Selima Iwilla Harleston Lust - Iwilla Remedy

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Selima Iwilla Harleston Lust - Iwilla Remedy Clinical herbalist, author, and Professor of African American Herbalism at Spelman College. Learn to work with herbs confidently, for yourself and your family.
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Iwilla Remedy is a family owned business founded in the heart of Brooklyn, New York, and now operating in Atlanta, GA. Tami and Selima, healers, herbalists, wives, moms and business partners, officially opened for business in 2012 and are dedicated to helping people understand the power of herbal medicine to improve lives. From the inside out, physical to emotional and spiritual bodies, sacred plant medicines heal and we’re here to guide you along your path of wellness. What initially began as a natural body care line, has expanded into a holistic wellness brand. We do herbal training and mentorship as well as teach workshops and classes on plant medicine, alignment, and healing. Our line of products includes teas, tinctures, smoke blends, and baths. And because we believe that the cause of all physical pain and illness is rooted in the emotional body, we emphasize in our work the necessary addition and inclusion of spiritual practices to every health plan. Our company is small, but our commitment to healing is large. Let us be a resource, and if our spirits are aligned, let us help you along your journey of reclaiming your wholeness.

09/27/2026

Between back to school, fall seasonal allergies, and respiratory imbalances that accompany colder months, now’s the time to make your fire c***r!

Herbal medicine teaches us many things, including the need to stay ready so you don’t have to get ready!

It’s impractical to make your best medicine, your most well-thought herbal blends when you’re sick, so create it when you are well.

Now is the time to think ahead, be proactive and make your fall/winter medicine.

Comment “c***r” if you want my free recipe, which is a vinegar extract (sweetened with honey after 6 weeks) made with herbs and spices that provide full body relief for respiratory (and other) complaints.

In under 30 minutes you can make enough medicine to last until next year! I make a gallon every 2 years and we take it as needed!

And don’t forget about my free Herbal Medicine Masterclass where I teach you how I got out of chronic pain, ditched pharma and healed childhood trauma with herbal medicine and the CALYPSO Healing Method®️

Comment “masterclass” for the registration link.

Get and stay on the healing path! It’s so worth it 😘

09/26/2026

Damned if you do.
Damned if you don’t.

My student/friend had this recent experience with her daughter’s pediatrician.

Baby girl had an ear infection for which she was prescribed antibiotics. Friend is holistically minded and didn’t want to give them to her. She reached out to me and I provided a protocol (emphasizing the importance of consistency and if/when it’s wise to use the drugs because you don’t want it to get worse).

She followed my instructions and it worked.

Pedatrician reported infection was gone and patted herself on the back for the antibiotics doing the job.

“Actually, we didn’t use the antibiotics. We used herbal medicine instead,” friend reports.

Doctor was pi**ed and dumbfounded probably because you’d think a quarter of a million dollars invested in rigorous medical education would include at least some information on the first medicine. She proceeded to tell friend that’s not how we do things and next time use the antibiotics.

So what’s the deal?

Folks are told again and gain to make lifestyle changes, to improve diet, exercise more, and eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce their stress, etc.

And then get reprimaded when you successfully treat yourself or a family member with herbal medicine.

I understand why folks are confused and distrustful.

People should be seen and celebrated, not ever shamed for taking care of themselves and it working!

If you want to close the gaps between your desire to use herbal medicine successfully and your actual skills to be able to do so, sign up for my free Herbal Medicine Masterclass. Comment “masterclass” for the link to the free class.

09/24/2026

Today is medical astrology day inside my signature mentorship program, Herbal Medicine for the Soul where I analyze a student’s chart for important health indicators. In most cases, it’s reverse engineering the factors that could have contributed to a particular health condition that’s present for them today. Today’s class however, is a general wellness reading so this student understands their bodily tendencies, how to support themselves based on their constitution and the emotional tension points that could contribute to unwellness when we swing too far in on direction. For example, for folks with lots of fire in their chart, the pattern of inflammation emergies more easily when they are doing too much and too fast. Fire people benefit from long pauses between thought and action and may learn the consquences of impulsitivy through burnout. Their minds are ahead of their body’s capacity. This isn’t diagnosis, it’s pattern recognition. There’s something powerful when people themselves through their chart: their habits, their urges, their desires, their frustrations alongside their gifts, their talents, their unique intelligence and experiences and their growth areas. My free masterclass gives you a breakdown on how to use medical astrology to understand your health baseline and discern which herbs are most supportive to your constitution. Comment “masterclass’” for the link and be prepared to take copious notes, I’m a thorough teacher!

Hi Herbalists!Have you ever felt excited to try a new herb or create a new blend, only to have that excitement immediate...
09/22/2026

Hi Herbalists!

Have you ever felt excited to try a new herb or create a new blend, only to have that excitement immediately followed by disappointment when you remember your tincture needs four to six weeks before it is ready?

There is nothing wrong with waiting. Slow maceration is a valuable, time-honored medicine-making method. But if you are like me, when inspiration strikes, you also want the opportunity to explore, test, and learn from that preparation sooner rather than later.

