Ep 620: Natural Skincare, Herbal Tinctures & Wildcrafting Secrets with Kristine Courville

In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause sits down with Kristine Courville, founder of Sahale Botanicals, bioregional herbalist, and Cornell University Medicinal Plants Certificate graduate, to explore the powerful world of herbal medicine, wildcrafting, plant energetics, and natural skincare.

Kristine shares how questioning conventional healthcare led her to rediscover the wisdom of traditional herbalism and the healing power of plants. Together, we discuss how herbal energetics can help you understand your body’s patterns, why fresh herbs often create more potent remedies, and how sustainable wildcrafting protects both our health and the environment.

Whether you’re curious about making herbal teas, tinctures, infused oils, or creating toxin-free skincare, this conversation offers practical insights for beginners and seasoned herbal enthusiasts alike.

If you’re looking for natural ways to support your health, reduce your toxic burden, and deepen your connection with nature, this episode is for you.

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About Our Guest

Kristine Courville is the founder of Sahale Botanicals, a Pacific Northwest herbal skincare and wellness company dedicated to ethical wildcrafting and sustainable plant medicine.

Inspired by traditional herbal wisdom and backed by modern education—including a Medicinal Plants Certificate from Cornell University and an apprenticeship in herbalism—Kristine creates toxin-free skincare and herbal wellness products using responsibly harvested botanicals native to the Pacific Northwest.

Her work blends folk herbalism, plant energetics, sustainability, and modern science to help people reconnect with nature and support their health naturally.

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Resources From The Show:

• Sahale Botanicals – get 15% off your 1st order with code: DOCJ15

• Cornell University Medicinal Plants Certificate

 

Connect with Dr. Jannine

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Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 – The Birth of Sahale Botanicals

02:53 – Rediscovering Plant Medicine

06:02 – The Power of Potency in Herbal Skincare

08:50 – Understanding Herbal Energetics

11:45 – Creating Effective Herbal Skincare

14:38 – Clean Beauty vs Truly Healthy Skincare

17:19 – Wildcrafting & Seasonal Harvesting

20:24 – Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants

23:28 – Herbal Elixirs for Midlife Wellness

25:12 – Crafting Herbal Tinctures

29:35 – The Art of Folk Herbalism

34:21 – How to Identify & Harvest Wild Herbs

39:17 – Firesider, Herbal Remedies & Home Apothecaries

44:19 – Sustainable Harvesting Practices

49:07 – Herbal Bath Teas & Self-Care Rituals

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Jannine Krause (00:01.24)
Christine Corvell, welcome to the Health Fix podcast.

Kristine Courville (00:04.299)
Hi, I’m so happy to be here.

Jannine Krause (00:06.528)
It’s been a long time coming. I’ve wanted to have you on to chat about your products because I fell in love with them when you sent them over to me. And now that you told me you can eat anything that you made, I’m like, that is so cool. So, of course, I always like to start off these podcasts with the story of how Sahali Bha Botanicals came to be and what brought you to working with.

herbal medicine and skincare in particular.

Kristine Courville (00:39.117)
Well, it really started probably about five or six years ago during the health crisis. you know, I’ve always had the best success with alternative and natural medicine with you, starting out with you. but that that period really

Opened my eyes to just how broken our Western healthcare system is. And it really led me on just a journey of rediscovery of the wisdom of our grandmothers who trusted in plant medicine for generations. And I ended up earning a certificate of

medicinal plants from Cornell University and then I did a year apprenticeship with Hawthorne and Honey where we learned sustainable wildcrafting and it was just the most it was the best experience and I really learned just how powerful plants were, where even even their origin as far as pharmaceuticals. I mean I wasn’t aware that pharmaceutical companies take just a single constituent from a plant, synthesize it in a lab, and then that’s the pharmaceutical but with plants you have the

Original, and you have the different constituents, you know, additionally that all work together to heal the body, and I was just amazed at how effective plant medicine is. Just got me really excited to share that with other people and bring plant medicine and herbalism back into the mainstream after it had been really marginalized and discredited in the early 20th century.

Jannine Krause (02:06.518)
Isn’t it crazy?

Jannine Krause (02:19.5)
Yeah, yeah. Did you by any chance get a hold of some of the books that talked about like certain cases where Rockefeller and Carnegie and all of that kind of took a Yeah. The Flexner Report. Yes. Was that not eye opening?

Kristine Courville (02:31.028)
The Flexner Report, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and that’s really where it started. you know, the Flexner Report really brought herbalism into question in people’s minds. also the American Medical Association you know, really promoted

s you know, surgical and and pharmacology, I guess, pharma pharmacology based medical system and rather than rather than herbal medicine.

Jannine Krause (03:09.474)
Yeah, it’s wild. It’s wild. And for those of you listening who haven’t heard of the Flexner Report, search it, take a look at it, and keep an open mind because it is something that changed the face of medicine for us in in the world, but in particular in the US, it really shaped what we are dealing with today. So Christine’s kind of stepping us out of it here with Sahali Botanicals. And so we before we hit record, we had talked a little bit about skin and skincare.

Kristine Courville (03:15.371)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (03:22.197)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (03:29.162)
Mm.

Jannine Krause (03:39.095)
And I’ve been through the ten step protocols with aestheticians and all of these different things and and looking at now I I had reactions much like you had mentioned. Tell us a little bit about what had happened to you when you had tried one of the medical lines of a prescription product for the thing.

Kristine Courville (03:59.373)
Well it was a little funny. I broke out into a rash, my eyes swelled shut, I had to go to an allergist, and finally realized that that’s what it was. I I thought it had to be something else because, you know, of course medical grade was expensive and you know was supposed to work.

