Mid-Autumn Skin and Body Care
Meet the lineup of protective plant topicals to call back your power, support winter visioning and strengthen your inner flame in the darker months.
Protect your power to keep showing up for the next world*
▽ 100% free of essential oils ▽
Mugwort {liath lus} is one of my dearest plant kin to connect with queer ancestors. Used for centuries as a protective ally from harms seen & unseen, to fortify through conflict, cleanse the energetic field, access deep dreaming, generate warmth, release trauma, pain + stagnation.
Contains a blend of yarrow + angelica + rose to move + circulate the blood, support a sense of agency in creating porous boundaries, choosing what we let in and what parts of us show up, and guide us toward becoming well ancestors.
More ways to work with this topical oil:
Anoint for protection and energetic clearing. Rollers are suited for tense protest situations to protect against harm, ground us in truth, reveal what has been concealed.
Apply to pulse points to assist dreamwork, create a bridge between realms, ground your visionary power in the physical realm & build the world of our collective dreams.
Massage into abdomen to support cramps, bloating, scanty bloods, or anywhere there is stagnation and dull, achy pain.
Nurture the energetic heart, feel for well ancestors and deep time at your back, let them soften trauma held in the tissues of the body.
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Suggested use: Apply to pulse points or all over. Massage into the lower abdomen to relieve cramps & ground yourself. Rub onto neck & shoulders to assist dreaming, promote clarity and melt away stress.
The practice of self-massage is a key part of my daily rituals. A way to reset & relax my delicate nervous system, call my energy back from negative patterns and dysphoria. To hold myself in the colder months when stiffness sets in.
Cautions: Not for use in pregnancy unless otherwise directed by your healthcare provider.
(all organic and local) cali + european mugwort leaf + flower + angelica root + yarrow + rose petals + cold pressed organic olive + sunflower oil
1 oz or 2 oz jar
See also:
Gently move the inner waters of the body & restore juicy vibrancy*
▽ 100% free of essential oils ▽
A sweet & gentle topical oil for trans fam & babes of all genders. With an affinity for the chest & breast, whether you’re growing new ta-ta’s, bidding them farewell, or just loving up on whatever you got.
This friend is for moving & draining the lymph, reducing scars & swollen nodes in neck & chest. Suitable for aftercare post-reduction, removal, implants, fat transfer, or simply as a daily massage ritual for more even texture and reducing stagnation.
Spring herbs of violet, dandelion blossoms, gotu kola & calendula join together to keep our inner rivers flowing, dissolve unwanted tissue densities & help our bodies integrate post-surgery, after wounds close.
A friend for connective tissue repair, to reduce inflammation, swelling, scar tissue & keloid scars, cysts & fibroids, support collagen & elasticity and open the lymphatic channels.
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Suggested use: Gently massage into chest, sides of neck & underarms, drawing your fingers towards the heart. Use post-shower to ease swelling & inflammation from tissue density, surgical healing or lymph congestion.
all organic + local violet leaf + dandelion blossoms + calendula flowers + gotu kola leaf + cold pressed organic olive oil
2 oz pump bottle
Create a bridge between worlds & dive into your dreams*
A blend of aromatic hand distilled hydrosols to support protection and clearing, deepen dreamwork, call forth visionary power to keep showing up for the next world.
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Mugwort {liath lus} is one of my dearest plant kin to connect with queer ancestors, protect from harm seen and unseen, clear energy fields while entering dream worlds. Feel for the deep time at your back; let it soften trauma held in the tissues of the body.
Lavender quiets the mind & grounds the heart to elicit serene peace. Just gazing at this plant can ease nervous tension, calm overactive thoughts, and encourage us to breathe deep and relax.
Clary sage promotes focus and clarity of intention while envisioning the world we want to create. Reveal what is hidden, ground yourself in truth.
Environmental essence of vervain + labradorite opens the doors of perception, grounds thoughts and emotions in the physical realm, and helps us more fully embody our ideals, values and soul longings.
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These small batch hydrosols provide the benefits of plant aromatherapy without the overpowering scent or unethical practices of mass produced essential oils, and they’re a wonderful alternative for those sensitive to smoke medicine.
Suggested use: Spray onto clean skin, into a bath or on your bed pillow. Use as a ritual mist for meditation, spells, dreamwork and visioning.
Cautions: For external use only. Not for use in pregnancy unless otherwise directed by your healthcare provider.
(all organic locally grown) california mugwort + lavender + clary sage steam distilled in a traditional copper alembic with pure distilled water + essence of moonstone + vervain + labradorite + lapis lazuli
2 oz bottle
Let your skin drink deep of radiant solstice rays*
An extra potent topical oil made through a multi-step extraction process to maximize the many benefits of this single star-powered plant. Use it to relieve sunburns, post-surgical care, muscle tension, deep nerve pain & more.
