Nettle Hydrosol California

Welcome to the Stinging Nettle Suite.

In the earliest signs of spring, when the cherry blossoms burst through grey skies and sunsets begins to drag their heels, stinging nettles arrive; wily plants misunderstood by those who see an invasive stinger of a weed and loved by foragers who know it’s nourishing virtues. I’ve foraged for and eaten nettles my whole life from as early as I can remember. It was my mother’s heritage as well, having had the knowledge passed to her from her grandmother and aunts. I also read herbal books my mother had for as long and still remember Mrs. Grieve’s (A Modern Herbal) recipe for nettle pudding and suggested antidote,

 “ Nettle in, dock out. Dock rub nettle out!” I thrashed nettles on my arms more than a few times followed by dock to test the theory and found that the only thing to cancel out nettle stings was time.

The stinging nettle suite has been in preparation for a couple of years. It took that long to find the last remaining component of this suite which was the nettle leaf hydrosol. For some reason I didn’t find nettles easy to locate here in my city but this spring, they revealed themselves in the almost obvious yet most hidden place one could think of: along the fence inside the farmers market. I did several distillations until I was happy with technique and I used it throughout the summer where it lended a helpful hand as I dealt with 110°F weather. It has been a nourishing spritzer in hair as well, providing the kind of shine I get when I’ve eaten a lot of seaweed. This is a hydrosol I hope to test because I feel its future use will be better understood once I have chemical constituent data.