But that’s kind of, you know, really how I started my skincare line. It was really honestly just out of frustration. so you know, I started creating something that I couldn’t find, something with that was totally clean. And one thing that I learned was that natural does not mean clean. When it’s advertised as natural, it doesn’t mean clean, and expensive does not mean that it works. So

I took a botanical skincare class, got some of the basic formulas down, created my own. I used the jar in about three months, and after about three months, I noticed that my pores were all tightened and my skin looked beautiful. It was all my skin was all plumped up. So I gave some to a friend, and same thing with her. After she was done with the jar, her pores were all tightened up and closed, and her skin looked great. And it was kind of at that point.

that I realized I had something that I could share with other women.

Jannine Krause (05:21.716)
Mm. What was it? What did you use? Which particular product?

Kristine Courville (05:25.728)
Well that was the calendula and role s skin cream and I actually advertise it as a night cream. It’s a little heavier, it has calendula infused olive oil in it, but I love just

using it during the day, especially in the wintertime when the you know air is dry, it just feels so good on your skin. But I use a rose geranium hydrosol that I source from an organic farm here in Washington locally. And I grow my own calendula and I use an alcohol intermediary process to infuse the oil. So I macerate it in in alcohol for 24 hours before I simmer it in a yogurt maker for five days.

makes it very potent, very skin healing. Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (06:14.03)
I think that’s some of what, you know, has kind of fooled folks or or turned folks off to some of the natural products is not the po is the potency, someone not doing it in the the technique that you learned. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Kristine Courville (06:35.063)
I don’t know.

Jannine Krause (06:35.254)
In terms it’s okay. In terms of like, you know, a lot of people will say, you know, they they tried a natural product, it didn’t work. And if we’re looking at like natural isn’t always clean and we’re looking at natural is a label, much like, you know, bread is natural kind of thing, it’s you can’t guarantee that every single product that you come into contact with.

Kristine Courville (06:47.451)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (06:56.928)
Right. Yes.

Jannine Krause (07:03.252)
is of a higher potency, like you’re talking about, and what you learn to make using that.

Kristine Courville (07:04.972)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I I mean, just it was kind of hit and miss, you know. I I did learn f at my apprenticeship how to infuse oil.

I always use fresh herbs for everything. I use fresh herbs for tinctures. I use fresh herbs for my oils. And I was really surprised when I I learned recently that many herbalists don’t use fresh plants for their products. They order dried plants.

you know, to be shipped into them and that’s how they create their products. Which, you know, I and I don’t know, I can’t speak to the potency of their products, but for me, that’s why I just love wildcrafting and growing my own herbs because I pick them and then I use them before they can even start degrading.

Jannine Krause (07:41.656)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (08:00.493)
And I know a lot of people don’t, they kind of frown on using fresh plants for oils because the moisture, if you get moisture into the oil, it can cause rancidity. But the way that I do it, I just I leave the covers off so that all of the moisture, any alcohol left over after the alcohol intermediary will just evaporate and then I don’t, you know, press the plants when I’m straining it. So none of the moisture from the plants gets in there, but you have

all of the the goodness n without any of the degradation of the plants.

Jannine Krause (08:36.65)
Huge. That’s huge. Because when I’ve seen like the DIY, it’s always with dried for the most part. And one of the things I like to always look at is if we’re going to be using something, much like we’re going, if we’re feeding our skin or we’re feeding our body something, we want something that’s freshest, right? We don’t want something that’s been dead for we don’t know how long. And so now you have that, plus you have the energetics behind it too.

Kristine Courville (08:44.597)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (08:54.881)
I mean. Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (09:03.241)
Mm-hmm. Yes, and that’s one thing I’ve I’ve learned quite a bit about herbal energetics in my work, and it’s given me like a much deeper sense of how to choose the right herb for each person and situation. and just to kind of define herbal energetics, it’s really the art of understanding the body’s unique patterns and choosing the right herb to support balance.

Jannine Krause (09:31.413)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (09:32.439)
So do you want me to go on about that? Okay. All right. So

Jannine Krause (09:35.17)
Yes, please.

Kristine Courville (09:39.807)
This the six tissue states of Western herbalism provide a traditional energetic framework for understanding patterns of imbalance in the body related to moisture, heat, and tissue tone. These states help herbalists identify whether someone is in a hot or cold, damp or dry, or tense or relaxed condition. This system draws from Western herbalism, but as you know, it’s also used in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.

So within this framework, herbal energetics describe how an herb influences these overall patterns of balance. So whether the herb is warming or cooling, moistening or drying, or stimulating or relaxing. While herbal actions focus on the specific physiological effects of an herb on organs, tissues, and body systems.

So for example, nettles and cleavers both can act as diuretics, which isn’t diuretics is an herbal action, which means they help move excess fluid out of the body and toxins. Nettles are cooling and drying, which means that they would work better for someone

with inflammatory conditions, such as like an excess mucus or allergic reactions, while cleavers are cooling and moistening, which would make them better for someone who is a little more sluggish but also dry or depleted. So together

Energetics and actions allow herbalists to choose remedies that address both the underlying condition and the specific symptoms that a person is experiencing, rather than just matching the symptoms. And this is kind of, yeah, it’s kind of what makes the difference between just kind of matching an herb to your symptom. We’re we’re asking what is the underlying pattern, not only what is just the symptom.

Jannine Krause (11:35.918)
I mix up.

Jannine Krause (11:51.289)
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people don’t think about these kind of things. And so when you were working on formulating your particular products, you were thinking about certain patterns that someone might have and how to correct that. So if we go back to the favorite of the calendula neuroli that my husband and I were fighting over because even he was like, I really like this.

