If you’ve ever scanned the supplements section at Whole Foods, you’ve probably seen it. It’s 38 small, slender glass bottles, each promising relief from a specific emotional problem. Sweet Chestnut: “Brings optimism and peace of mind when you’re overwhelmed with suffering and can’t seem to find a way out.” Wild Oats: “It helps you decide what to do with your life when you’re unsure of which path to take. Larch: “Instills greater self-esteem when you feel inferior, fear failure, or lack self-confidence.” With promises like this, who needs Prozac? Some of you may be wondering.
Contrary to popular belief, flower essences are not a type of herbal supplement, but they are not completely unrelated. Both involve the ancient principles of plant healing. However, with flower essences, rather than ingesting powders or extracts of the actual plant to absorb the phytochemical compounds, you ingest large amounts of the water in which the plant was soaked to determine its frequency (as used by proponents). The purpose is to benefit from invisible energy waves). I believe that all living things and objects are pulsating. In other words, the flower atmosphere.
This concept may sound far-fetched, but it’s quickly becoming popular. In wellness-crazy Los Angeles, seemingly every fashion designer and stylist and savvy New Yorker who eats at Dimes and practices yoga at Sky Tin, there’s a lot of talk about Flower Remedies and Flower Remedies. It seems that you are using . (Yes, so does Gwyneth.)
The concept was first developed commercially in the 1930s by Edward Bach, a British doctor who turned to homeopathy after recovering from what was said to be an incurable disease, but the concept is actually much older. There is a possibility that it is. “Flowers are medicine,” notes Migliorelli, a Northern California herbalist who heads Sister Spinster, one of his new wave of artisanal flower essence brands. She uses the formula to treat clients with issues ranging from emotional anxiety to menopause.
However, there is little Western scientific literature on this topic. Some of the few papers published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health consider flower essences to be safe and potentially useful as part of a treatment plan, while others consider flower essences to be equivalent to a placebo. Some even declare that they are. Again, the placebo effect is not inherently bad. “Think of it this way,” says herbalist and makeup artist Jessa Blaze. Its online store, Blaze Natural Beauty, is booming in the formula category. “Do you like looking at flowers? Does being in nature make you feel good?”
