with Captain Blankenship, I was making essential oil based perfumes, skincare, hair care and body care. And there weren't that many brands out on the market. And it's so true.

Jana Blankenship:

The retailers just want it similar. I mean, the business of beauty is the same as the business of fashion. New York constantly have launches, churn and burn. Finally, there is a lot of awareness around that being wholly unsustainable and unnecessary, because now that there are so many clean beauty options in the market, why should I be creating a product that someone else is already doing? The brand has really changed in a way because when I saw starting it in 2009, really being kind of a pioneer in the space, and then fast forward ten years later, there are so many brands that are making incredible clean skincare, body care, natural perfumes, makeup and hair care. But to us, it felt like there was still a lot of room for innovation in clean hair care. And so in 2020, COVID hit and it gave us a moment to pause and we looked at the brand and looked at our best sellers and it was clear that our hair care products were always our best sellers. And that's what the brand was known for. The business is like your baby.

Jana Blankenship:

And as I formulate everything myself and have my hand in all of it, there was a big process of letting go. And for us, just deciding what, we're just going to focus on hair care and we're going to narrow our product assortment from 30 products to seven products.

Jennifer Norman:

Wow.

Jana Blankenship:

Which was a little bit terrifying, but at the same time it's like these are our most innovative products. We have our Made Safe certification, which is the most stringent ingredient sourcing certification in the United States. We're B Corp, too. And it was like, what? We can make a bigger impact with these products and making sure too, as I was mentioning, that we direct source as many ingredients as we can from farmers and cooperatives. Unlike a lot of brands like organic aloe vera is the number one ingredient in our shampoo and conditioner, but it's also in our sea salt hairspray. It's too the more aloe that we source directly from this farm, the bigger the impact we make. So it was a little terrifying, but it was also really clarifying for us to be able to just focus on our hair care and to kind of get off that hamster wheel and say, what? I'm not going to release anything unless I think that it's truly innovative and it's a source of good for people on the planet. So now it's been really exciting because I love to formulate everything.

Jana Blankenship:

We have products in R and D, but they're all incredibly innovative and the majority of ingredients in all of our formulas are Blue Carbon and Regenerative Organic.

Jennifer Norman:

Oh, that's incredible.

Jana Blankenship:

And the retailers are kind of waking up to that. They're understanding, especially now as they're onboarding more clean beauty brands. This can't be the way anymore. They're investing in take back programs and initiatives and that old model of just churn it out proliferate just doesn't make sense anymore.

Jennifer Norman:

It doesn't. And I think that because more people are doing online shopping rather than having the restriction of the shelf space. Of course people love the idea of retail theater and they want to be able to go and touch and feel and all of that. But truly I think that it's the idea of being able to still harness the own brand's experience rather than dictating, oh, what is this going to look like in my store? Or how is it going to jive with everything else that's around it? That sort of thing isn't as significant an issue anymore. And recognizing that we all have to do our part to be less wasteful, more mindful, more responsible, it's really very important for the climate, for our own sustainability and work sustainability too I mean, I want to talk about that for a moment. As a mom, as an entrepreneur, you're running a business, you're doing it all and you're an author as well. How do you find balance?

Jana Blankenship:

I think my mantra when I was younger was very much about saying yes, and I've gotten older. It's so much about saying no and following my intuition and being really clear about what I want to work on and what I don't. And then I think also there's so much pressure running a business and not giving into those opportunities that don't really feel right. And I think I've made every mistake in the book. And we really kept went into mass retail really early before any of those retailers understood kind of the integrity of what we were doing and what. And now I feel freed in a way after having all of these experiences to kind of step back and say, okay, I know who I am. I believe in this brand. I'm going to make the right decisions for us and for me.

Jana Blankenship:

And I think, too, it's like I got into this because I'm so passionate about the power of plants for beauty and well being, and I want to share that. I believe in the product, but unless it's a force of good, then there's no reason I would be doing this anymore. So writing the book has been incredibly grounding for me. Always been a part of my practice to write. I used to be a curator. I've written when I got a master's as well, and both in college and for my master's, I wrote this. And I used to write catalog essays. As a curator, I love to write.

Jana Blankenship:

And actually, my father's mother, Sheila, who I mentioned was also an author, she self published about 20 books.

Jennifer Norman:

Oh, wow.

Jana Blankenship:

Gracious mind. And especially too, it's like when business can be also out of control, and not that we are ever really in control, but writing the books so satisfying. And for me, too, part of it is I believe in the power of plants, and I also believe in you are interested in plants and beauty and well being. You can make your own products. You can use your own recipes. And so maybe there's some things that you'll still buy that you choose not to make. But if you want to start doing some DIY products, that's my passion. I'm always working on something with my hands were really an incredible way to kind of share these easy recipes and my knowledge, and it was such a joy to work on.