Kristine Courville (12:03.531)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (12:12.397)
Ha ha ha

Jannine Krause (12:16.426)
And and it was hydrating, right? Incredibly hydrating. And you were saying you were using it during the day, but it’s it’s kind of more of a night type of moisturizer. We were both using it during the day too, because we were finding we were pretty dry. What kind of what kind of like let’s say skin type were person in that case were you thinking about for for that night cream?

Kristine Courville (12:28.477)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (12:37.395)
really thinking about someone with more mature skin. the calendula is so healing. it doesn’t completely heal wrinkles but it just really helps with that. And then also the I I’ve had a an issue with large pores my entire life and the face cream completely cleared cleared that up.

Jannine Krause (13:05.294)
Wow. I you know, I think for a lot of people, there are the little nuances. And and my nuance was that my my my f wrinkles in my forehead and I wasn’t about to go get Botox, my wrinkles in my forehead were getting deeper and deeper. And I’m like, what in the heck? And then when I started using the colangelo camera, I was like, it’s a little less. it’s a little less. And and it keeps going. You know, I didn’t I never expect like my my wrinkles to fully go away because I I consider them badges of honor. but I’m also like

Kristine Courville (13:09.421)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (13:22.209)
Ha ha ha ha.

Kristine Courville (13:29.005)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (13:33.027)
But it’s definitely looking more fresh. I’m more hydrated, which is something that happens to us as we get older. And of course, you know, we were talking to, you know, I’m I’m pushing 50, you’re over 50, just a little bet. and I, you know, your skin has always looked wonderful. Always has. And so I’m like, wow, she’s she’s doing the right things. And like like you said, like not anything that is incredibly expensive.

Kristine Courville (13:40.022)
I won’t.

Kristine Courville (13:52.117)
Thank you.

Jannine Krause (14:00.566)
And you had mentioned something before we hit record that you’re like, I have the money. I just choose to use my my money in a something that’s clean. That’s something, you know, could you could you share a little bit more about your philosophy behind that for folks? Cause I’m guessing a lot of people, you know, might be thinking that, but not a hundred percent sure which direction to go for themselves.

Kristine Courville (14:19.789)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (14:27.115)
Yeah, well, I mean I I am okay with spending a lot on quality products. I love quality. I love beautiful, rich textures and scents, and you know, I’m willing to s to spend the money on that. whenever I have though, the products just kind of worked okay. And I mean I can’t say that it it was worth it. So you know, I just

Sorry.

Jannine Krause (15:00.816)
It’s fine. Take a breather.

Kristine Courville (15:02.943)
Kristine Courville (15:11.016)
I don’t know.

Jannine Krause (15:12.462)
So if no, no. If if we’re looking at, you know, I’ll I’ll change the the theme here just because I think for for a lot of women we are looking at like okay, I’ve got some extra money. I want to put my money, you know, in a particular place, but we also are realizing that we’ve been lied to a lot about a different a lot of different things.

Kristine Courville (15:15.051)
Sorry.

Kristine Courville (15:36.758)
And what if

Jannine Krause (15:39.145)
And and so when you were coming up with your philosophy for creating Sahali Botanicals, you were saying that, yeah, I really wanted to create something high quality that also gets some results there, you know, and we’re not, you know, plastic surgery here with with herbs, but you know, and that was kind of in the back of the

Kristine Courville (15:48.939)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (15:54.283)
Right. Yes. Mhm. Yeah, yeah, no. absolutely, yeah. I you know I

Kristine Courville (16:07.137)
I had it and then I lost it. I’m so sorry. yeah, and so when I had the my skincare line in mind, I did want potency and I wanted quality. And like I mentioned, you know, before we hit record, there’s no magic ingredients, but they are all clean and I have

Infused everything to the maximum potency. As I mentioned before, you know, I get everything locally sourced, everything is very potent and strong. And my products are not super expensive, but they do take a while to create.

so that’s really the only thing in those products that you don’t immediately recognize. But it has to be in there, you know, for the you know, for safety reasons. But yeah, I mean

I just wanted something clean, something that had some rich textures, rich aromas in it. The rose in the calendula or I’m sorry, the rose in the chamomile and rose is also astringent, so that will help kind of close up your pores and tighten up your skin as well. So I just really wanted to choose ingredients that would be clean, fresh, hydrating, and just and just work.

Jannine Krause (17:44.047)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. It makes sense. Now, something you were telling me is like you grow a lot of your own herbs. And then there’s also the idea of wildcrafting and and kind of going around your yard. And you had mentioned that you also have a tea coming out that is coming out maybe before Christmas that has fern and spruce tips. I think a lot of people are like, How do you grow these things? How do you harvest fern and spruce tips? When do you do it?

Kristine Courville (17:51.063)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (18:12.93)
Give us a little insight into into your botanical lab at home. And like where are you growing? Do you have a greenhouse? Do you have do you grow in in your kitchen? How how does it work?

Kristine Courville (18:24.875)
Well, I I do grow some of the things in my yard. So at at this time I just moved. So everything is still in twenty-five gallon pots in the yard. but I do a lot of wildcrafting. I am just finding my new spots here, but I live now in the forest, so I’m surrounded by dug fir and spruce. So thankfully, amazingly, I can just go

right into my backyard and harvest all the new little spring green tips from the fir trees in the yard. And then there’s different places I’m finding now where I can go. I just went in harvested mullen at a park about half an hour away and just finding my new plants. I actually just found here a new one that I didn’t have in Tacoma at all, which is wild teasel.