Part of becoming a more confident herbalist is having more than one method available to you. It means knowing you have options, and understanding the process well enough to choose among them with discernment.

Someone recently commented on my Percolation Method tincture-making video that, because they allow their tinctures to sit, they felt others were taking a shortcut. They felt deceived and I understand the concern. We want the medicine we make and purchase to be prepared with care, skill, and integrity.

But a shorter extraction time is not automatically a shortcut. It is not about rushing the process or choosing a faster method simply because it is faster. Every method has its tradeoffs.

The real question is: Do we understand the principles behind the method we are using?

This is one of the things I love about the chemistry of herbalism. When we understand how surface area, movement, temperature, time, and solvent choice influence extraction, we can make informed decisions that honor both the plant and the preparation.

In the final video of my tincture-making series, I am sharing the blender method, a rapid extraction approach that can help you make a tincture in far less time.

In this new video, you’ll learn:
➡️ How surface area, movement, temperature, and time work together to influence herbal extraction

➡️ How to choose a tincture-making method based on the plant, your goals, your timeline, and the tools you have available

➡️ Why the “strongest” alcohol is not automatically the best solvent, and how to begin thinking more intentionally about your menstruum

➡️ The practical tradeoffs, safety considerations, and challenges that come with rapid blender extraction

The more you understand the relationship between the plant, the menstruum, the method, and your own needs, the less you have to rely on one-size-fits-all instructions.

I hope you find it helpful!! Love yall 😘

We’ll see chapters on Indigenous nations as we should, but also Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, the ancient Greeks, sometime...
09/18/2026

We’ll see chapters on Indigenous nations as we should, but also Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, the ancient Greeks, sometimes Africa as if the people who reside there are all the same. And of course the North American eclectics who are practically worshipped like gods.

But pages dedicated to the singular experience, wisdom, and resourcefulness of African Americans in this country are very rare.

I remember the moment I stood in a bookstore, flipping through pages of an herbal book I was considering purchasing when I came across a line that basically said African Americans didn’t contribute anything to herbalism here.

You know those scenes in movies where the character just explodes, feels helpless, enraged, and proceeds to destroy every object in the room. I always shake my head at those scenes because now they gotta clean all the s**t up!

But in that moment in the bookstore, reading this line, which was written so matter of factly I nearly lost it.

I was flipping the page to see if there was more. More context, more nuance, more of anything. Nope. In that moment I understood how you can be filled with so much emotion that the only impulse you have is to f**k some s**t up. But as a fellow small business owner, I was not going to damage their shelves. All I could do was try to hide my tears as I walked out.

Because it wasn’t the first time. As Black herbalists we experience this invisibility of our ancestors everywhere, even when folks are actively co-opting and earning off of their practices just like enslavers did during the antebellum period.

Out of one side of their mouths they’re saying our ancestors aren’t intelligent and don’t know anything about healing, while out the other side they’re looking over our ancestors’ shoulders writing down the herbal blends and putting the recipes in their plantation journals.

I say this all the time, but I really don’t think people get it. If not for herbalism, we wouldn’t be here. I am not being hyperbolic. It is true for every culture because prior to modern medicine, plants were all everyone had.

But plants held an indelible role in the survival of roughly 10 million people who were enslaved in what is now the United States—people brutally kidnapped, tortured, r***d, and bred under a system of chattel slavery. What closed their wounds, supplemented their nutrition, sheltered them when they escaped or stole away to learn how to read, opened portals for rituals before rebellions, and allowed them to claim agency over their bodies by refusing to birth more children who would never be free?

I’m glad that author wrote down how she really felt because do you know what it emboldened me to do?

I pioneered the first ever collegiate African American Herbalism course at my alma mater, Spelman College.

I’m currently teaching my 4th cohort and not only is this class an homage to our ancestors, it is a correction of herbal memory.

We need to take the mic, y’all. Share our experiences, reclaim our narratives, archive our stories, and research our own history because while the truth of our ancestors’ legacy lives in our cells, we need to keep those receipts on the tips of our tongues.

And be proud. Be consumed by—and drown in—absolute reverence and adoration that we are here and come from their genius, their will, and courage.

Black herbalism is not an aside to American herbal history. It is one of its essential lineages.

Where can you learn for free? LIBRARIES!
Archives, ancestor (formerly enslaved) narratives, WPA Narratives, as well as plantation diaries and antebellum medical journals to understand the soul-stirring, violent conditions they survived-and they created and protected.

09/17/2026

The more I learn about our ancestors, the more honored I am to be apart of their legacy.

09/14/2026

We can’t out- herb this political and economic reality, but we can build small, tangible practices of care for ourselves and the people we love.

This weekend, I made fresh milky oats lemonade. You already know this plant. Milky oats are the fresh, immature tops of oatmeal (Avena sativa), harvested when they release a white, milky sap.

Here’s the recipe:
🌿 1 cup fresh milky oats, coarsely ground
🌿 Juice of 2 lemons
🌿 6 cups freshly boiled water
🌿 Sweetener of choice, to taste

🌿 Combine the coarsely ground fresh milky oats and lemon juice in a heat-safe vessel.
🌿 Pour 6 cups of freshly boiled hot water over the blend.
🌿 Cover and steep for at least 4 hours
🌿 Strain, sweeten to taste, refrigerate, and serve cold over ice.