Jana Blankenship:

And my most recent book, Seasonal Family Almanac, was a collaboration with my dear friend Emma Frisch. And so that was really incredible because it's all about so many of the things that you've been talking about, connecting ourselves and our families to the natural world and just opening the door at letting yourself be filled with wonder and using seasonal plants in recipes, culinary recipes, herbal recipes, and then nature based crafts. And that was I'm so proud of this book, and it really was such a joy to work on it with Emma and to be able the spirit of collaboration was so wonderful. Especially oftentimes we're doing it alone. You're raising your kids, you're running. And it was so fun to open it up and have it be a journey that we went on together.

Jennifer Norman:

That's so beautiful. I was going to say I want to give an homage to your writing so that my listeners know and can appreciate. I mean, you definitely have this way with words. This is an excerpt just from the Captain Blankenship website, “We are all explorers at heart. The urge to uncover truth and discover beauty is as natural as life itself. Immersion in wild waters, fields and forests is medicine for the soul. And it is our recipe for the rituals we share with you.”

Jennifer Norman:

You are the nymph! You are the nymph feminine archetype. I mean, there's poetry and magic in the lush garden of your words. It's like your word is your fairy wand. I love the pictures that you paint with your intimate relationship with nature. And your gift of being able to write and share that in your books is really lovely. It's just truly special to be able to wield such magic with words and create these feelings, these emotions.

Jana Blankenship:

As with Mother Nature as a source of there's endless, endless love and every day it's unfolding. And I think, too, when you talk about mean, mother Nature is my grounding force. And we live in the Hudson Valley on a river. There's an eagle's nest in our mountains. I'm hiking in those mountains every day. I'm either out walking or hiking with my dogs and outside. And being connected to nature makes everything easier and better. And I think, too, I'm so grateful to be raising my family here and have them walk outside the door and teaching the names of all the plants.

Jana Blankenship:

There's so many. Every name of a plant tells a story. And I love being able to develop that close relationship with the ecosystem where I live and see plants throughout their season and we see ourselves reflected back.

Jennifer Norman:

Truly, truly. It's interesting because when I was growing up, I was actually adopted. My mother was British, and she always had this amazing passion for gardens. Like, the English garden was her thing. She always had to have flowers around. And you'd just see her swell with love and emotion and adoration for, oh, my gosh, the flowers. And so we'd go back and take trips to England. We'd spend times in these beautiful gardens and then we would drink tea, high tea and a lot of different tea shops.

Jennifer Norman:

And so there was a different, more, I think, refined appreciation for nature and what that meant in the British culture. But because I was adopted, I think that there was always something different inside me, which felt a little bit more of that. As you can imagine, my DNA was Eastern, from eastern Asia. And I just felt like a different appreciation of like, instead of English breakfast tea, I was like, I wanted green tea. So instead of being in a British garden, which I love the roses, and I was like, I feel really peaceful with bamboo and Zen gardens and just like, that kind of peacefulness. And I just was like, yeah. There's something about the nature of something that is just in tune with ourselves. And sometimes the environment that we place ourselves in, especially since we are such a mobile environment now, we might get into environments that don't necessarily jive with what our inner being really can appreciate.

Jennifer Norman:

And then we get in this sense like, oh, I feel like I don't belong, or I feel lonely, or I feel like, listen to your inner nature, listen to that spirit. There might be something inside you saying like maybe surrounding yourself with something different, trying a different aspect of nature. There's no right or wrong for any one person and it could be very different for even a sibling than it can be for you. But the way that you will be able to relate to your surroundings is very personal. It's very different. Yeah. Trying these DIY things is fun seeing what you come up with for yourself. Sometimes it can be something that is mass produce and it does resound with our wider audience.

Jennifer Norman:

But there might be some little things that you want to take and make your own. Put your own little spin on a recipe. Yeah.

Jana Blankenship:

And that's what I love because actually I resonate so strongly with everything and I do believe it's like, listen to the plants, they will speak to you. And there is so much about ancestral plants for me. Stinging nettle. We have a big nettle patch outside and I grew up with stories of my grandmother harvesting nettles and it was the first nutritious green in the springtime and it was so important in her village go to harvest it. And they actually one ritual which I always tell my kids, like, Lucky, this is in you. The grandmothers of the village would take the stinging nettle stalks and hit the children's knees for punishment. And now it's like I go with my mother down the road and I harvest nettles and I make stinging nettle tea. I just harvested -- the cycle for the plant where it's the right time to harvest the nettle seeds is right now for an incredible adrenal tonic. And so I just harvested the seeds, eating them and yes, it's just been so powerful to know it's really in my ancestry for this plant. And then speaking to scent too, because.

Jennifer Norman:

I was going to say but to somebody else that got whipped with the stinging nettle, which was stinging for a different reason. They might not have the same relationship!

Jana Blankenship:

With that plant as you did, knowing that story. It's so powerful. Plants are so great for vitality, but yes, ruined it for life.