Which is really apparently used a lot to heal Lyme disease. And it’s amazing for nerve pain as well. But the Lyme disease I thought was particularly kinda apropos with all the ticks coming out this year.

Jannine Krause (19:26.702)
Really?

Jannine Krause (19:41.442)
Yes, yes, all of the ticks magically appearing this year. Hmm.

Kristine Courville (19:44.223)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. So I find my plants generally things like St. John’s Wort, I’ll find them in the woods, different Forest Service Roads, I’ll just go explore places that I know that they don’t spray. Sometimes state parks, if I talk to the rangers and they confirm that there’s no spraying, I’ll gather sometimes, you know, whatever I can find in those parks.

and I do everything by season, so when right now St. John’s Wort is in full bloom, so I’ll I’ll find St. John’s Wort and I’ll make my oils and tinctures with that. And then once it’s gone, it’s it’s gone until next year when they bloom again.

Jannine Krause (20:30.058)
So cool because, like, you know, we don’t think about with the seasons. We don’t, you know, a lot of us don’t even know when certain plants are in season. In fact, I didn’t even know about Saints John’s warts. So there you go. you know, it’s one of those things where we’re not connected as much to to nature. And this is what I love about the wildcrafting because yeah, it’s like a seasonal when it’s when it’s when it’s in season, you can get it, you can make your products, and then after that, now we’re moving to the next season.

Kristine Courville (20:34.039)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (20:41.004)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (20:45.996)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (20:54.061)
Mm.

Jannine Krause (20:58.06)
Now I’m super curious about rose. Did you use your own roses or did you do you find a source to get roses from?

Kristine Courville (20:58.061)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (21:04.759)
Actually, wildcraft my own roses. Yes. So there’s yeah, they they grow a lot on the coast and which we have a lot of out here. So there’s a specific place that I go in Washington that just the beach is covered in wild Rugosa roses, the larger roses. so I go harvest there, I can harvest sustainably there. So I I gather a lot of them and

Jannine Krause (21:08.014)
So

Kristine Courville (21:32.779)
So what I make my rose infused honey with as well. So I make gallons of that.

Jannine Krause (21:41.248)
Nice. And where do you get your honey? Like do you do you have a farm that that you get your honey from too in Washington?

Kristine Courville (21:47.949)
I tried to get it locally wherever I am, so I have not found a a source out here yet, but there is a source in Port Orchard that I would get it from.

Jannine Krause (22:00.79)
Okay, for those of you guys listening that aren’t maybe familiar with the Washington state Port Orchards up on the peninsula there. And, you know, Christine knows down in the in the the Columbia River area there that separates between Washington and Oregon. And I mean, a lot of wineries are are down not too far from you. And so you you have quite the environment for growing. What’s been one of the like surprise plants besides the one for lime that I do not know also?

Kristine Courville (22:25.623)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (22:29.772)
Learning learning a ton of things here. What other surprises have you had in your neighborhood that you found that grow a little bit more in the southern part of Washington?

Kristine Courville (22:38.637)
Well, all the trees, number one, and there’s just tons of trees out here. And that desert area. So as you move east, there’s a lot of plants there that I was really surprised by. One of my very favorite plants is called

Desert parsley or lomacium dissectum. It is in it’s a route to use the route. So out hiking, the wildflowers in the Columbia Gorge are just spectacular, and people come from all over to do the wildflower hikes. So while I was out on my hike, I just saw the landscape covered in Lomacium. It’s usually really hard to find up in the Puget Sound area.

But it’s just a beautiful root. It’s got a really resin scent to it, but incredible for cold and flu season. It’s antiviral, antimicrobial, antifungal. It’s it’s an amazing plant. It’s it’s one of my top plants.

Jannine Krause (23:37.111)
Yeah, I I like it. I definitely like it for for lung health in particular. And of course that’s another thing that you have is some really great elixirs and and really great things that I would say, you know, women over 40 could use, especially some of the emotional component support there. and forgive me for not remembering all the names of of them, but you had, you know, one in particular for the heart. And

Kristine Courville (23:41.729)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (24:04.738)
That one was one that I was using in addition to the calm focus. I believe that is the name of that one. Cause that one was like my jam, helping me to concentrate. Cause it’s, you know, right in in midlife, it’s like where your brain gets all like wonky and then like your heart, like emotionally and like worked up, you may get that that anxiety. Let’s talk a little bit about your elixirs, your tinctures and and

Kristine Courville (24:09.399)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (24:20.797)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (24:30.104)
kinda move into that space a little bit ’cause Lomation was a great like segue into that. did you choose to make specifically for for us ladies over fifty trying to figure out midlife?

Kristine Courville (24:34.847)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (24:44.525)
Well I do have I do have one for that. It’s called mood balance and it’s motherwort and black kohosh, which you know the mother wort it’s it’s good for racing heart, just really good calming herb. It’s Latin name is Leonoris cardiaca. So it is, you know, specifically f you know, four hearts.

Jannine Krause (24:51.821)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (25:10.175)
issues and then the black cohosh is amazing you know traditional support for hormonal balance and endocrine system support but yeah the the other hearts tincture it’s called vibrant heart that’s another one it took all year to gather all of the herbs for that so it has hawthorn flower which is gathered in May

Motherwort, which is gathered in June, Hawthorne Berry, which is gathered in September, and what else did it have in it? Tulsi.

which is gathered in around July August. So all of those herbs I just kinda gathered together and threw them in my jar as as they became available and just kind of mastered, you know, brewed over a few months and with some brandy and and honey. And I use that because, you know, tinctures in general just to be honest, just taste terrible. They’re pretty powerful.

