Natural Remedies:
Home Remedy To Whiten Teeth And Help Restore Tooth Enamel.
Important: It is best to avoid the use of Sage if you are breastfeeding, or if you are pregnant.
Common garden Sage, Salvia Officianalis, has similar properties to Black Walnut, which is reputed to be a powerful herb for restoring tooth enamel and preventing tooth decay.
Rubbing crushed fresh Sage leaves onto the teeth can help remove plaque and bacteria, the things which cause tooth decay.
Sage is strongly antiseptic, antiviral and antibiotic, and this is why it is still used in some herbal toothpastes. It is also a natural whitener of the teeth. So Sage is a very efficacious and attractive addition to a non-toxic toothpaste.
Geddes and Grosset, in ‘Herbal Remedies and Honeopathy’, 2001, give some constituents of the volatile oil of Sage as being ‘salvene, pinene, cineol, vorneol, thujone and some esters’. Certainly sounds impressive. Their book also suggests that fresh leaves can be rubbed onto the teeth and gums for a cleaning and strengthening effect.
Another source gives the active ingredients of Sage as being: 50% Thujone with flavanoids, diterpene bitters, resin, saponins, tannins, triterpenoids, phenolic acids, and oestrogen-like substances. (see International Masters Publishers – no date)
Note: Sage is not recommended for expectant mothers, nor breast-feeding mothers.
The powerful antiseptic and antibiotic qualities of common garden Sage were well-known many centuries ago: Thyphoid fever, and other fevers, have been treated in the past with Sage, or herbal combinations which include Sage. (see ‘Herbal Remedies and Homeopathy’ published by Geddes and Grosset.)
Culpeper says it is used to treat the Plague if the juice of Sage is taken with vinegar.
This information of its former uses could suggest Sage might be a powerful natural antibiotic to use when modern medicine fails. Swine Flu, and other types of untreatable fevers could very well respond to strong infusions of Sage, or a mixture of the juice of Sage taken with vinegar, as Culpeper suggests for Plague.
Culpeper does not mention Sage as a whitener of tooth enamel, but we have information that the Sage herb was indeed used for that purpose in Culpeper’s time.
Several, more modern herbalists have written about the old uses of Sage, and its modern applications. We have already mentioned Geddes and Grosset’s information above.
More information is given us about traditional Sage use in ‘The Illustrated Plant Lore’ by Josephine Addison, 1985, England.
Josephine says that Sage herb has been known and used since the seventeenth century for cleaning and whitening the teeth. She mentions a daily mouth and teeth cleanse which consisted of a lemon juice mouthrinse, followed by a rubbing of the teeth and gums with fresh Sage leaves.
Josephine Addison has another interesting tit-bit of information on Sage: At Tunbridge Wells in England, a place famous since ancient times for its medicinal waters, Sage leaves were given to recipients of the healing waters. Apparently, the Tunbridge Wells water stains the teeth, and so Sage leaves were traditionally used to whiten the teeth after taking the water.
For Regrowing Tooth Enamel: Sage used daily on the teeth will help your teeth stay healthy. For new tooth enamel to grow, you need to combine your Sage treatment with a regenerative diet, such as used by Dr Gerson, and Jacqui Davison, who grew new teeth while she was on a diet to treat cancer. She was not expecting to regrow her teeth, but this happened whilst she was on a diet, similar to Gerson’s, to treat her so-called terminal illness.
Natural Remedies
Culpeper says of Sage that it ’causes the hair to become black’.
Garden sage has many therapeutic uses.
In the garden, its flowers provide medicine and nectar for the bees, as well as a herbal tonic to the neighbouring plants.
It is well-known as an aid to oral hygiene. It has strong antiseptic qualities and is supposed to whiten tooth enamel.
Sage is still used today in some tooth-pastes. It is reputedly one effective remedy for bleeding gums, and improving gum health: The crushed fresh leaves are massaged several times a day onto the gums and teeth.
The tea is gargled to relieve sore throats, colds and flu, and ulcers in the mouth.
It can be effective to reduce fevers, and has been used in the past for thyphoid fever. (see ‘Herbal Remedies and Homeopathy’ published by Geddes and Grosset.)
It is a valuable nerve medicine, and is a useful stomach remedy for improving a weak appetite.
Natural Herbal Hair Dye and Tonic: Sage can help restore healthy hair and improve the colour.
Strong sage tea encourages hair growth and darkens the hair, if it is used on a regular basis. Many herbalists describe it in their writings: see John Heinerman’s ‘Encyclopedia of Fruits Vegetables and Herbs’.
Rosemary is another wonderful herb which can help hair growth, but it does not have such a darkening effect on the hair, as sage does.
Recipe For Sage Hair Dye: Here is a simple, natural hair dye and tonic which you can try. It is perfectly safe to use, as it does not contain any harmful additives such as you might find in commercial dyes for darkening the hair.
Take two cups of fresh sage leaves and put into a stainless steel saucepan.
Add one cup of dry black tea leaves
Add half a cup of cider vinegar and eight cups of water.
Simmer very gently, with no lid, for one hour on a very low heat. You should have around half the original quantity of liquid left at the end of an hour. If you need to add a little more water, make sure you do so well before you finish simmering the brew. If you add more water at the end of the simmering, then your mixture will not keep so well.
Take off the heat after an hour of simmering. Set aside to cool.
Once your sage mixture has cooled properly, strain it off.
To the liquid remaining add the same amount of vodka.
Put into a bottle with a screw-top lid and store in a cool place.
Massage around a tablespoonful of the sage infusion into the hair each day. Use more or less, depending on how much hair you need to cover.
Massage the sage tonic well into the roots of the hair as well, so that it feeds the scalp and hair follicles. Massaging the scalp with the sage tonic will help the hair to grow again.
The oils in the sage leaves will put a natural shine to the hair.
Once the hair is sufficiently darkened, which may take several weeks, you can reduce the amount of applications each week. Once or twice a week may be enough to maintain the darker colour.
Sage is really very good for the hair in so many ways.
Alternative Sage Tonic Without Alcohol: You could make up your sage tea without the alcohol if you wish. Only, remember that your mixture will not keep for longer than a week, and it must be kept in the fridge. You could make up a lesser amount, enough to last a week, and then make up a fresh brew of tea for the following week.
My new book is available on Amazon:
Read more about how Jacqui regrew her teeth, and the Gerson alternative treatment for cancer, on my other posts:
