Witch hazel is prized for the color of its flowers that often appear among the snow-covered branches and which are highly fragrant. In temperate zones it is considered one of the main flowering shrubs during winter.
This winter flower also has healing and magical properties. Various American tribes were well aware of its medicinal properties in addition to some early settlers using it for dowsing, the practice of detecting resources.
The Iroquois used dried leaves to ease pain of sore throats and colds while the Potawatomi used witch hazel branches in their sweat lodges to ease their sore muscles.
The Littlest Witch
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Witch hazels are shrubs or small trees that produce a small fruit. This plant is native to America and was used by various Native Americans tribes such as the Iroquois and Potawatomi long before the Europeans arrived on the continent. The Iroquois used dried leaves to ease pain of sore throats and colds while the Potawatomi used witch hazel branches in their sweat lodges to ease their sore muscles.
The name witch hazel refers to the twigs rather than to what we now think of as witches. The Old English word ‘wice’ (pronounced witch-eh) meant pliant and bendable. The hazel part comes from its leaves likeness to the hazelnut tree as they are both broadly oval shaped and scalloped. Today witch hazel is most widely used in cosmetics and beauty products.
Writing Prompt Mondays: Prompt 18
The forked branches of witch hazel are sometimes used for a type of divination called dowsing. Dowsing involves holding the branch by its two prongs and then walking slowly over an area. The branch receives transmissions from hidden objects that cause the holder’s muscles to involuntarily contract which in turn makes the rod bend or violently quiver. Most often this type of divination is used to find ground water, but it can also be used to find gemstones, metals, gravesites, and other objects that cause the earth to vibrate differently in that area.
Witch hazelextractis also calledhydrosol which is made from the leaves, bark, and twigs. As an astringent, it is used for various skin conditions in order to reduce swelling and itching. As a daily facial astringent, it reduces redness, puffiness, or shiny skin. Witch hazel also helps to tone the skin. It can even help the random pimple disappear. Use a compress on tired eyes to eliminate puffy bags.
Witch hazel compresses can help treat bruises, burns, sunburn, psoriasis, eczema, ingrown hairs and nails, blisters, cracked skin, insect bites, contact dermatitis, including poison ivy rash, varicose veins and hemorrhoids and to rinse and soothe the peritoneal area after childbirth.
The Winter's Bloom: Witch Hazel Spiritual Meaning And Magic
Keep witch hazel extract in your herbal first aid kit for minor cuts and abrasions. It can help reduce bleeding and encourage healing.
Dabbing a cotton ball soaked in witch hazel on bee stings or mosquito bites helps to draw out the venom and reduce itching. A strong tea used as a wash can also help outbreaks of poison ivy.
When the veins in the rectum swell and itch because of inflammation, witch hazel can help relieve the discomfort and pain. Soaking a cotton ball or cloth in witch hazel and then directly applying to the hemorrhoid can have an instantly soothing effect due to its anti-inflammatory effects. Its hemostatic properties also help to stop any bleeding.
The Project Gutenberg Ebook Of Modern Magic, By M. Schele De Vere
Do a skin test to ensure you’re not going to have an allergic reaction to witch hazel before using on your body. Place a small dab inside your elbow and wait 24 hours for any sign of redness.The golden flowers blooming in the dead of winter may have been the first clue to Native Americans that there was something unusual about witch hazel. Beyond being used in the first mass-marketed American-made toiletry (originally called Golden Treasure, then renamed Pond's Extract) -- and being one of the only medicinal plants approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a non-prescription drug ingredient -- witch hazel has been pressed, boiled, and steamed into the service of human health for centuries.
The Osage used witch hazel bark to treat skin ulcers and sores; the Potawatomi steamed twigs over hot rocks in their sweat lodges to soothe sore muscles; the Iroquoi brewed a tea to treat dysentery, colds, and coughs. Since then studies have found active compounds in witch hazel such as flavonoids, tannins (hamamelitannin and proanthocyanidins), and volatile oil that give it astringent action to stop bleeding. The same witch hazel bark tea that was sipped to stop internal bleeding was also injected into the rectum to reduce the pain and itching of hemorrhoids.