Jannine Krause (25:49.144)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (26:16.044)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (26:18.205)
And someone, you know, if you’ve got issues with your heart or emotional issues, you don’t wanna be, you know, taking the battery acid tincture. So I made it with the brandy and honey. It’s just a lot softer and and just a lot nicer to take.

Jannine Krause (26:36.322)
makes sense. That makes sense. I mean it’s it’s definitely a deterrent for a lot of people because of the flavor and brandy, I mean, my grandma was giving me brandy as a kid. Usually it was for my digestive system. But I think, you know, alcohol being out you know, the difference between brandy and green alcohol, or ever clear of what I was taught to to, you know, put the herbs in for tinctures is

Kristine Courville (27:01.271)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (27:02.688)
Wildly, wildly different. Did you end up searching out a brandy that you particularly liked or had one that you had kind of became friends with?

Kristine Courville (27:11.949)
Yeah, I mean I I use an expensive brandy just because it tastes better and they work better and they’re usually produced with less chemicals. I also use an organic cane alcohol for my other tinctures. I don’t generally use Everclear just ’cause it’s just a little more harsh.

Jannine Krause (27:33.591)
Yeah, it’s gross. It’s gross. And and I think this is really something to bring up. You know, a lot of us, like obviously I’m a naturopath. Obviously, I was taught how to do things similar to you, but we also were taught more in the harsher methods. Like, here’s how you quick whip up something using Everclare. Now I’m hearing you, like I I harvested in, you know, throughout basically throughout the whole spring through summer into the fall to make this. And and I think for a lot of people, they don’t realize like what

Kristine Courville (27:35.222)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (27:48.866)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (28:04.074)
wild crafting like what goes into something like that. And then you said you put it in your jar. So give us the description of how how it’s happening in real time. Like so you’re picking something, it’s going in the jar and the brandy and like each month you’re adding more. Like get give us the scoop.

Kristine Courville (28:07.639)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (28:20.021)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. And sometimes I make them separately as well, just so I can I I mean I I can always make custom blends for people for you know, like I s going back to the to the energetics, you know, if there’s something, you know, a an issue that a person has, an underlying condition, then I can use my s simple, which simple is just, you know, a a single tincture with just a single plant in it.

Jannine Krause (28:34.946)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (28:49.557)
as opposed to just kind of throwing everything in one jar. And I wish I had it. So I I’m actually in the middle of making a a new batch. So it’s my jar is about maybe three quarters of the way full at this point. It’s got the mother ward, it’s got the wild rose, it’s got the hawthorn flowers, and it just needs the Tulsi and the berries now. So yeah. And I I practice folk herbalism. I’m about to start a clinical program, but

Jannine Krause (29:08.909)
Wow.

Kristine Courville (29:16.471)
Folk herbalism is is basically the herbalism that our grandmothers practiced. So we’ll go out into the woods or the backyard, fill up our jar, cut things up, you know, chop it up about as as much as we have patience for, make sure that it’s filled up, you know, enough, kind of, you know, eye it, mm-hmm looks about right, you know, fill it up with the alcohol and set it in the cupboard for six to eight weeks. So it’s just more accessible.

than measuring everything out and making sure you have the right you know ratios to everything it you know exactly perfectly. And I do teach classes and that’s you know what I really love about the folk herbalism part of it is that it’s more accessible to people. It’s easier for people. It’s like, this isn’t as hard as I thought it was gonna be. You know, I I really want to bring herbalism back into the mainstream.

Jannine Krause (30:12.044)
I I think that’s I mean, I think it’s incredible. I think we we’ve lost the art of it. And and what you’re talking about, you know, it’s kinda like how my grandmother would do things when I saw her, you know, gather certain things and be like, take this for name it. I was doing all kinds of shots of things when I was a kid and I had no idea what I was taking. I’m like, okay. You know, I did

Kristine Courville (30:17.921)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (30:33.399)
Right. Yeah. Grandmother would have the jar in the cupboard with a spoon on top and then when you start to sneeze, she goes, Go get the jar and the spoon. And that’s how it was. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (30:42.978)
Yep. Yep. Go get it. You know? And it’s it worked. I’m still alive. Still alive. you know, I survived. And I think it was great. I think it was great. And I I like the folk method because when I start to get like even in practice, when I’ve worked with folks with reconstituting peptides and putting water into a peptide and mixing it up, I mean it like you could see the head just start spinning, much like Betelgeuse going on, you know? And so it’s like

Kristine Courville (30:49.799)
Mm. Looking proof.

Kristine Courville (31:01.419)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (31:06.829)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (31:11.576)
folk method just I I think that’s what we are generally maybe more more just accustomed to, more we’re we’re trending to. But we also have, you know, something that I think a I would love for everyone, you know, to to really reestablish their connection to themselves of knowing when, you know, up, that’s good. Yep, that’s that’s what I want. That’s what I need for that. And learning that wisdom.

Kristine Courville (31:34.506)
Mm. Yeah, and some herbs, you know, some herbs that people don’t really like and don’t really work for them and some will and and that’s okay, you know. I mean yeah.

Jannine Krause (31:46.799)
When when you teach your classes and and you have people looking at like what herbs work for them, what herbs don’t work for them, do you have people kind of just like touch the herbs, smell the herbs, you know, how how do you start things off? I would love to to hear.

