Meet Moringa Oleifera – Also Known As ‘The Miracle Tree’.

I first met Moringa early in 2023. It was a chance encounter that was to change the course of the Baliba brand (and another brand I have that works in the active treatment skincare space).

It was in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. I was in Raro with Jennie – owner of Experience Rarotonga. Do check Experience Rarotonga out if you are planning a holiday in Raro. It’s an awesome place.

Anyway, we visited the moringa tree, with a view to grab some leaves to make moringa tea – we knew this would help fight inflammation & was ‘good for us’. Raro is that kind of place.

What we didn’t anticipate is happening upon Jennie’s friend (and now my friend) – the owner of the tree, who told us of his health journey from super-high ‘about to have a stroke at any moment’ cholesterol levels, back to normal levels in 6 months by drinking tea from his trees – specifically, moringa & soursop leaf tea. Amazing.

That story and his positive energy stayed with us for the entire trip and beyond.

How could a tree make such a profound change in a person’s life…

Needless to say, we drank lots of tea, dried a bunch of leaves and got them through customs back to NZ, and started experimenting with the power of moringa.

Here’s your short version of what I learned, and how I came to appreciate why moringa is known as The Miracle Tree, and what inspired me to create the Baliba Apothecary & carve an entirely new direction for the Baliba brand using the power of natural ingredients, partnered with the power of essential oils. Now The Miracle Tree has also changed my life – in a very different way:

Nutrient-Rich: Moringa leaves are chocka-block with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that play a pivotal role in nurturing skin (and body) health.

Among these, the presence of Vitamin A is particularly notable. Vitamin A supports skin cell regeneration and repair, promoting a smoother and more youthful complexion. It aids in maintaining the skin’s integrity by encouraging the production of new skin cells while shedding old ones. This process helps to reveal fresher, brighter skin underneath.

Antioxidants: Moringa is renowned for its potent antioxidants like quercetin, chlorogenic acid, and beta-carotene. These antioxidants counteract the damaging effects of free radicals, which are notorious for causing premature aging and skin damage. By neutralizing these harmful molecules, Moringa helps maintain youthful and vibrant skin.

Inflammation Soother: Inflammation is often at the root of various skin issues, from acne to eczema. Moringa contains compounds with anti-inflammatory properties, such as isothiocyanates and flavonoids. These components help reduce redness, swelling, and irritation, contributing to a calmer complexion.

Detoxification: Clear, glowing skin is a reflection of the body’s internal health. Moringa aids in detoxification by supporting the liver’s natural function and aiding in the removal of toxins from the body. This internal cleansing is mirrored in the skin’s clarity and radiance.

Hydration: Proper hydration is essential for maintaining supple and youthful skin. Moringa’s high water content, combined with its abundance of nutrients, assists in keeping the skin hydrated and moisturized. This can help alleviate dryness and create a natural, healthy glow.

Collagen Booster: Collagen is the protein responsible for maintaining the skin’s structure and firmness. Moringa is a source of the amino acids proline and hydroxyproline, which are essential for collagen production. By providing the building blocks for collagen synthesis, Moringa contributes to plump and youthful-looking skin.

Nourishing from Within: The saying “You are what you eat” resonates deeply when it comes to skin health. Moringa’s dense nutritional profile positively impacts overall health, which in turn reflects on the skin. When the body is well-nourished, the skin reaps its benefits, radiating health and vitality.

I’ve now created a number of products that include moringa oil and moringa extract, and am moving to create more that focus solely on moringa, simply due to its superior performance.

Now, 5 months later, I use moringa daily in my diet, and twice daily in my own skincare regime. I’ve worked in the beauty industry for decades – and have used top salon-only skincare brands & treatments.

I can honestly say that non of them come even close to what the simple serums & balms that I’ve created with moringa and other active ingredients & my skin has never looked better. I’m a firm advocate of natural + actives (peptides), where the actives/peptides replicate natural skin functions, but for the Baliba brand, I’ve stayed with natural only & used my knowledge of essential oils to add even more to the bounty of the natural ingredients. It’s my happy place without a doubt.

The science behind colour therapy or chromotherapy is interesting – and fits perfectly alongside essential oils

The first time I heard about this, I have to admit, I dismissed it, but then, after speaking to a number of therapists in different fields who use chromotherapy, I tried it, and I was surprised to find that it was a thing. I didn’t make the connection between the coloured lights on the Diffusers and the theory of colour therapy for a couple of years.

