You'd be foolish to mistake this Herbal Powerhouse for a 'Lawn Nuisance'
This cute, yellow-flowered plant has long been the pariah of pristine lawns, sprouting uninvited and returning with a vengeance, even after repeated attempts to banish it with toxic weed killers. But the dandelion's stubborn nature might just be one of its greatest gifts. As it turns out, this hearty little plant doesn’t just survive in harsh soil conditions, it thrives. And it helps us thrive too, by ridding our bodies of toxins. With its remarkable detoxifying and liver-supporting properties, Dandelion is a living symbol of Resilience, Healing, and underrated Beauty.Part of the Sunflower family Asteraceae, Dandelion is one of the 1st plants to bloom after winter, it’s a 1st food for pollinators, and is also the Liver Restorative and Cleanser you need after a long winter. Take advantage of the abundant gifts that Dandelion provides. This simple plant teaches us that the simplest things often hold extraordinary power.At The Little Herb Shoppe, we chose the dandelion as our Herbal Mascot because it mirrors what we believe about wellness: That healing can be humble, strong, and rooted in every day. Often overlooked for more exotic herbs, Dandelion offers a wide array of benefits, especially for Liver Health, Skin, Digestion, and iInflammation, and is being utilized as a cancer protocol.Modern research backs what herbalists have known for centuries. Compounds in Dandelion root and leaf, particularly polysaccharides, have been shown to support liver function by reducing inflammation and encouraging bile production. (Protective Effects of Taraxacum officinale L. (Dandelion) Root Extract in Experimental Acute on Chronic Liver Failure | PMC/NIH). This makes Dandelion a powerful ally in helping the body process and eliminate environmental toxins, excess hormones, and metabolic waste. It’s a gentle, yet effective addition to a detox routine. Whether you’re sipping a cup of dandelion tea, or taking the tincture like our Detox Vital Liver Support Tincture & Detox Vital Liver Support Tea, or munching on the fresh leaves in a spring salad, you're helping your Liver to do its 500+ roles in your body. YES, you can eat them! Dandelion greens are rich in vitamins A, C, and K, as well as calcium, iron, and antioxidants. If your yard is free of pesticides and other sprays, go ahead and harvest 10–20 leaves, wash them thoroughly, and add a few to your meals. They’re slightly bitter, like arugula, and add a bright, peppery kick to salads. For something warm and grounding, try sautéing them in olive oil with a little garlic for an easy, nourishing side dish that celebrates seasonal eating and self-care. Dandelion also offers gentle support for digestion and urinary health. As a natural diuretic, the leaf can help reduce water retention and support kidney function without depleting potassium like synthetic diuretics do. (with pharmaceutical diuretics you need to take a potassium pill to replace the lost potassium. With Dandelion, no added pill and you increase potassium naturally with Dandelion!) Meanwhile, its bitter taste acts as a digestive tonic, waking up the stomach and stimulating the production of digestive juices before meals. No gall bladder? Start with Dandelion.Beyond the physical, Dandelion has a long-standing reputation in folklore. It’s considered a symbol of hope, transformation, and has an ability to thrive in adverse conditions. Children (and adults!) have long made wishes while blowing its fluffy seed heads into the wind, a practice rooted in the belief that dandelion carries messages to the spirit world or helps manifest dreams. In folk healing, it’s sometimes used in rituals to clear stagnant energy, invite resilience, or enhance clarity.So next time you see a dandelion poking through the cracks or springing up in your garden, consider that it’s not a nuisance at all, but a powerful Herbal Ally. One that reminds us to be strong, to heal gently, and to find nourishment in the most unexpected places. We have many Herbal Products that contain Dandelion. Dandelion (and other herbs) have a wide range of uses that you can reap the benefits of! For example: Dandelion is in our Hormone Support and Detox, but these also support liver, heart for example. Taking one will give you some benefits in other health areas! Herbs are just amazing that way!? MEDICINAL HERBAL TEA BLENDS WITH DANDELION: Detox Vital Liver Support Tea - This powerful tea contains herbs that help your body rid itself of toxins such as: environmental pollutants, chemicals, junk food, alcohol, and drugs (pharmaceutical or recreational). Skin Support Tea - Our new Skin Support Tea Blend (formerly Skin Deep) tea incorporates our favorite liver and lymph-loving herbs for beautiful skin from the inside out. Filtering toxins effectively. Hormonal Balance Tea - Hormonal Balance tea helps the liver metabolize and excrete excess hormones from the body, so they don’t cause symptoms like irritability, exhaustion, loss or increase of appetite. Menopause Tea - Our Menopause tea