Kristine Courville (31:58.643)
absolutely. Mm-hmm. Well, I teach a spring greens class and I usually have it at a friend’s farm. She ha all this all the gorgeous spring greens she has in her property. So yeah, I have everyone in it’s usually nettles, cleavers.

and whatever else we can find. Chickweed is a really good one as well for the spring. But stinging nettle, I think, is one of my top three most loved and most used plants. It’s just a powerhouse packed with minerals and vitamins, great for allergies. So I always make tea and pass that around just so everyone can just get a feel for it and a taste for it. I I honestly really don’t love the taste of stinging nettle. I drink it because it

It’s so great for you. but I I don’t love it, but some people really do. And some you can tell when somebody really needs it and they’re really depleted of vitamins and minerals because they just absolutely love it and they will drink the whole, the whole cup of it. Uh-huh.

Jannine Krause (33:11.224)
What’s your secret to harvesting nettles? Because that’s you know, obviously they’ve got stingers on them. What do you guys do?

Kristine Courville (33:18.197)
Long gloves, brose gloves. Yep.

Jannine Krause (33:21.91)
There you go. There you go. That makes sense. That makes sense. No, cleavers is probably, you know, when it comes to another plant that I really love because of the lymphatic properties and just because it’s everywhere, a lot of places, let’s put it that way, pretty much a lot of places in the Pacific Northwest. What do what do you like to mix with cleavers? What’s kind of your jam for cleavers? I’m very curious.

Kristine Courville (33:35.819)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (33:47.222)
for lymphatic, I love to mix cleavers with calendula. Surprisingly calendula has really great lymphatic cleansing properties and also violet does as well.

Jannine Krause (33:58.391)
Hmm. Violet. Also things that show up as weeds in your yard, violet in particular, is very, very common.

Kristine Courville (34:04.705)
Right. Mm-hmm. Chickweed is amazing as well. chickweed is best. Anyone can just go pick it in the yard. It’s actually best as a juice. So if you just kind of put some water in it, blend it up a little bit, squeeze it out. I put it into an ice cube tray and just pop it in the freezer so you can just take an ice cube here and there and put it in your smoothie or your juice and you have your

Chicwi lymphatic.

Jannine Krause (34:35.852)
I love that. my gosh. Let’s tell folks like what, like if they’re looking for some trick weed, where would you most find it? And if you can describe it as best as possible. And then guys, I’ll get a link in the podcast notes. So I’m sure Christina has something that we could put in the podcast notes for you to like identify it fully. I mean, there’s apps now, but I I like folks to do their homework versus the app.

Kristine Courville (35:00.973)
Well, chickweed you can find in so many different places. It’s usually in a field, and you usually always find it with a couple other plants. One is called purple dead nettle and the other is miner’s lettuce. So those all are all three just some amazing spring.

Grains. They’re all usually the purple dead nettle is good for allergies. You can chew it up and put it on a bee sting. The miner’s lettuce, it looks like a little fairy cup. It’s a little round circular cup and just packed with vitamin C. It’s named Miner’s Lettuce because during the gold rush, the miners would take it into underground with them to prevent scurvy.

Jannine Krause (35:45.518)
Interesting.

Kristine Courville (35:46.551)
But the chickweed is really beautiful. It’s just this cute little plant. It’s got opposite leaves. Its Latin name is Stellaria Media. So its little flowers look like a star. It looks like they have 10 petals, but they’re just five petals with some deep divots in the middle of them. If you pull the stem apart, there’s a little white cord in the middle.

that’s kind of stretchy. So that’s the way to identify the chickweed.

Jannine Krause (36:17.55)
Wow. I had no idea. I had no idea. That’s so cool. Another one I like chickweed is very common for skin, like in particular skin topical products. And then you’ll often see plantain along with that. And plantain here in Wisconsin, we have it everywhere. And for those of you listening, you might be like, plantain, like the banana thing. No, no, no, no. This is a weed.

Kristine Courville (36:28.597)
A

Kristine Courville (36:31.917)
Mm, mhm.

Jannine Krause (36:40.68)
Usually usually it’s getting kicked out of your yard. You want it, you know, people want it out. But I’m like, no, keep it. Especially if you’re not spraying. Do you use plantain often?

Kristine Courville (36:48.045)
I do. I use plantain in a lot of my skin healing combinations. I use it a lot. It’s it’s very mild. It’s good for little kids. So I have a diaper cream that I just made for a

a woman that I know who just had a baby for just a diaper cream or just general skin healing in you know in general, I added some calendula, which is you know also my top one of my top plants for skin healing, and Yarrow, which is just a little bit antimicrobial.

Jannine Krause (37:24.422)
Something about you that I know because we have mutual pay well, patients of mine but friends of yours. you she gives gifts of herbal medicine all the time in terms of things. I just keep hearing stories and and I’m like, wow, that’s it’s such a great gift. Which for those of you listening, it’s like how cool would it be to like go out in your own yard and be able to harvest something, make something and give it to someone, give someone the gift of medicine, like so.

Kristine Courville (37:47.712)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (37:52.14)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (37:53.899)
So cool. No, you’ve got your spring greens. Now what what kind of other classes are you doing? What other things can folks learn from you?

Kristine Courville (38:01.323)
well I do a Fighter Firesider workshop, which is really a lot of fun. So that’s kind of again on the kitchen medicine side of things. And the basics of Firesider, for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s another one of those remedies that is I mean it it tastes the taste is is strong. It’s a strong taste. So the basics is garlic, onion.

Horseradish root, peppers, either cayenne peppers, jalapenos, and apple cider vinegar. You you let it kind of brew in the apple cider vinegar for three to four weeks and then strain it out. And it is amazing for cold and flu season, very preventative. And at the first sign of a cold or flu, you just start taking shots.