When I tried the colours in combination with essential oils, I was pretty impressed. Everything made sense – especially the halftones.

So, here are the colours and how they can impact:

• Cyan Blue – to reduce stress & enhance a state of rational calmness
• Red – to reduce feelings of hypertension & promote courage
• Yellow – to reduce melancholy or feelings of sadness
• Green – to enhance balance
• Mauve/Violet – to enhance restfulness
• Pink – to reduce feelings of anxiousness
• Silver/White – to enhance wellness

I must add at this point that many many institutions use these colours in clinic and therapy rooms to impact on a patient or client’s mindset.

Here is a little more on the theory of each of the colours used in colour therapy:

Blue is an intellectual colour. It helps promote feelings of calmness, a restoring of logic and of clarity of communication. Blue also helps remove emotion from situations – thus enabling a more rational state of mind and presence of mind.

Red is the colour of action. It is stimulating, but is also warming and delivers courage – assisting with a feeling of having control and fighting the feelings of being out of control.

Yellow is the colour of optimism, yellow helps where self-esteem is lacking. The flipside of yellow is that it can also cause people to hold back. Moving from yellow to red would be a good example of managing your day by colours.

Mauve/Violet is the spiritual colour of reflection and deep thought. it helps bring feelings of satisfaction, quality and a lesser focus on details or daily toils. Violet is useful at night when sleep is restless.

Colour Therapy and essential oils.

To match colours with oils will definitely have an additional impact. Here’s a guide to get started:

• Cyan Blue – to reduce stress & enhance a state of rational calmness | Essential Oils – Stress Less Blend, Marjoram, Frankincense, Sweet Orange
• Red – to reduce feelings of hypertension & promote courage | Essential Oils – Ylang Ylang, Lavender, Lemongrass
• Yellow – to reduce melancholy or feelings of sadness | Essential Oils Bergamot, Rosemary, Mandarin, Orange
• Green – to enhance balance | Essential Oils Geranium, Marjoram, Lavender, Orange
• Mauve/Violet – to enhance restfulness & recovery | Essential Oils Deep Rest Blend, Frankincense, Lavender, Ginger
• Silver/White – to enhance wellness | Essential Oils Eucalyptus, Lavender, Tea Tree, Ginger

This is a guide only and can vary by individual. The universal truth, however, is that the more you learn about essential oil and alternative therapies, the more they impact your life.

Essential Oils for Stress Management:

Essential oils can help improve sleep quality.

We’re a special breed – and weirdly, we appear to understand each other well.

Nothing takes the shine off your day like a crappy night’s sleep.

It seems that being excited, being sad, being worried – even needing to get up early to catch a flight can keep you awake at night.

Let’s look into the things that might help with sleep improvement – and yes, I am going to give you some essential oil blends to try, but I feel it goes broader than that.

Pre-sleep preparation guide.

1. Have a ‘finish work’ time, and stop cramming last minute jobs in after it.
2. Give yourself an after-I-have-finished-working task – like a short walk, a warm shower, a cup of tea and a lie-down or just standing outside looking at the clouds (or the moon) just pick something out that you enjoy doing and mark out 5 minutes to do it as a ‘finish the workday’ ritual.
3. Get your PulsePoint essential oil Deep Rest or Stress Less blend out and apply around your neck, the base of the skull, across your shoulders & clavicle. Optional extra – apply across the backs of your knees and ankles. Those are areas with lots of lymph. If you don’t have a Pulsepoint, use the essential oil blend and mix a drop or two into massage oil or moisturising lotion & massage that in.
4. Massage the oils in.
5. About an hour before bed, add a few drops of the essential oil blend to your diffuser.
6. Set the coloured lights on your diffuser (if you have coloured lights) to the deepest mauve colour you can get – mauve is the deep resting colour.
   1. 1. • Sit in a chair with both feet flat on the floor and work your way through this relaxation exercise:
           With one hand, pinch the other (meaning bring the thumb and first finger closer together, effectively pinching the space between each finger – first do the larger gap in between the thumb and fingers, then pinch the space between the phalanges bones between each of the fingers. Pinch and hold firmly. Count to ten for each hold. This should take you a couple of minutes. Also pinch the pad on the outside of the little finger.
         • Now lie flat (I do this on the floor with a pillow under my head) with your feet up (I put them on the chair). If you are more comfortable on a bed or couch that’s fine. Concentrate on allowing your head and shoulders to connect with the ground. It will feel like a long time. Stay in this position for at least 3 minutes. Close your eyes and try to bring that deep mauve colour of the diffuser into your closed eye vision.
         • Stay lying down for another 2 or three minutes and shift your focus to breathing to the bottom of your stomach – think about breathing in through your nose, filling your stomach with air – then slowly releasing it to a count of ten through your mouth. Do at least ten of those.

