GATHER. RESTORE. HONOR.
THE ROAD BACK TO THE ROOT
The beauty industry is a protection racket.
They create the problem—convince you that aging is failure, that pores are flaws, that your face is supposed to look like an algorithm—then sell you the solution. Water and synthetic fillers in a $90 jar. "Active ingredients" at concentrations so low they're homeopathic. Formulas designed to feel nice and do nothing so you keep buying.
They need you broken. Insecure. Chasing an ideal that doesn't exist outside of filters and professional lighting.
Ash & Honey Botanique refuses that game.
We are not here to "fix" you. You are not broken. Your skin is not a before photo. Your face is not a problem that needs a twelve-step routine and a payment plan.
You are a body that's been doing something. Working. Surviving. Living in weather and stress and the world. Your skin shows that. As it should.
This is an apothecary for people who are done performing.
Done with "self-care" that's just capitalism in a sheet mask. Done with routines that take thirty minutes and six products. Done with being told their body is wrong unless they buy the cure.
We make provisions. Medicine that works. For bodies that have better things to do than optimize their appearance.
THE BLOOD & THE BOOKS
I am a historian who got tired of watching people get scammed.
My lineage is Northern and Central European—58% British, with Celtic, Germanic, and Nordic roots. But there was always another thread: my great-great-grandfather Karel from Bohemia, and the oral history of Romani heritage that wouldn't be erased.
For years, I tried to figure out which tradition was "mine." The British Hedge-Folk? The Germanic bone-setters? The Czech village healers? The Romani wagon medicine?
Then I realized: They were all teaching the same constitutional principles.
Hot/cold. Dry/damp. Excess/deficient. The body as a landscape, not a machine. Plants as medicine, not decoration. The person over the symptom.
Every traditional healing system across Europe understood this. Then we industrialized, medicalized, and forgot.
I stopped trying to pick an ancestor and started honoring the method they all shared.
The Root: Depth. Staying. Knowing plants and bodies so well you can read them.
The Road: Adaptation. Moving. Making medicine work with what you have, where you are.
This apothecary is built on that foundation.
THE METHOD: CONSTITUTIONAL & UNCOMPROMISING
I formulate to the 1871 Standard.
This is not nostalgia. This is the last moment before the industrial chemical boom, before synthetic preservatives and petroleum derivatives, before "skincare" became an industry designed to manufacture insecurity and sell solutions.
Folk healers didn't have access to lab-created molecules. They had plants, fats, beeswax, and observation. And they kept people alive.
1. THE FRAMEWORK (Constitutional, Not Universal)
There is no such thing as a universal skincare routine.
Your hot, inflamed, reactive constitution does not need the same plants as someone who's cold, dry, and depleted. Your oily, damp skin does not need the same oils as someone whose skin is cracked and parched.
We use constitutional medicine—the framework that Ayurveda uses, that European humoral medicine used, that every traditional system understood before we decided everyone should use the same products.
We match the plant to the person. Not the trend. Not the marketing. The actual constitutional need.
2. THE MATERIAL (Whole Plants, No Ghosts)
We reject essential oils.
They are the steam-distilled ghosts of plants—expensive scent molecules stripped of the constitutional matter that does the actual work. They smell great. They do very little.
We use Whole Plant Incorporation.
Root, leaf, flower—ground to dust and infused directly into fat. You get the resin, the wax, the vitamins, the fiber. The full constitutional profile of the plant.
The grit is the medicine. If you want it smooth and pretty, buy it somewhere else.
3. THE TEXTURE (Dense Rations, Not Performance)
These are not lotions. They are not creams. They are not fluffy whipped formulas designed to feel luxurious while doing nothing.
These are waterless unguents. Dense. Concentrated. Built to last.
No water means no emulsifiers, no preservatives, no fillers. Just fat, plant, and beeswax. They require you to slow down, warm them in your hands, and participate in your own care.
This is intentional. This is medicine that refuses to let you rush.
THE INVITATION
I will not promise you eternal youth. I will not promise to erase evidence that you've been alive.
I offer medicine that works with your constitution. Tools to tend yourself without punishment. Provisions for bodies that have better things to do than perform beauty.
This apothecary is for:
- Anyone tired of being told their body is wrong
- People done with "wellness" that costs a fortune and delivers nothing
- Bodies that show their mileage and refuse to apologize
- Those ready to stop chasing algorithms and start tending actual skin
Come back to the kitchen. The work continues.
— Alexandria
Historian, Formulator, Descendant
Keeper of the 1871 Standard
COMING MARCH 2026
They sold you kale and called it medicine.
Smoothie bowls that cost $18. Recipes that require a Vitamix, four specialty flours, and three hours you don't have. "Clean eating" that's just disordered eating with better branding. Food that's supposed to heal you but leaves you exhausted, broke, and still dealing with the same inflammation you had two years ago.
Here's the truth they won't tell you:
There is no universal "healthy diet." There is only constitutional alignment.
Your hot, inflamed, reactive body does not need the same food as someone who's cold, depleted, and exhausted. Your dry, anxious, wired nervous system does not need the same food as someone who's damp, sluggish, and heavy.
Different bodies need different food. Not because of trends. Not because of "toxins." Because of temperament.
This is what Ayurveda understood. What European humoral medicine understood. What every traditional healing system across every culture understood before we decided everyone should eat the same thing and call it "wellness."
