Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata) is a beautiful, sweet smelling flower whose heart-shaped leaves hide in their humbleness a powerful, yet gentle herbal medicine.
Violet’s soft, juicy leaves and a slightly slimy consistency, paired with its cooling and soothing characteristics is why violet is symbolically considered a herb of both Venus and Moon – the feminine.
With an affinity for the lymphatic system and “affairs of the heart”, violet herb can be a beautiful addition to your self-care activities in so many ways!
Below you will find DIY herbal recipes with sweet violet which you can easily make at home to make your body healthier and your day more playful.
Sweet Violet Massage Oil Recipe
One of the best and simplest ways to incorporate a self-care routine into your daily life is massage.
Whether you’re doing it yourself or have someone else massaging you, your body and mind will be so grateful that you took some time for this gentle self-care practice.
Using a sweet violet infused massage oil will gently activate your lymphatic system and help your body get rid of the toxic build-up.
This is particularly important for female breast health. Ideally, women should have a daily breast massage routine, but even doing it for seven days before their period would greatly help with hormonal balance and PMS symptoms.
Violet infused oil has been used for breast massage as a long-standing women’s health practice.
It is a gentle way to clear the lymphatic system, which is very active around our armpits and breasts, flushing out excess hormones and bringing our emotions back to balance.
Massage with sweet violet is also a self-love ritual.
Violet has been used for centuries to remind us of the unconditional love we deserve to give to ourselves. The lovely sweet violet plant helps us prioritize our own needs if we have a tendency to “over-give”. It reminds us that receiving is just as important as giving and that the two must be balanced.
Excellent for new mothers, or any woman who notices that she finds it difficult to say “no” to others and struggles to say “yes” to her own needs.
Violet infused oil can be used on any place on the body where there is heat, redness, inflammation – tired muscles, inflamed lymph knots on the neck, under the chin, around the armpits or groin. It will cool down and soothe the inflammation, helping the body cleanse itself, which makes it a perfect herb to include in a herbal detox recipe.
Now, let’s get to it!
Recipe Ingredients
- 200gr of dry Sweet Violet leaf
- Carrier oil of your choice
- Essential oils of your choice
- Jar with a tight lid
- Gauze
- Water bath/double boiler (optional)
Process
First, you would need to choose what kind of oil and essential oil you would like to work with.
This depends on your intention and your specific needs at the moment. All carrier oils will do a good job, but they have their own peculiarities.
Olive oil is thick and the skin doesn’t absorb it very fast, but it’s gently warming and might be suitable for dry skin. Coconut oil is gentle, absorbs well, and it has a cooling effect. Almond and avocado oils are more neutral and tend to absorb really well.
When it comes to the essential oils for this herbal recipe, it’s best to choose intuitively, as we all react differently to smells.
Some recommendations of essential oils if you would like to add an extra bit of self-care magic are:
Rose, rose geranium, lavender; frankincense and myrrh for a cleansing boost; or some citrus notes if you’re looking for a positive, sunny vibe to bring a smile to your face.
Making Your Sweet Violet Massage Oil
Take 200gr of sweet violet leaf and place it in a jar. Pick a jar big enough so that the violet herb will only fill half of it.
Pour enough carrier oil that the violet leaves are covered and have an inch or two of oil above them (two fingers wide). Stir well so that all the air bubbles leave and everything ends up nicely soaked up in oil.
Close tightly with a lid and leave it overnight. If the sweet violet leaves have soaked in completely and there is no oil level left above in your jar, add some more oil.
From here, there are two options.
Option 1
The first option is simpler, but requires some waiting.
You can place this jar in a dark, cool place for about 3-4 weeks, stir and shake it occasionally, and add some more oil if needed along the way, as explained above.
After this time, simply strain the oil using gauze, pour it in a bottle or container of your choice and add your chosen essential oils.
Your oil will then be ready to be used any time you need a loving relaxing massage.