You will find that you are feeling calmer and that your mind has slowed down.

Keep your diffuser on during the night, even if you don’t have essential oils in it. The negative ions in the vapour will keep the air fresh & clean.

NOTES: you don’t have to have PulsePoint, you can just add your essential oils to a base (carrier) oil and do it that way, but you do not need much at all.
If your end of day ritual involves a bath, make it a warm bath and blend your essential oils in a heavy oil like flaxseed and add that to your bath.

Essential oil blends for sleep.

Evening – finishing after work: Deep Rest Blend or Stress Less Blend

• Boost with frankincense if you need an additional ‘unwind’ factor.
• Boost with mandarin if you are experiencing ‘racing mind’ or feeling anxious about something.
• Boost with sweet orange if you are feeling bloated or digestion is an issue.
• Boost with Bergamot if you feel a bit down (add Ginger if you feel really down, or if grief is a factor)
• Boost with lemongrass if you are feeling overwhelmed.

When ready to sleep: Sleep Support Blend

• Boost with frankincense if required
• Apply Deep Rest Blend PulsePoint if a boost is required

Essential Oils For Sleep Improvement

How Essential Oils Work – Summary

Essential Oils are extracted from various plants, barks & flowers, many of which have therapeutic or medicinal properties – and many of which have health-giving properties.

It is incorrect to presume that the essential oil has exactly the same properties as the plant it comes from.

Citrus fruits – as one example – are high in Vitamin C and antioxidants, which are fabulous for guarding against colds and minor infections, but the essential oils do not carry these properties and are not used for this purpose. Citrus oils form a range of functions that are generally around the reduction of anxiety, lifting of spirits, and enabling open-mindedness and creativity. We’ll talk more about that in these blogs. In fact, if this interests you, here’s a blog specifically about lemon & lime essential oils.

This article is more about the top level question – “what do essential oils do and how do they do it”

Essential oils enter our physiological system primary through the olfactory system (the sense of smell). They are also able to be transmitted through the skin (transdermally).

On inhaling essential oils (or any smell), they enter our system within 30 seconds and will be through our entire body within 30 minutes – way faster than most medications.

The olfactory system interfaces directly with the limbic brain – the part responsible for emotions and for memories.

This is why smells can sometimes trigger long-forgotten memories – going way back to childhood. Our brains have unbelievable storage capacity and smells can invoke ‘memory file’ retrieval. Sometimes it can take a moment or two for the conscious brain to recognise the smell, but the unconscious brain gets it straight away.

Taking this a step further, certain scents have specific effects on us – emotive responses pre-set in the limbic brain, and this is the power of essential oils. We have unconscious responses to specific smells – impacting on our mindset. How these smells are blended together can have a powerful impact on how we feel.

But that’s not where it stops. Essential oils also affect us physiologically.

The limbic brain is closely interconnected with the central nervous system. Certain smells take the response a step further than affecting our emotions – they impact our actions also.

• Rosemary and peppermint, for example, enable energy.
• Lime & rosemary essential oils combined enhance memory recall.
• Lime and mandarin help reduce nervous butterfly-tummy.
• Yang ylang & lavender can help reduce hypertension & blood pressure.

While they are not a substitute for prescribed medication, essential oils contribute powerfully to wellbeing.

Learning about essential oils and fragrances in general is an exciting journey of discovery that I know you will love!

Essential Oils and Animals

Can I use essential oils & aroma oils around my pets?

I am often asked this question – and I always put safety before all else when it comes to working with natural products!

Firstly, it’s important to be aware that animals have a hugely more sensitive sense of smell to humans, so whatever you are diffusing will be strong for them.

