🌿 Everyday Wild | The Soap Power of Catnip & Mullein

A summer story from the backyard

Sometimes, the wildest healing doesn’t come from a distant mountain or rare jungle bloom.

Sometimes… it’s right underfoot. Or brushing against your boots when you walk to hang laundry. Or reaching toward the sun from the dusty edge of the garden.

This season, two such quiet healers caught my attention:

Catnip and Mullein.

Both growing wild in my backyard, right here in the heart of the Bitterroot Valley.

And they’re about to become the stars of my next soap.

🌱 Catnip — Not Just for Cats

Yes, that catnip — the one that sends felines into joyful chaos. But it turns out, this soft-leaved mint cousin has a lot more to offer than entertainment.

In herbal tradition, catnip (Nepeta cataria) has long been used to:

• Soothe the skin and ease irritation

• Calm the nerves and support rest

• Refresh the senses with its green, slightly lemony scent

I see it growing tall and confident near the edge of the yard, waving gently with every breeze. It’s one of those plants we walk past every day, unaware that its leaves carry centuries of herbal wisdom.

🌿 Mullein — The Velvet Healer

Just a few steps away, another plant rises from the soil like a soft prayer: mullein (Verbascum thapsus).

Its broad, silvery leaves are as soft as lamb’s ears — used for generations by Indigenous peoples and early settlers for lung health, wound soothing, and spiritual grounding.

In the Bitterroot Valley, it’s as local as the soil itself — often mistaken for a weed, until you really see it.

In soap, mullein brings:

• Gentle anti-inflammatory power

• A silky, nourishing touch to the lather

• A connection to our land and its long tradition of quiet resilience

🧼 The Project

These herbs are now on their own journey.

They’ll take time — and that’s the point.

🌿 They need to dry slowly in the shade

🌿 Then be ground finely, leaf by leaf

🌿 Then infused into oils over warm summer weeks

🌿 And finally, blended into small-batch soaps — poured with care, cured with patience

So, if you’re wondering when you can try these:

Give them two months.

Because true things take time.

And this soap — this story of backyard medicine — will be worth every moment.

💬 Final Thoughts

Catnip and mullein grow right here in the Bitterroot, and probably near you too.

But how often do we really see them?

How often do we stop and ask:

“What do you have to offer?”

This project is a small way of answering that.

A way of saying: thank you — for growing quietly, for showing up, for being more than we assumed.

Let this upcoming soap be a reminder:

Healing isn’t always exotic. Sometimes, it’s just wild, local, and waiting to be noticed.

Stay tuned — this bar will arrive in late summer, slow-made and herb-soaked, infused with Bitterroot breath and backyard soul. 💛

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