Option 2
The second option is that you use a double boiler, water bath, or bain-marie.
This means heating the water in one pot and putting your oil in a pot above it (with or without the jar) so that only the water vapor is heating the oil.
Leaving the lid open, keep the oil gently warming on the vapor (adding water to the lower dish if necessary) for 6-16h.
When the oil cools down, put the lid on, leave it overnight and strain it the next day, following the same instructions as in the first option above.
This process doesn’t have to be completed in one day.
You can warm the oil for a few hours every other day, but keep in mind that warming the oil, if not done carefully, can make it go rancid, so don’t leave too much time between the warmings.
This simple herbal self-care activity could be your new favorite, helping you and your loved ones relax, nurture the stressed body, and bring relief and love to your hearts!
Sweet Violet Honey Recipe
It’s hard to imagine a simpler, yet yummier herbal recipe than this one!
This self-care activity is great as kids’ project or just a way to bring herbal medicine, joy, and sweetness into your life.
If you are blessed to have a field filled with fragrant violet flowers somewhere nearby, wait no longer and collect some of this blossoming treasure.
This herbal recipe calls for fresh violet flowers. You can pick them wherever you find them (just make sure it’s an environment clean from pesticides and fumes) and you’ll prepare this yummy, healthy treat in no time!
Recipe Ingredients
- Fresh violet flowers
- Honey
- Jar
Process
Once you have your fresh violet flowers, put them in a jar and cover them with honey.
Enjoy the incredible party of smells, colours, and texture – the golden, thick honey and vibrant violet flowers mixing to make something almost divine!
Stir well so that all the air bubbles disappear and everything is nicely covered in honey.
Leave this on a shelf for a few days, until the aroma and flavour are well infused into the honey.
Stir every now and then to make sure all is equally distributed and have a taste from the stirring spoon – this will give you an idea of how the original honey flavour is changing to embrace sweet violet.
Once you are happy with the result, you can strain the flowers and have a delicious herbal honey to put in your tea or coffee, as a yummy snack with some bread and butter, or any other way you would like to use it.
It likely won’t stay very long on the shelf as it’s so irresistibly delicious!
Soothing Violet Herbal Bath Recipe
Adding sweet violet leaf to your bath as part of your self-care day can help you relax and let go of worries and anxiety.
Violet plant scent helps with our mood, calming us down and bringing back our smile, but it is also very beneficial for the skin and all skin-related issues, which makes it an excellent herbal bath ingredient.
Violet is a soothing and cooling herbal remedy for all kinds of rashes, redness, inflammation, psoriasis, sun burns, and burns in general, dry skin, as well as hair and scalp problems.
Recipe Ingredients
- Water/bath
- Sweet Violet Leaves
Process
Make a strong violet leaf tea, mixing 1l of boiling water with 4-5 spoons of violet leaves.
Leave this for 20-30 minutes, strain it, and then add it to your bath.
Enjoy the amazing soothing qualities of this sublime herb!
Alternatively, you could use sweet violet tea to wash a problematic area of skin if you don’t have the time or an access to a bath tub.
Yummy and Healthy Snack
Violet is a perfect example of how our food can be our medicine.
Is violet edible?
You bet!
We’re adding this little extra herbal recipe to make things even more fun and spicy.
This cute herb has a gentle taste, so it can be added to any food you can imagine to make a bunch of sweet violet dishes!
Add violet to you smoothies or soups, breads, and pastries. Mix it with spinach, kale or any green leaf in your usual cooking to add a super punch of vitamins, minerals, and detox properties.
Substitute any other green leaf with a handful of violet leaves and experience for yourself how their mild taste wonderfully blends with anything.
A Purple Herbal Self-Care Hero
Violet plant holds great potential for healing and should definitely have a place in all our herbal rituals and recipes for everyday living, especially as part of increasingly important self-care practices in our fast-paced world.
Which sweet violet herbal recipe are you going to try first?