Make sure your pet can escape the area where the scent is.

The rule of thumb is to use your essential oils and aroma oils in a well-ventilated space – you will still enjoy the full benefit of the therapeutic properties, but you won’t end up with overwhelm for animals (or small people). If you use ammonia-based cleaning products in your home, you will find that pets move away from them.

The same is true of pets and essential oils that are too strong for the animals. Just make sure your pets can escape if they need to.

Animals will move away from anything they find uncomfortable. Just observe their behaviour when you first place your drops in the diffuser – and make sure they are able to move away. Cats, in particular, are scent sensitive and will almost always vacate the area.

The question however is will essential oils or aroma oils cause harm to animals.

Avoid using ‘hot’ essential oils around animals.

These are mainly those derived from spice – clover, cinnamon, black pepper.

Strong smelling oils like peppermint, rosemary (great for human brains but a bit overpowering for animals, tea tree & eucalyptus can also be sometimes overpowering, but not more than strong cleaners using ammonia that we clean floors with.

I had a call recently from someone who wanted to rub essential oils on a horse to stop mosquitoes landing on the horse – while there are commercial products around for insect deterrent – and deterrent of unwanted mobile insects is the very basis of essential oil, those products are highly diluted and I do not recommend topical application of essential oils to animals without the advice from a vet with experience in natural therapies for animals.

None of the Aroma Oils that we stock have adverse effects on animals and they smell great!

Our diffusers are perfectly fine and safe around animals and small children as they produce no heat at all – the cold vapour is absolutely harmless (and in fact contributes well to a healthy home by producing negative ions.)

Animals have relatively short lives, so the likelihood of causing serious or significant harm to them by diffusing essential oils or aroma oils is not high, use common sense and enjoy your home!

Essential Oils to Help With Sleep

Good quality sleep is essential for people, and when we lack sleep, we tend to also start to lack perspective – making us vulnerable to a negative spiral in many ways.

Here’s how essential oils can help.

Here is a rundown on the essential oils that can help restore balance and get you back in the good sleep zone.

As always, start with only one drop of each oil and increase from there.

Always mix up your sleep ‘remedies’ and this to the reason you’re not sleeping rather than looking for symptom cures.

Essential Oils that help with restful sleep and reduction of worry.

Bergamot essential oil

One of the citrus family enhances & promotes lightheartedness when things get intense. Bergamot is also one of the best essential oils for allaying minor anxiety, so if something is on your mind and you wake thinking about it, include Bergamot in your blend.

Lavender essential oil

A great all rounder and usually considered for relaxation, Lavender’s properties make it a necessary inclusion where anxiety has moved up a notch, where negative feelings of self-worth come into play and contribution of an overall feeling of being in balance. That out of control feeling that we sometimes feel in a state of overwhelm is debilitating when it comes to positive sleep patterns. lavender in combination with Bergamot is a great team.

Marjoram essential oil

Always on the team when comfort is required. Marjoram is warm, comforting, promotes deep restful relaxation and a feeling of being nurtured. Marjoram is commonly used where grief is at play – and that can be any type of grief from loss of job or relationship disestablishment. Marjoram helps let your mind get some rest, and is often teamed with Ginger in this situation.

Orange essential oil

Is the second citrus oil in this recommended mix, and is one of my personal favourites for sleep and for daytime. Orange has a natural exhuberance – a joie de vivre with a creative spirit. It is one of the essential oils that helps to open the mind to possibilities – and thus distract to a point from the negatives.

Frankincense also has a place in the essential oils for sleep blend as it adds a feeling of deep relaxation in its own right and amplifies the impact of the other oils.

Where balance is a factor (as in you feel out of control, things are out of perspective, consider adding geranium to your mix.

Consider the cause of the lack of sleep before considering the the essential oil blend.

Where despondence is creeping up the scale and particularly if you’ve sunk quite low in terms of your positive spirit, include one drop of ginger and if you feel generally negative and lacking in optimism, reach for Lime.

My own recommendation – being a chronic bad sleeper and insomniac (the best ideas usually come around 2am), is to spend an hour before bedtime stretching, perhaps reading if you can focus on a book, try to get outside if you can and move your body.

Have your essential oil blend diffusing at least 30 mins before you actually get into bed. It takes around30 minutes for the oils to be through your entire system.