Solstice wort {aka st. j’s wort aka beathnua} is one of my most treasured allies since the start of my herbal journey. This sun-worshiping plant blooms along subalpine rivers on the summer solstice, harnessing powerful solar rays. The tiny perforations covering the plant speak to their ability to seal up our energy and offer spirit protection.
This oil is made from fresh st. j’s wort flowering tops grown in my garden & harvested at peak potency around the summer solstice. They are then processed through a complex extraction that’s carefully tended to ensure the most plant constituents are included. You can see the potency in the deep, rich, crimson colored oil.
Solstice wort is a badass for post-surgical healing once incision sites are closed. I’ve offered this oil to many clients and trans fam for gender affirming surgeries over the years. A friend to nourish & moisturize skin after sun exposure and release tension in the jaw, neck and shoulders. To tend to cuts, scrapes, burns, stiffness, body aches, nerve & rheumatic pain. To hold us through cooler, darker months when joints get creaky & bodies move slower.
For best results, use in combo with a hydrosol mist after bathing or showering. Gently massage into pain points, areas of tension, dry skin, lymphatic tissue, and anywhere else to seal up any light leaks. Thank the plants for protecting your inner light and anchoring it down into the earth.
▽ 100% free of essential oils ▽
Suggested use: Massage 2-3 pumps into skin to ease stiffness, muscle & nerve tension, burns, and minor wounds. Pour 1-2 tsp into a warm bath to uplift spirits in cold months and promote deep rest & relaxation.
Cautions: Can increase photosensitivity in folks with very fair skin. Use caution with prolonged sun exposure.
made with fresh solstice wort leaves + flowers from my garden + local cold pressed Seka Hills olive oil
10 ml roller / 2 oz bottle / 4 oz bottle
Protect your power to keep showing up for the next world*
▽ 100% free of essential oils ▽
Mugwort {liath lus} is one of my dearest plant kin to connect with queer ancestors. Used for centuries as a protective ally from harms seen & unseen, to fortify through conflict, cleanse the energetic field, access deep dreaming, generate warmth, release trauma, pain + stagnation.
Contains a blend of yarrow + angelica + rose to move + circulate the blood, support a sense of agency in creating porous boundaries, choosing what we let in and what parts of us show up, and guide us toward becoming well ancestors.
More ways to work with this topical oil:
Anoint for protection and energetic clearing. Rollers are suited for tense protest situations to protect against harm, ground us in truth, reveal what has been concealed.
Apply to pulse points to assist dreamwork, create a bridge between realms, ground your visionary power in the physical realm & build the world of our collective dreams.
Massage into abdomen to support cramps, bloating, scanty bloods, or anywhere there is stagnation and dull, achy pain.
Nurture the energetic heart, feel for well ancestors and deep time at your back, let them soften trauma held in the tissues of the body.
△☉▽
Suggested use: Apply to pulse points or all over. Massage into the lower abdomen to relieve cramps & ground yourself. Rub onto neck & shoulders to assist dreaming, promote clarity and melt away stress.
The practice of self-massage is a key part of my daily rituals. A way to reset & relax my delicate nervous system, call my energy back from negative patterns and dysphoria. To hold myself in the colder months when stiffness sets in.
Cautions: Not for use in pregnancy unless otherwise directed by your healthcare provider.
(all organic and local) cali + european mugwort leaf + flower + angelica root + yarrow + rose petals + cold pressed organic olive + sunflower oil
10 ml roller or 2 oz pump bottle
See also:
Protect & nourish your skin with the scent of wild piñon*
▽ 100% free of essential oils ▽
A potent drawing salve to soothe bruises, cuts, scrapes, splinters, bug bites and skin irritation. I lean heavily on this friend for camping trips when my skin suffers from high winds, cold temps, and sun exposure. I use a small amount in each nostril as a protective layer when going out, or if my sinus is running.
Piñon Pine resin offers antimicrobial qualities and a distinct aroma of the Eastern Sierra mountains and high desert climates. I sparingly hand gather pitch from the forest floor or fallen trees at high elevations in the summer months.
Garden grown Comfrey + Yarrow offer indispensable wound healing and skin protection.
Local Calendula + Plantain feed the skin fresh nutrients, speeding up skin recovery time.
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Suggested use: Apply to minor cuts, scrapes & splinters to guard against infection & nourish dry skin.
