TO PREVENT DANDRUFF: Rub a tea made from the leaves and bark of a willow into your scalp. Rinse the area with marsh mallow tea.

FOR A RELAXING BATH: Hang a bag of dried comfrey or rosemary In the bath water.

FOR PERFUME: Fill a jar with pressed rose petals (or any sweet-scented flowers), add as much glycerin as the container will hold, and cover It tightly. After three weeks, you can pour the perfume off into a bottle.

TO MAKE A SACHET: Combine one ounce each of powdered cloves, caraway seed, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon with six ounces of powdered orrisroot. Put the mixture in fancy bags and place them in closets and dresser drawers.

Now, some of the ingredients that Granny mentioned may not be familiar to you. Take "balm of Gilead", for example. That's just plain ol' balsam. And "marsh mallow tea" sounds like a sticky mess, but Grandma wasn't talking about the soft, white candy ... she was referring to the root of the marsh mallow plant. "Orrisroot", another name that may be puzzling to modern folk, Is the dried, powdered root of various European Iris plants.

Grandma foraged or grew most of her Ingredients, but you can often find them in health food stores, supermarkets, and pharmacies ... or even still growin' wild along the roadside.

Naturally (no pun Intended), I started to use some of these old-time recipes and found that comfrey does make a nice skin softener ... while oatmeal leaves the skin silky and is especially good on oily teenage complexions,

However, a word of caution: Anyone can be allergic to almost anything, so check out any unfamiliar substance before you rub it all over yourself. To do this, just place a small amount on the tender skin of your inner arm and cover the area with an adhesive bandage. Then wait 24 hours and have a look. If the patch shows any reaction, such as redness or obvious irritation ... that ingredient just isn't for you.

My grandmother often said she didn't feel a bit older at 80 than she did at 16, and she didn't took her age either. Did this wonderful woman's organic beauty rituals account for her natural glow and glamour? Well, leis just say that—after a few weeks of using some of Grandma's "secrets"—I've begun to believe that they did!