Given its versatility, some believed tea made from witch hazel leaves and bark would heighten occult powers as well. Many modern witches consider witch hazel a magical herb, using it to keep away evil and to heal broken hearts.
The Witch's Daughter By Paula Brackston
The Mohegans are also believed to be the first to show English settlers how to use Y-shaped witch hazel sticks for dowsing, an ancient method for finding underground water. In fact the name witch hazel is believed to have come from the Middle English wicke for lively -- the dowsing stick bends toward the ground when water is detected below -- and wych, an old Anglo-Saxon word for bend.
A lot of people poo-poo the idea that a witch hazel stick can actually detect subterranean water. They say it's a bunch of witchery, says Curtis Strong, a fourth-generation witch hazel harvester, better known as a brush cutter. A native of East Hampton, Connecticut, Strong's family has been in the area long enough that his ancestors had land grants from the King of England before America was a nation.
An Old Timer showed me how it works, says the 72-year-old Strong, and I have used it to find water, 20 to 30 wells, and every one of them had water right where I told them it was going to be.
The Shadow Between Them, By Mrs. Alex. Mcveigh Miller—a Project Gutenberg Ebook
When he's not dowsing for water or enjoying retirement from his career as an electrical engineer and farmer, Curt Strong and his sons can be found -- at least in the late fall and early winter -- in the boonies of eastern Connecticut, harvesting the 80 tons of witch hazel they sell each year to American Distilling. The world's largest manufacturer of witch hazel products happens to be right in their hometown of East Hampton.
Naturally an American company whose business revolves around a product with the mystical qualities and long history of witch hazel would need a mystique and interesting story of it own. So it is with American Distilling.
Baptist minister Thomas Newton Dickinson wanted a new venture after making a fortune supplying uniforms to Yankee troops during the Civil War. People in the area often had a stand of witch hazel in their backyard, and a still to cook it down, bottle it up, and sell it. Figuring a consortium of small operators would add up to a big business, Dickinson in 1866 opened a distillery in Essex, Connecticut.
The Green Witch Diaries
Unfortunately, his sons disliked each other and broke apart the company when their father died and left it to them. Their sons in turn continued the family spat and operated rival Dickinson companies, one in Essex and the other in East Hampton.
Forty years ago, Ed Jackowitz first bought the T.N. Dickinson brand and distillery in East Hampton, then bought the competition, E.E. Dickinson, in Essex. Consolidating operations in East Hampton, Jackowitz hired none other than Curt Strong -- wearing his electrical engineer's cap, rather than his brush cutter's -- to automate the plant.
Decades on, the automated network is a marvel to behold: The hoppers filled with witch hazel chips; conveyers that move the chips to the augurs and into the stills; three deep wells from which water used to steam the chips is triple-filtered, removing minerals and anything else there might be down to the microscopic size of a virus; tanks that purify and then infuse a 14 percent ethyl (grain) alcohol into the witch hazel distillate as a natural preservative; 10 massive 25, 000-gallon storage tanks filled with the re-liquified witch hazel that will be shipped in containers ranging from five-gallon jugs to 6, 000-gallon tankers to become a key ingredient in cosmetic and first aid products around the world.
Sebastien De Castell
Bryan Jackowitz, one of the owner's two sons who work with American Distilling and its marketing director, says the company supplies bulk witch hazel that is used as a natural base for toners, cleansers, clarifying products and makeup removers produced by such top-shelf cosmetics companies as Estée Lauder, L'Oreal, Revlon and Neutrogena.
Because all of American Distilling's witch hazel is made according to the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) standards, products such as Preparation H and TUCKS pads for hemorrhoids, and Playtex personal cleansing wipes highlight the witch hazel they contain. Its own branded products include the yellow-label Dickinson's facial cleansers and toners and blue-label T.N. Dickinson's anti-bacterial spray and cleansing pads.
You hear about all these different extracts, like
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