cover image Healing Home Spa: Soothe Your Symptoms, Ease Your Pain, and Age-Proof Your Body with Pleasure

Healing Home Spa: Soothe Your Symptoms, Ease Your Pain, and Age-Proof Your Body with Pleasure

Valerie Gennari Cooksley. Prentice Hall Press, $19.95 (528pp) ISBN 978-0-7352-0332-7

Whatever ails you, there's probably a natural remedy for it in this volume. Cooksley (Aromatherapy: A Lifetime Guide to Healing with Essential Oils), offers this A-to-Z reference with treatments that rely heavily on aromatherapy, as well as on other therapies, including breath work, diet, herbs, hydrotherapy, massage, salves, teas and yoga. The book's tone is friendly and conversational, not medical, and Cooksley reminds readers her suggested treatments shouldn't be used as replacements for current allopathic treatments or in lieu of seeking qualified professional help. Cooksley's""pleasure remedies"" supposedly treat everything from acne, arthritis and asthma to varicose veins and warts. Many treatment recipes require a stockpile of essential oils, vinegars and herbs that few lay readers are likely to have on hand, but picking up some anise, fennel or caraway seed to see if the combination really cures bad breath--or giving the chamomile, coriander and vegetable oil brew a go to fight flatulence--is certainly worth a shot. This is a good manual for those intrigued by homeopathic remedies or looking for ways to relax at home.