blend helps calm the storm of a changing body. Move Tea - Let this tea help get things moving so you can feel relief sooner and without harmful side effects. Move tea works great for occasional intestinal stagnation and constipation. Baby Prayer Tea - Baby Prayer Tea supports your fertility naturally. *Once you’ve missed a cycle and there’s a chance that you’re pregnant, congratulations! Please discontinue drinking this tea as it is not appropriate during pregnancy. Switch to our Mineral Blend tea for safe and nourishing support. MEDICINAL HERBAL TINCTURES WITH DANDELION: Digestive Bitters Tincture - An old-time classic! Bitters are a traditional way of increasing the digestive juices – which helps break down food and aids in absorption of nutrients. Detox Vital Liver Support Tincture - This powerful tincture blend contains herbs that help your body rid itself of toxins such as: environmental pollutants, chemicals, junk food, alcohol, and drugs (pharmaceutical or recreational). Hormonal Balance Tincture - The herbs in this tincture help to regulate the entire endocrine system. The endocrine system balances and provides instructions for every process in your body, such as growth, metabolism, immune system function, and reproductive health, and can even alter our behavior! Regulating hormones can support the body’s ability to heal sleep imbalances, PMS, acne, fertility challenges, and mood swings. Skin Support Tincture - Our Skin Support blend tincture (formerly called Skin Deep) incorporates our favorite liver and lymph-loving herbs for beautiful skin from the inside out. Filtering toxins effectively through these channels is an essential step in healing skin conditions like acne, eczema, rashes, and more. Don't only take our word for it, check out these research articles if you'd like to learn more about wonderful Dandelion!PubMed, NIH, 'Dandelion as a Source of Biologically Active Compounds Supporting the Therapy of Co-Existing Diseases in Metabolic Syndrome'Mount Sinai, NY Health Library, 'Dandelion'Springer Open, National Research Centre, 'A comprehensive review of the benefits of Taraxacum officinale on human health'PubMed, NIH, 'New Perspectives on the Effect of Dandelion, Its Food Products and Other Preparations on the Cardiovascular System and Its Diseases'
Sweet Summertime Mocktail - A fun, fizzy, non-alcoholic summer drink
Skip the skin-dehydrating, immune and energy depleting, and liver-burdening surgery store bought mocktails, and give our easy, breazy Sweet SummerTime Recipe a try.Years ago, one of our local mothers called to have us blend up a new tea they could serve at her daughter's wedding. I blended up Lemongrass, Hibiscus, and Peppermint for their wedding drink.Shortly after the wedding, the Mother of the Bride called me and said: "This iced tea was a huge hit. Everyone loved it. Thank you!"Of course, we had to make this available to our customers at the shoppe! And call it Sweet Summertime Herbal Tea blend. Delicious and Nourishing in the Summer or Winter, served Hot or Cold - you win with Sweet Summertime!The herbs in Sweet Summertime Tea are loaded with Vitamin C, known to be cooling to the body whether taken hot or cold. These herbs support digestion (indigestion) and GI discomfort. Not only that - the blend of herbs contain Vitamins A, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, iron and many other vitamins, phytonutrients, and polyphenols.They also contain antioxidants and are anti-inflammatory. They support liver health and the upper respiratory tract, and the throat. There are numerous studies about them lowering high blood pressure, cholesterol. They are immune-boosting and skin-loving.They support us nutritionally - and taste great! What's not to love?100% Organic, Nutritious, and Delicious! You'll want to have plenty on hand this summer - and winter! We love to combine Sweet Summertime with any of our other main teas, such as Brain Food, Heart Support, or Nerve Calm Teas.Try our delicious & refreshing Sweet Summertime Mocktail Recipe This recipe makes 3-4 cups.In a large 6 quart size pan, bring 4 cups of filtered water to a rolling boil, turn off. Add 5 heaping Tablespoons of Sweet Summertime Tea to the pan and cover with lid.Add 2-3 teaspoons of Infused Lavender Honey and let cool.Refrigerate for 1-2 hours for perfectly cooled ice tea, then strain the herb out...Add ice to your glasses, and pour to 1/2 way full.Fill the rest of each glass with sparkling water (or club soda), gently stirring afterward to combine.Garnish with fresh mint, line wedge or a sprig of rosemary, Refreshing!Add 2 full droppers of any of the following tincture to your iced tea or mocktail for a nutritional herbal boost.Click on any of these tinctures to try them. Nerve Calm Tincture Heart Support Tincture Brain Food Tincture Hormonal Balance Tincture Menopause Tincture One Too Many Tincture We love sharing fun ways to help you 'get the herbs in' for you, your family, friends and at your next family celebration.Grab your Sweet Summertime HERE all year round!
READY TO THRIVE AGAIN?