But I like to add other things as well. So there’s there’s all kinds of other things that you can add. And really kind of just depending on how you kind of lean, some people get, you know, are kind of prone to bronchitis. So I’ll, you know, have someone put elecampaign roots in their in their firesider, or if, you know.

you know, you always get, you know, the chills or aches from flu or or whatever I have, you put willow bark in it. cranberries, I love to put cranberries in there, tons of vitamin C, really great for the urinary tract system. Turmeric, black pepper, I also put turkey tail mushroom in my firesider. there’s all kinds of just different fun things you can do with it. and then you can tailor it as I said, just to, you know, if if there’s

any way that you lean you have an issue with every year you can address that with herbs and and mushrooms in your firesider.

Jannine Krause (40:00.408)
Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, I have tried it multiple times. It’s it’s good. It’s it’s fire. It’s fire. The horseradish for me, like I always love horseradish because it opens up my sinuses like no other. Man.

Kristine Courville (40:08.801)
Fire.

Kristine Courville (40:13.591)
Mm. Yes. Mm.

Jannine Krause (40:18.378)
Is good stuff. Secondary to like if I needed like a massive amount of wasabi or something or horseradish if I need to like drain, you know, but the firesider is a little bit easier than eating copious amounts of horseradish or wasabi. Now what if if we have to look, you said you love nettles, not really your favorite to drink. What other herbs would you say? Like what what would be your top top three herbs?

Kristine Courville (40:24.02)
Ha ha

Jannine Krause (40:41.784)
That you were like if you if you were stranded on an island and like somehow someone gave you wisdom to put some things in a bag just in case you might get stranded, what would you have with you and why?

Kristine Courville (40:53.111)
Well, stinging nettle would be one of them. Also St. John’s wort. St. John’s wort, yes, it is one of the best plants. It’s so versatile. So it has multiple properties. So it’s amazing for nerve pain. So any kind of sciatica or neuropathy, it’s excellent for that. It’s probably best known as a mood lifter, so it

It does help your body regulate serotonin, which is wonderful for our really dark northwest Pacific Northwest winters. And it also has antiviral properties. So I infuse it in oil, I use it with lemon balm in cold sore salve.

And I’ve also heard that many AIDS patients take St. John’s Wort just as a substitute for AIDS medications because it’s so antiviral. It does have a lot of contraindications though with medications. So if you are taking any prescription medications, then definitely check with the doctor before taking it.

Jannine Krause (41:48.91)
That’s really cool.

Kristine Courville (41:59.149)
And I think my third would be Oregon Grape Root. It is the absolute best plant, and it’s it’s everywhere here in Washington. when you you pull it out, as I mentioned, it’s the root. So you scrape the root a little bit and you can see the orange berberine, which is one of the main constituents in it. It’s excellent for balancing blood sugar.

it really is an amazing liver lymph or alternative. It’s not really a lymphatic, but it’s it’s a liver alternative, so it really helps move fluids and toxins out of your liver. It’s also antifungal, so you can take you know, a lot of people take it traveling with them. So, you know, you drink a lot of organ grape juice tea or yeah, Oregon grape tea.

before you travel and it’ll help you from getting food poisoning.

Jannine Krause (42:57.998)
That’s cool. I’ve not heard of that one before.

Kristine Courville (43:00.713)
Mm-hmm. It’s also has some antibiotic properties. And as you probably know, a major problem in hospitals now are antibiotic-resistant bacteria. So I have heard a story of somebody I know who was in the hospital for something minor and caught MRSA while they were in the hospital, and it was a little iffy on whether they were gonna make it out of the hospital or not.

Well my f my friend makes just a gallon of Oregon grape tea, brings it into them, had drink the whole thing. A couple days later they were home.

Jannine Krause (43:43.587)
That’s that’s impressive. I love Oregon Grape Root for that for urinary tract infections too, you know, so many different things. No, one of the things that a lot of people would were saying for a long time, and I don’t know if this is even true, because I was like, I see it everywhere in the Pacific Northwest, but they were saying it was like endangered and it was over harvested. And I’m like, Were we lied to? Okay, okay.

Kristine Courville (43:46.433)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (43:51.808)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (44:06.202)
Everywhere above the Pacific Northwest. We’re, you know, from the freeway medians. Yes.

Jannine Krause (44:14.018)
Which I don’t think we wanna be harvesting there, but you know But y we’ve got spots and I mean like or i I I saw it everywhere. Like I’d go on hikes, I’d see it, I’d you know, people’s backyards, you know, wherever. And and so I always wondered if it was somewhat of a we’re lied to about like don’t buy it, don’t use it, you know, kind of a thing. And so sounds like, yeah, if you harvest.

Kristine Courville (44:17.707)
Right.

Kristine Courville (44:22.76)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (44:26.733)
Mm.

Kristine Courville (44:40.021)
Yeah, we do have we do have tons of it here. And it is actually, you know, and and again, you know, we want to be sustainable about harvesting in it. So I just take a few here, a few there, and it does grow back really quickly. whenever I pull out the roots, I clip off the crown and replant it. So the next year it’ll, you know, replant itself and and grow roots. So yeah.

Jannine Krause (45:06.294)
Ooh, let’s talk about that a little bit. You’re planting the crown after you harvest it. It’s it’s like regenerative picking, harvesting. What other plants do you do those kind of things with? Like what give us kind of a rundown of like how you help to let the plant regenerate itself from what you’ve taken.

Kristine Courville (45:13.173)
Right. Yeah, exactly.