(all organic california grown) comfrey + plantain + calendula + yarrow + resins of piñon pine + organic cold pressed olive oil + local raw honey + avocado + shea butter + beeswax
1 oz or 2 oz gold tin
Plant Protection Workshop Recording
Boundary magic for holding the edge
Receive a recording of the workshop + 43 page PDF full of resources, recipes, plant monographs, Celtic folk names and modern practices
A virtual energetic herbal workshop exploring boundaries in a burning world. For caregivers, grief workers, gender freaks, edge dwellers and anyone wanting to build devotional plant practices this samhain season.
Together we’ll deepen into this time of turning inward. We’ll discuss plants to traverse the threshold, to protect us from harm and allow our hearts to expand + unfold, so we may be of service from a place of embodied presence.
We’ll meet at the intersections of queer botany and ancient folk magic to explore plant ecologies and their protective power. We’ll discuss relational + cultural practices between human + more than human worlds, woven through a lineage of ancestral connection + folklore of the celtic isles.
This class is an antidote to the urgency of whiteness that often tries to override our capacities. Together we’ll feel into how to practice discernment and boundaries with plants. To honor the complexities of having a body in a world determined to extract our labor and attention endlessly.
Some topics may include:
How plants can help us tend to our hearts, allow us to be with grief, to honor the threshold of life and death, to feel and move with more presence.
Plant practices for tending to burnout and overwork in the midst of crisis/collapse, especially for those doing solidarity and care work.
We’ll discuss techniques for making + working with ritual body oils, plant essences + other preparations.
Eco-erotics of edge play with plants — how plants allow for more grounded embodiment while knowing what is ours to hold and what is not.
How plants ask us to practice mutuality, reciprocity and intimacy with the land and give back our protection in return.
We’ll discuss some physical qualities of plants and how their therapeutic actions relate back to energetic boundaries
Herbs for Collective Care + Embodied Liberation
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Herbs for Collective Care + Embodied Liberation ~
Plants for body ecologies
Bodies are of the earth. Elemental. Woven into planet and cosmos. Trauma, healing, revolution, begin with the body. A site of rupture and repair. A thread connecting the two. An ecosystem in relation with plants and planet. Webs of care, response and resourcing. A map of survival.
Plants ask us to listen. To co-regulate in mutual relationship. Plants are here for the work of embodiment, free from hierarchy and shame. With slow, steady guidance from a wise practitioner. With connection at the root. To invite agency, wholeness, aliveness. To become well ancestors
Healing the body to heal the land.
Laurel Birch, clinical herbalist & founder of Ms. Tea
Thank you for 10 years of Ms. Tea!
Book with me
I offer virtual 1:1 consultations to discuss acute and ongoing health concerns, energetic and emotional health, trans and gender affirming care, and herbal mentorship. I offer custom herbal formulas, flower essences, and many other preparations with flexible costs and follow-up bundles. Sliding scale always.
Visit the shop
Laurel crafts seed-to-bottle elixirs + oxymels made with the freshest herbs harvested at peak potency, botanical skin + body care, small batch hydrosols distilled by hand, alcohol free potions and energetic essences made in ritual communion with the land.
Stock Ms. Tea
Contact me for collaborations and wholesale accounts. Let me know a bit more about your local co-op, shop, practice, organization or offerings, how you heard about Ms. Tea and how you’d like to work together!
Elixirs
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Oxymels
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Glycerites
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Elixirs ☁︎ Oxymels ☁︎ Glycerites ☁︎
collective care fund
I rely on community support to offer free and sliding scale care & distribute funds in solidarity with liberation work. This fund directly sustains my ability to invest in ongoing mutual aid and community care for the long haul.
Skin + Body
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Hydrosols
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Pain + First Aid
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Skin + Body ～ Hydrosols ～ Pain + First Aid ～
Nourishing Tisanes
Soothing teas to fortify, calm your nerves and breathe deep.
Nourishing Mushroom Salt
A nutritive seasoning salt packed with herbal mushroom flavor to level up any savory dish.
Explore my practice, book an herbal consultation and inquire about wholesale orders.
Essences for energetic care
Love up on yr bod and let your radiant light beams shine through.
A lusty gender euphoric essence blend for emotional transition and bold, sensual, embodied courage. Make material the vision of how you see yourself, reclaim your agency through pleasure and awe, fully inhabit your body as woven into interspecies webs.
▽ Alcohol Free Option ▽
Plant essences were my first allies in emotional transition, opening the door to endless realms of gender expansion. Plants are here to bring us closer the ways we can embody our desires, closing the gap between values and actions, matter and energy. A multi-species dance in the spirit of collaboration and total gender anarchy.
Manzanita was the first flower essence I ever made, on a razor-edged ridge in the lion’s den above Big Sur with ringtail cat, coastal fog, native bees, tarantula. Manzanita offers us safe embodiment, softening our conditioned survival response. They balance hard edges with open heart tenderness, instilling courage, and moving inner emotions toward outward expression.