At some point in our lives, we decide this is it. This is how things are, and how they will be. Whether you think of this decision as acceptance, surrender, or resignation, you believe there’s nothing else to see, and little else to be done.You may go so far as to think your job, your purpose is to keep doing the same thing, and to be grateful for doing it.If so, then why does it all feel so…frustrating? More the point: Why does it feel like it keeps getting harder? If nothing changes, or has, then how can it be that we feel more overwhelmed than ever before?And if you really believe there’s nothing else to have or be, then why do you feel that whisper, that urging, that maybe things could change?If you have heard yourself say that “you have everything you need,” then why is it that you feel that something is most definitely missing? Why do you feel a palpable sense of…loss?We live in a time that no one, not even us, could imagine, 25, 40 years ago: Wireless internet that allows us to connect with anyone anywhere on the globe with a few keystrokes. We have access to anything we could possibly need, 24/7.Not only can you find anything, you, too, are findable — your precise location can be pinpointed on a map at any moment. There you are. But then, why is it you often feel so ….lost?You are legally free — to do what you want, say what you want, go where you want. But there’s a difference between freedom…and agency.You’re not getting younger, that’s true, but you’re aware of aches, pains, discomforts, chronic symptoms that could ostensibly be explained away by any number of things, including age.But if you’re being honest, those symptoms are not only irksome, they’re unsettling. Any single one of them isn’t likely to kill you, but taken together, they’ve made your own body a hostile environment instead of the place of ease it used to be. And that’s not ok, either.What if……You felt a surge of personal power and clarity again?…Your life went from something to cope with to something to thrive in?…You could stop putting out all the tiny fires your body keeps setting and harness your focus and resilience?…You could change your life, without totally uprooting it?…IT FELT GOOD TO BE YOU AGAIN?Many of you know me personally.If you don’t, my name is Kim Hudson, and I’m the herbalist and the founder of The Little Herb Shoppe and The Lakota Botanical & Wildlife Sanctuary. I’m a social entrepreneur, and guide for women who are feeling as though they’re living just this side of overwhelm, and not in the full and fulfilling way they know they could and desperately want to.I believe that this sense of listlessness, frustration, even loss, comes from a disconnect between the three sources of power in our lives: Our minds (intellect), our bodies (life force), and our spirit (purpose and meaning). We tend to live in one more than the other (usually our heads), to the exclusion of the other equally real and critical parts.There isn’t a person among us who hasn’t endured some sort of trauma — be it big-T trauma, or the thousand cuts and micro abrasions we’ve suffered over the course of our lives. Myself included!But in an effort to do what our culture rewards—the ability to stay strong, to overcome, to succeed—we’re forced to compartmentalize, anesthetize, and ignore any and all of the pain, and frankly, the rage. Bury the past and move on, we’re told. But in so doing, we’ve done ourselves a great disservice, burning the bridges and blocking the roads to who we are, and inhibiting a critical skill we’ve had all along: the ability to transmute pain into power - and dare I suggest, Pleasure and Joy.I created Pure Love Botanicals in the wake of my own soul-crushing loss, when I realized I could give up, or I could tap in—to my own agency, which I did. And changed my life in the process.As an herbalist who’s coached 1000's of individuals and led groups for years, I know first-hand the potency of plants, yes, but also the far bigger rewards of reconnecting with their nature—and our own.And as an educator and guide, I draw on a spectrum of modalities, including herbs, meditation, movement, and more, to help women not so much unearth their past pain, but re-earth themselves by literally and figuratively plugging them back in to the source of their true nature and strength.The goal and mission of Pure Love Botanicals is to restore women like you to their true power by tapping their essence—not just what happened to you but who you are as a result, and who you can become.Because it’s not over yet. Not even close!Yes, we journey back to your roots, and, in the shamanic tradition, back to the roots of your roots, your ancestors. But we don’t stay there — that’s where our journey begins, and it continues through the guided and collective support of a group by which we begin to renew and revitalize the practice of not just living life, but cultivating it, nourishing it to the point of thriving.By re-earthing our lives, our bodies, our spirits, we can discover patterns of pain, and it’s in recognizing those patterns that we discover the key to our own freedom, and regain control over our future.Status quo is a misnomer. Life doesn’t stay still; it’s always moving, and what feels like static living is an illusion. The power to break that illusion is wholly dependent on what action you’re willing to take, and what investment you make, in this very moment.Just thinking about this may be enough to help, and if so, that’s wonderful!But if you love the idea of being guided in a safe, supportive environment, this is my invitation to you to join us for an experience unlike any other. One you will emerge from feeling revitalized, renewed, and ready for the life you wanted—and a clear path back home to yourself, again.If this resonates with you, be sure to join our newsletter. We'll be announcing our 5 month herbal program this spring!“I’m walking away from this experience having stepped closer to myself than I have ever been before." - Nina“Kim makes complex spiritual concepts accessible, as if they're common sense.” - Valerie“We are learning by working, respecting and honoring the entire plant & it's energy, we can heal our physical bodies as well as our mind and spirit. This journey into the plant world is truly a transformational one on a very personal level.” – Nora“Not only did this program change my life, it saved it.” Adrienne“There is no better person to guide you to a life of health and wholesomeness than Kim".