Need a beginner course on herbalism? My short course Everyday Herbalism teaches you how to choose the right herb, prepare it well, and use it with confidence. Learn practical preparations, dosage basics, and 20+ accessible herbs, so you can make remedies for yourself and the people you love.

Comment “CARE” if you are suggesting this to your group chat—and send this video to the person who always shows up for everyone else, but barely shows up for themselves.

09/14/2026

We can’t out- herb this political and economic reality, but we can build small, tangible practices of care for ourselves and the people we love.

This weekend, I made fresh milky oats lemonade. You already know this plant. Milky oats are the fresh, immature tops of oatmeal (Avena sativa), harvested when they release a white, milky sap.

Here’s the recipe:
    •    1 cup fresh milky oats, coarsely ground
    •    Juice of 2 lemons
    •    6 cups freshly boiled water
    •    Sweetener of choice, to taste

🌿Combine the coarsely ground fresh milky oats and lemon juice in a heat-safe vessel.
🌿 Pour 6 cups of freshly boiled hot water over the blend.
🌿 Cover and steep for at least 4 hours.
  🌿 Strain, sweeten to taste, refrigerate, and serve cold over ice.

Need a beginner course on herbalism? My short course Everyday Herbalism teaches you how to choose the right herb, prepare it well, and use it with confidence. Learn practical preparations, dosage basics, and 20+ accessible herbs, so you can make remedies for yourself and the people you love.

Comment “CARE” if you are suggesting this to your group chat—and send this video to the person who always shows up for everyone else, but barely shows up for themselves.

We have been carrying the most since forever. And we have had plants supporting us since the beforetime.Public-health sc...
09/05/2026

We have been carrying the most since forever. And we have had plants supporting us since the beforetime.

Public-health scholar Dr. Arline Geronimus calls the cumulative wear of racism, economic strain, exclusion, and chronic stress weathering. Her research shows how these conditions can accumulate in the body over time, contributing to earlier health deterioration and higher allostatic load among Black Americans, especially Black women.

Black people have spent generations fighting for policies that widened freedom for everybody. Yet when protections are stripped away, costs rise, and public systems are allowed to fail, we are so often among the first to feel it. Our bodies carry that reality right alongside us.

There is a lot to carry right now: economic pressure, political instability, the demand to keep working, keep watching, keep responding, and keep going while so much feels uncertain.

That is why herbalism has always had a place in our care toolkit, not as some silly wellness trend, but as a living practice of tending to ourselves and one another. The tea. The bath. The bitters. The nervine tincture. The plants growing in the yard. The remedies passed through kitchens, gardens, grandmothers, aunties, neighbors, and community.

Our plant practices help us make room to rest, regulate, nourish, and return to ourselves.

They help us build the capacity to care for our families, show up for our communities, and engage in the movement in whatever way our gifts are designed.

Our care is not separate from the movement. It is part of it.

For the people ready to move from collecting herbs to using them skillfully at home, Family Farmacy teaches you how to build practical herbal knowledge, make remedies, and care for yourself and your people with more confidence.

Become the herbalist the movement needs. Enjoy 20% off Family Farmacy for a limited time with code: FARMACY26.

family.iwillaremedy.com

09/01/2026

Herbalism gives us another way to participate in our health: to build daily support, recognize patterns earlier, and make informed choices before we reach a crisis.
If your A1C is creeping up, this is your warning sign and your opportunity to make dietary shifts, learn what affects your blood sugar, and study herbs that have been researched for metabolic support, including gymnema, cinnamon, and milk thistle.

If your blood pressure is creeping up, please do not wait until you need two medications to keep it stable before you look at your sodium intake, sleep, stress, movement, alcohol intake, and daily food patterns.

This is also a time to learn about gentle stress-supportive herbs, such as linden, as well as traditional cardiovascular herbs like hawthorn and hibiscus. 

If your periods are getting heavier, your cramps are worsening, or you have growing-but-still-small fibroids, this is the time to build a thoughtful support plan. Track your cycle, your bleeding, and your pain and build an inflammation-conscious herbal plan that also support hormone metabolism and iron levels.  
You do not have to wait until the pain, exhaustion, bleeding, or anemia becomes your normal.

From the beginning, herbs have been among the most steady and reliable forms of support available to our communities.

The biggest difference between our ancestors and us, however, is that many of us have lost the skills to use them well.

So much of my work is about helping us reclaim autonomy in our health care choices by encouraging us to become more educated, more observant, more prepared, more herbally skilled and therefore more capable participants in our own care.

Let “wait and see” become an invitation to course-correct.

This is exactly what I teach inside my intermediate herbal program, Family Farmacy.

This is where we bridge the healing knowledge our ancestors had with the research, safety awareness, and practical skills we need today.

Because confidence does not come from having a cabinet full of herbs. It comes from knowing how to use them wisely.

Enjoy 20% off your enrollment in Family Farmacy until Friday with code: FARMACY26. Family.iwillaremedy.com

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New York, NY

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Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 2pm

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+13474147354

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