Dune primrose fosters strength in our sense of self-openness and freedom from shame, allowing us to reparent ourselves from a place of tender connection to spirit. As night falls in the desert, petals of white silk adorn the sandy washes. Luminous sphinx moths flutter mid-air at dusk, drinking their nectar. If you listen closely, you can hear the whispering of their wings.
Lady’s slipper, Cali Peony and Desert Globemallow enhance expressions of warmth, self-compassion, creativity and connection from center. They offer a sense of agency to trauma survivors to choose what parts of ourselves we make visible. To reclaim life’s pleasure, awe and the sacred in the everyday.
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This environmental essence is intentionally crafted in ritual ceremony with the mysteries & energies of land, plants, oceans & cosmos.
Suggested use: Take 1-4 drops on the tongue daily, apply to pulse points or add a few drops to a bath. Try working in combo with journaling, meditation, dreamwork or any spirit practice that feels accessible.
environmental essence of manzanita, sphinx moth, dune primrose, desert globemallow, lady’s slipper, cali peony in local rose brandy OR rose petal glycerite
1 oz bottle
Spark the flame of liberation, feel for your edges, find what’s holding you.
A desert wash flower essence to ignite and protect.
▽ Alcohol Free Option ▽
Ocotillo strengthens boundaries through conflict, helping us stand firm in our ‘No’. They offer space to feel held, renew strength through chaos, ignite the creative spark and vision of revolutionary futures. Ocotillo offers fierce energetic protection when we feel hunted, troubled by mental anguish, unable to discern how much space is ours to take up, to whom we are response-able.
Ocotillo exudes hard femme energy, their barbed branches swaying in the wind while fiery red flowers reach toward the sky. These giants of the Sonoran desert can grow over ten feet tall. Their spindly branches thicken towards their centers, converging deep within a thicket of thorns and peeling outer bark that hides a fleshy green skin just underneath.
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This environmental essence is intentionally crafted in ritual communion with the mysteries & energies of land, plants, oceans & cosmos.
Suggested use: Take 1-4 drops on the tongue daily, apply to pulse points or add a few drops to a bath. Try working in combo with journaling, meditation, dreamwork or any spirit practice that feels accessible.
environmental essence of ocotillo flowers in a base of local rose brandy OR rose glycerin
1 oz bottle
Connect with the webs of deep survivor wisdom and cleanse your field of vision.
A desert wash flower essence to expand and express.
▽ Alcohol Free Option ▽
Creosote bush offers survivor wisdom to guide us in persevering, remaining both solid and flexible. A powerful anti-microbial plant with ancient ecological roots, desert chaparral supports trauma recovery, cleanses the body of psychic distress, eases nightmares, offers clear vision and freedom of expression.
Creosote bush aka desert chaparral (Larrea tridentata) is widespread across desert ecologies. Their unmistakeable scent permeates the air after even the slightest rain. Creosote invites us to cleanse our vision from the endless disturbing images presented to us each and every day. To return to our senses — to what is here and alive on this earth.
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This environmental essence is intentionally crafted in ritual communion with the mysteries & energies of land, plants, oceans & cosmos.
Suggested use: Take 1-4 drops on the tongue daily, apply to pulse points or add a few drops to a bath. Try working in combo with journaling, meditation, dreamwork or any spirit practice that feels accessible.
environmental essence of creosote bush aka desert chaparral flowers in a base of local rose brandy OR rose glycerin
1 oz bottle
Choose any 3 flower + gem essences to support emotional care
Of all the ways I work with plants, flower essences are some of my dearest allies for giving space to deep emotional shifts & moving from isolation to relationality. Energetic essences can expand our capacities to build more resilient communities & make connection part of our daily practice.
Flower essences carry energetic imprints of plants, sun (or moon) light, land & water. The medicine of place, of ecologies & interspecies communitities. They’re part of my daily writing & creative practice. They’re how I integrate, move through grief, feel for my edges & dream new worlds of reciprocal care.
These environmental flower & gem essences are many years in the making. They span from coastal mountains to my garden. Made in ritual practice with the mysteries & energies of land, plants, ocean & cosmos. Each one a snapshot of a moment in time, recorded on the surface of water.
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All preserved in rose & mimosa brandy & honey. Take 1-4 drops on the tongue daily. Use on pulse points or add a few drops to a bath. Try working with journaling, meditation, dreamwork or any spirit practice that feels accessible.
(3) 1 oz bottles
Let’s work together.
Write me with questions about working together 1:1, wholesale accounts, shop inquiries, consultations and collaborations.
We agreed that it was a revolutionary act for us to stay alive.
– Merle Woo