Talk about scent too. What is really an important dimension of working with essential oils and scent for me is that scent is our oldest sense. It develops in the womb and is incredibly personal. So scents from my childhood, the nostalgia. My mom used to wear a perfume called Tea Rose and anytime I smell that, it brings me back to a time and a place.

Jana Blankenship:

So it could be something from a scent, like a scent of tea that you drank as a child that immediately grounds you and is so important to you. And so that's why working with scents is so important and it's so personal and part of sharing the DIY. And not all of my recipes, some of them do not use essential oils in them. But I always say follow your nose scents that bring you happiness and joy. These are my sensibilities. They might not be yours for sure.

Jennifer Norman:

I know that there are certain people in my family that are like, I just don't want to smell like something that you eat. Like I don't like the whole chocolate vanilla cupcakey type things. I want to be more floral and whatnot. And so you each, you're going to have your own tastes and preferences for sure.

Jana Blankenship:

About that. Just like an aside is that so many of these manufactured scents of chocolate or vanilla are different from the actual scent.

Jennifer Norman:

True.

Jana Blankenship:

Like cocoa butter. I love making products with cocoa butter. It smells naturally of chocolate. It's what goes into chocolate, not like a beach.

Jennifer Norman:

Not like the artificial sunspray.

Jana Blankenship:

We're using organic coconut oil in things. It just smells delicious and it's so different from that fake chocolate or coconut smell. And it's funny because a lot of companies will use deodorized cocoa butter and it's like, are you kidding? Some of these plant based materials are so incredibly sensuous and then you're going to strip them, you're going to deodorize them, you're going to bleach them. It's like I don't think you get it.

Jennifer Norman:

So as we're coming into fall and then winter, tell me some of the -- I know that with your seasonal book you've got different kinds of recipes and different crafts and things like that for various months and different feelings and emotions, like emerging and cultivating, all of these wonderful things. What are some of the special things that we might be interested in learning about or trying and exploring for our families coming up?

Jana Blankenship:

Yeah, and I was just brewing a big batch of this elderberry syrup.

Jennifer Norman:

Elderberry is good for immunity, right?

Jana Blankenship:

So good for immunity. I feel like my kids started school a few weeks ago. It's just hard not to pick up a cold and I definitely think something and so elderberry syrup is my go to. I make it year round, but right now is when I brew a huge batch of it. And in Seasonal Family Almanac, there's a recipe for elderberry syrup, but then also a recipe for turning the elderberry syrup into I call them elder bears. They're elderberry gummies. And so that's like a great kid friendly recipe and I love to have the fridge stocked with them. And what I love, there's another recipe that they're side by side in Seasonal Family Almanac.

Jana Blankenship:

And it's been fun because I've been reaching to it and just opening to that spread and making also goldenrod tea. I have an allergies be gone golden rod tea recipe. And it has goldenrod in it.

Jennifer Norman:

Interesting.

Jana Blankenship:

And the nettles and peppermint. And a lot of people think that goldenrod causes seasonal allergies and that's because another plant that grows right next to goldenrod that doesn't really look like it, but some could call a lookalike is ragweed, and ragweed gives seasonal allergies, not golden rod.

Jennifer Norman:

And this is actually something my brother growing up used to always say, oh, it's goldenrod season, and it's not the goldenrod.

Jana Blankenship:

And actually this is what I love is in the natural world, often the antidote for whatever is causing the problem is growing right next to it. Goldenrod and ragweed grow side by side. Also one of my favorite plants, jewel weed, which is a natural antidote for poison ivy and topical rashes.

Jennifer Norman:

I wish I knew that growing up!

Jana Blankenship:

It always grows right by poison ivy. And so it's just, nature is always giving us gifts if we wake up to it. Actually, one of my favorite quotes that I always return back to is by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, who I think nature saved her life. She quotes that “attention is the beginning of devotion.” Think about that. Once we start to pay attention, once we start to learn about something, to open our equally present for it, we become devoted.

Jennifer Norman:

I'm thinking about the attention that mushrooms are getting now. Have they not been around since the dawning of time?

Jana Blankenship:

So interesting. I just think that sometimes it's all about timing and people have to be ready for it.

Jennifer Norman:

True.

Jana Blankenship:

Luckily now, because mushrooms might save the world, and it's good that people are finally starting to pay attention and understanding the power that's there for sure.

Jennifer Norman:

And so I'm glad that we have our listeners attention now because I am just so appreciative of Jana all of your work, all of the mindfulness and thoughtfulness that you put into Captain Blankenship as well as your wonderful books. I can't wait to dive into those myself. And so, yeah, let us continue being great stewards of our planet and making sure that we're giving as much back as we're taking and then some.

Jana, thank you so much for being on The Human Beauty Movement Podcast today. It was such a joy, and has been such a gift.

Jana Blankenship:

I'm so grateful for all the incredible work you do and I can't wait to collaborate.

Jennifer Norman:

Thank you so much.

Jennifer Norman:

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