Kristine Courville (45:26.285)
Well, I mean, a lot of plants you just take off, you know, as as much of the plant as you’re going to use. whenever I harvest anything, I don’t harvest unless I find a huge patch of it somewhere. So, St. John’s Ward, for example, I just bring that up because that’s what I just recently harvested. and Goldenrod is coming up now too. there’s large patches of that and I’ll just take what I need and move on. I make sure that I leave plenty.

you know, for reseeding and and you know, regrowing. A lot of a lot of times like stinging nettles, when you cut them off down to the very bottom, they just spring back up again. They love to be they love to be trammed. So yeah.

Jannine Krause (46:13.581)
Hmm.

Jannine Krause (46:17.152)
Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, I think a I mean, I think a lot of plants are more resilient than we think. but I it is important, you know, like you mentioned, if you are gonna go out and harvest, you know, make sure there’s a decent amount of them there. You’re not getting like the last one and you’re not taking more than you would use and then wasting it. And, you know, I think over time, obviously we learn how much you need for for a particular amount of time. in terms of

Kristine Courville (46:18.263)
Yeah.

Kristine Courville (46:23.021)
Mm-hmm.

Kristine Courville (46:38.76)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (46:44.428)
Like you’ve got your three plants that you would take, right? On if you knew you were gonna get stranded on island, because we all know that. but if if that chance exists. Now, in terms of your products and and things, you have the teas, and we just kind of started to talk about it, but when I asked you before, you were telling me you love your teas, and you love in particular the bath teas. Let’s talk about bath teas, because a lot of people maybe haven’t even heard of a bath tea and what what this is, and they’re like, wait.

Kristine Courville (47:05.483)
Yes.

Jannine Krause (47:13.614)
Can I drink it and have my body absorb it in a bath? So tell us all about bath teas.

Kristine Courville (47:16.473)
Yeah.

Well, you could drink it, but you probably don’t want to once it’s in the bath. So I I do make the bath teas really large. They’re probably around three to five ounces of plant material. So and I make them that large just you know, because there’s a lot of volume of liquid in the bath and I want people to be able to use them three or four times. So

Jannine Krause (47:24.534)
Okay.

Kristine Courville (47:42.527)
A few of them are, you know, mostly scent. I just wanted people to have a really beautiful experience in the bath. I and as I said before, I love rich aromas. So some of my bath teas, it actually started where I I

Created a medicinal herb garden in my backyard where I was living before, and some of these plants, like the mugwort and Anise hyssop, just grew out of control. I mean, they were like 10 to 12 feet tall. So I had all these plants and I have a freeze dryer, so I was freeze-drying them. And what the freeze-drying does, it preserves their medicinal qualities, but it also really brings out the volatile oils, so the scents are really powerful.

And I had bags of all of these herbs, and I’m thinking, what am I gonna do with all of these? So I started creating the bath teas, and one of my favorites is one that I call Uplift that has the Anise hyssop, which has this really kind of beautiful, almost like a licorice scent. And I added eucalyptus and orange and other a couple other scents that were just really beautiful.

So the result in the bath is just this really relaxing, just really stimulating, kind of uplifting scent. I also use desert sage, so that’s another plant that you can find kind of in a desert area. Just has a really deep, rich grounding scent, and I paired that with juniper berries and some magnesium salts. So it’s just a really restorative.

Taf.

Kristine Courville (49:28.546)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (49:28.632)
Sounds so good. Sounds so good. I’m I need a see, my thought, because we’re remodeling still, and I’m like, I need the good bath to go with my bath tea. My bath right now is not the the ambiance I’m looking for, but I’m like, maybe I can find a hotel. my god. Does anybody have a bathtub I can borrow? let me know. I just I I just love the idea of of

Kristine Courville (49:43.799)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (49:53.933)
The sense and like the perfect environment. I’m like, I need a place where there’s a bathtub with a view. That’s what I’m thinking about. A bathtub with a view. So if you get a bathtub with a view, I would love to borrow your bath. all joking aside though, I love the idea of bath teas. And I love the idea of just being able to have the sense and the smile and the full like sensory experience. And it sounds to me like that is something that you’re all about with.

Kristine Courville (49:59.597)
Yes.

Kristine Courville (50:04.383)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (50:23.276)
Every like every single aspect of the experience with the herbs.

Kristine Courville (50:24.889)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Yes. I absolutely love that. Yeah. And I want them all to do something too, right? They have to be useful. So I have another bath tea that is for skin. So it’s all my calendula that I grow, it it grows like crazy. So I freeze dry that as well. And I use that in a tea with plantain, which we just talked about, and colloidal oats. it’s just very, it’s just a really nice

it’s just a really nice tea. Very very skin soothing, very skin healing.

Jannine Krause (51:00.856)
So good. So good. Well, Christine, thank you so much for kind of diving into your business with us and all of your things that you love to make in the wildcraft and teaching me a ton. This is awesome. I have no doubt that folks are gonna wanna check out some of your classes. Now, are they all in the Pacific Northwest? Are you gonna do any online? What’s what’s the story there and how can folks find you?

Kristine Courville (51:23.437)
I currently, yes, I do all of my classes in person. Maybe someday I’ll do them online, but currently they are all in person. You can find me at sahalibotanicals.com, S-A-H-A-L-E Botanicals, and I’m also on Instagram.

Jannine Krause (51:41.89)
All right, guys, check her out. There’s also gonna be everything in the podcast notes at drjcrossnd.com. And she also gave us a code for a discount to try out her products. That’ll be below. That’s docj15. And I’m hoping I can talk her into doing a little bit of something with me into coma at some point where we can bring some folks in then too. So stay tuned. Thank you, Christine. I really appreciate you having the time to come in with me.

Kristine Courville (52:05.473)
That’s really

Thank you so much for having me here.

Jannine Krause (52:11.757)
My pleasure.