Ash & Honey Orchard is constitutional cooking.
Not another diet. Not another protocol. Not another set of rules designed to make you feel like you're failing at health.
This is the cookbook that teaches you to read your own body and feed it accordingly.
What you'll learn:
- How to assess your constitution: Are you hot or cold? Dry or damp? Excess or deficient? Your body is already telling you—you just need to learn the language.
- How to cook for your actual needs: Food that cools internal heat. Food that grounds anxiety. Food that clears stagnation. Food that rebuilds blood.
- How to cook without performing: Pantry staples. Flexible recipes. Measurements you can eyeball. Substitutions that work. No specialty ingredients. No three-hour prep. Just food that works.
- How to stop outsourcing your health: You don't need a $200 nutritionist appointment to figure out what to eat. You need constitutional literacy.
This book is organized by:
- Constitution (hot/cold, dry/damp, excess/deficient)
- Season (because your body in January needs different food than your body in July)
- Real life (meals you can actually make when you're tired, broke, and still have to feed yourself)
The recipes are born from transformation. Fermentation. Time. The ash and the honey—what burns down and what sustains.
This is food for bodies that get used. That work. That survive. That don't have the luxury of "wellness" that costs a fortune and requires a lifestyle you don't have access to.
One body. One philosophy. Three ways in:
Ash & Honey Botanique: External care—salves, unguents, topicals to the 1871 Standard
Ash & Honey Podcast: Constitutional education—the principles underneath the practice
Ash & Honey Orchard: Internal nourishment—food that feeds your actual constitution
You can't heal the skin without feeding the gut. You can't calm the nervous system without grounding the body. It's one system. This book treats it like one.
MARCH 2026
Pre-orders open soon.
The table is set. Pull up a chair.
Ash & Honey Podcast
Constitutional Truth in a Symptom-Obsessed World
The wellness industry has convinced you that your body is a collection of separate problems.
One cream for your skin. One supplement for your gut. One app for your anxiety. One protocol for your hormones.
But your body doesn't work like that.
You are one constitutional system. When your digestion is off, your skin shows it. When your nervous system is fried, your hormones crash. When you're inflamed internally, you're inflamed externally.
This podcast is about understanding your constitution—not chasing symptoms.
I'm Alexandria, formulator at Ash & Honey Botanique. Each episode, I break down constitutional principles from Ayurveda, traditional European herbalism, and the knowledge that lived in kitchens before we medicalized everything. Not to romanticize the past, but to extract what actually works.
How do you know if you're running hot or cold, dry or damp? What does it mean to "cool" a system? Why does the same remedy work for one person and fail for another? When did we stop trusting plants and start trusting chemicals?
This is the philosophy underneath the remedies. The patterns that show up across healing traditions. The reason your grandmother's broth worked better than your $70 supplement.
No fluff. No trends. Just constitutional principles that have kept bodies alive for thousands of years.
New episodes weekly. The work continues.
(COMING SOON) THE ROOT & THE ROAD
The Medicine Your Ancestors Knew
Before medicine became an industry, healing was whole.
The person who set your bone also knew what to feed you for the swelling. The woman who delivered your baby knew which broth would bring your milk in. The brewer understood that fermented foods build the gut that builds the skin that builds the blood.
They didn't split the body from the spirit. They didn't treat your skin separately from your digestion. They understood: you are one system.
This podcast traces European folk medicine backward—British Hedge-Folk, Romani Travelers, Alpine healers, Germanic bone-setters, Czech village midwives—to uncover the constitutional principles they knew before we forgot.
The Root represents the healers who stayed. Who knew their land so deeply they could read the body like a book. Who understood that the strongest medicine grows in the ditch, not the garden.
The Road represents the healers who moved. Who carried remedies in their heads, not in bottles. Who learned to adapt, to hustle, to make medicine in the back of a wagon with three plants and no recipe.
You are the descendant of both. You need both.
I'm Alexandria—historian, formulator, and descendant of these lineages. Each episode, we go to a different place: the high country, the battlefield, the root cellar, the birthing room. We extract what worked. We ask why we forgot. We apply constitutional principles to modern life.
This is not about romanticizing the past. It's about recognizing that your body remembers what your mind forgot. That the wellness industry has convinced you to treat symptoms instead of understanding systems. That the medicine you need might be simpler—and harder—than you've been told.
1871 was the last moment the folk healer and the pharmacist were the same person. The last time we understood that what you eat, what you put on your skin, and how you tend your spirit are the same conversation.
We're going back to learn forward.
LION HEART & MARCUS'S LIGHT
Some lights refuse to go out.
Marcus's Light is a tribute to a boy who faced Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) with immense courage. ALD is a brutal, rare genetic disorder. The families living through it are often forgotten—left to navigate hospital corridors and financial strain while fighting an invisible battle.
Marcus's family lived this. Too many families still do.
The Mission: Solidarity, Not Charity. This collection does not fund distant research or vague "awareness." It exists for the families in the trenches right now.
A portion of every Lion Heart purchase provides immediate, tangible aid to ALD families: emergency funds, gas money for hospital visits, and meal deliveries for parents refusing to leave a bedside.
When you choose this collection, you aren't just buying a balm. You are telling a family fighting for their child: "I see you. You are not forgotten."