"Deborah Jane's Botanical products are made with love ...wisdom...and the vast knowledge that Deborah Jane has garnered from many years of studying all the lovely plants she uses in her products. It takes a special person to be able to produce and offer to the people such fine remedies with the wide range of knowledge that Deborah Janeoffers. I use her oils and salves and my skin is thankful. She is kind...knowledgeable and approachable with a ready willingness to depart her wisdom with her words and thru her botanicals."

Patty Mckeogh, a valued friend and customer

At Botanica I source all ingredients as locally as possible. Everything is either certified organically grown, biodynamic, wildcrafted, or homegrown organic.  I harvest at the plant’s peak vitality so the ingredients are always fresh and full of life, ready and available for your benefit.  I use Olio DeNardi Olive Oil, 100% natural, raw, local honey, Marian Farms Biodynamic pure grape alcohol and brandy, Floracopeia essential oils and hydrosols, sometimes Simplers essential oils, pure beeswax and organic cocoa butter, and Bragg’s organic Apple Cider Vinegar. All herbs come from my organic herbal garden or the wild and natural local world.  If I need to order herbs I go to Mountain Rose in Oregon or Star West in Sacramento. My amazing turmeric is from Ginger Hill Farm on The Big Island, Hawaii.

Every harvest or foraging time is sustainably carried out. I always hold with me the wise words of my teacher, Kami McBride, “It should look like you were never there when you leave”.  All harvests are done before noon in relationship to the life forces of the plants that rise up in the morning, then begin to return down to the ground at midday. Tinctures and oils are made immediately after harvest with fresh plants in the field where they are gathered. A few are made using dried plant material.

My products are always changing with the seasons and availability of herbs.  I’ll be posting on my blog all my new products as they come so do check in with me. Tinctures last a year or more, Cordials, one year.  Oils, salves, balms, and salt scrubs, one year. Vinegars, 6 months. Lotions, 3 months. Syrups, 6–12 weeks in fridge. Give or take on all of these.

The Art of Alchemy

My herbalism practice is based on traditional western folk medicine. I'm making botanical remedies by extracting the medicinal constituents of a substance into a menstruum, like oil or alcohol. This is taking nature apart to make it available for our ailments and our preventive care. In alchemy, we understand that if we take nature apart we need to honor the way it was put together. This is what makes the alchemical medicine fully available to us, integrated into our being, and healing. I use the word alchemy here on my website with utmost respect. I'm beginning to learn about and integrate the pricipals into what I do, especially with regard to imagination, intuition, and inspiration. I look forward to experimenting with the many steps and layers in the practice of spagyrics, transforming substances by recapitulating the picture of how the substances came to be here in the first place.  

A Word to the Wise

I encourage all of my clients to do research on their herbal products, know their self care intimately and take a role in their preventive health care.  If you are taking prescription medications herbal products can interfere with their effectiveness, so please be cautious.