Flora's Kiss

You have been told pollen is worst first thing in the morning. In Australia, the measurements say otherwise.

Grass pollen rises with the warm air all day. After sunset the ground cools, the air stops stirring, and a shallow layer settles near the surface — sometimes only a few tens of metres deep. All that pollen comes back down into a fraction of the sky it had at three in the afternoon.

Same pollen. Far less room. Which is why your skin and your eyes can get worse in the evening, after you have come inside and done everything right.

Our new post follows the whole chain, from a paddock north of the city to the skin on your face. Why rain does not clear the air. What four separate things a hot northerly does to a sensitive barrier at once.

And one line worth carrying: in the 2016 Melbourne thunderstorm asthma event, most of the people hospitalised had never been diagnosed with asthma. Almost all of them had hay fever.

If spring makes you sneeze, that is a September conversation with your GP, not a November one.

Education, not medical advice. https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/09/10/what-the-weather-carries/

This one's a long one. Kettle on, feet up.

The Skin That Listens — our new deep dive into the sensory receptors underneath your skin, and the chemistry that keeps them talking.

Your skin can resolve detail down to half a millimetre. It also has a dedicated nerve fibre that seems to exist for one purpose: to register affectionate touch.

Comfort isn't purely psychological. It has a nerve fibre.

We cover the receptors one by one, follow a single touch from fingertip to brain, open up the tiny molecular pump that makes every nerve signal possible (and why magnesium and potassium are non-negotiable to it), and look honestly at what happens when the system is compromised — when the signal fades, when it won't stop, and when it arrives intact but is read differently.

It's a proper sit-down read rather than a scroll. Grab a cuppa and settle in.

https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/09/06/the-skin-that-listens/

Educational only, not medical advice — please see your GP about symptoms.

The Skin That Listens How a two-square-metre organ turns pressure, stretch, warmth and pain into electricity — and what it takes, chemically, to keep that conversation running.

ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) is a real eating disorder — driven by sensory sensitivity, low appetite, or fear of what eating might do, not by body image or weight.

It overlaps significantly with autism and ADHD, often goes undiagnosed for years, and currently isn't covered by Medicare's Eating Disorders Care Plan in Australia — a gap worth knowing about if you're navigating this.

New deep dive is up now.
https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/08/24/more-than-picky-eating/

More Than Picky Eating When food itself — its taste, its texture, its risk — becomes the thing a body cannot get past, no matter how much the mind wants to.

The first drink, the first joint — for a lot of neurodivergent people, it wasn't about chasing a high. It was chasing relief.

Our new deep dive unpacks why ADHD, autism, and AuADHD carry a higher risk of substance use: the self-medication pattern, the exhaustion of masking, and what happens when meltdowns are met with punishment instead of understanding. We look at how this shows up differently in males and females, what neurodivergent-affirming treatment looks like, and why a person struggling with substance use is never less deserving of dignity and care.

Plus SA and national support services for individuals and families.

You are not alone in this.

https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/08/09/elementor-3707/

Flora's Kiss | Hand made with love in the Adelaide Hills Skincare for sensitive souls Flora’s Kiss is a cherished, family-run boutique dedicated to the art of natural skincare and herbal balms. More about us Browse our products We take great pride in our c

"I don't know what this is, and I'm going to find out" is medicine.

"I don't know what this is, therefore it isn't anything" is arrogance, and people die of it.

Our new post — on EDS, dysautonomia, POTS, mast cell activation and cold urticaria, and on the danger of being disbelieved.

https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/08/21/when-you-hear-hoofbeats/

floraskiss.com.au

The ambulance on the ramp is not the staff's fault. What happens when the doors finally open still is.

New on the blog: an honest look at South Australia's emergency departments — the ramping arithmetic, the violence staff absorb, and the difference between a boundary and a sneer.

Hours lost to ramping in SA more than tripled between 2019–20 and 2024–25. In July 2026, 466 older South Australians were occupying hospital beds while waiting for an aged care place. That is a Commonwealth bottleneck, not lazy nurses.

But some things are not funding failures. Rare disease patients wait a median of five years for a correct diagnosis. For EDS, the average is 21 years and fifteen doctors. And of people who had an episode of cold-induced anaphylaxis, only 8 per cent received adrenaline during it.

Everyone who comes to an emergency department is having the worst day of their life. That is the entry criterion.

Listen to the strange history. The zebras are the ones who die of not being believed.

https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/08/15/the-worst-day-of-their-lives/

Flora's Kiss | Hand made with love in the Adelaide Hills Skincare for sensitive souls Flora’s Kiss is a cherished, family-run boutique dedicated to the art of natural skincare and herbal balms. More about us Browse our products We take great pride in our c

Selective Mutism isn't a choice. It's a freeze response.

Someone with SM can be fully themselves at home and completely unable to speak at school, or with a relative, or at the shop counter — not because they won't, but because their nervous system has decided it isn't safe to.

Our latest deep dive covers the history of the name, how rare it really is, the real signs that separate it from shyness, the diagnostic criteria, who's involved in diagnosis and treatment, and what current research tells us about the body's role in all of this.

https://floraskiss.com.au/2026/08/09/held-speechless/

Flora's Kiss | Hand made with love in the Adelaide Hills Skincare for sensitive souls Flora’s Kiss is a cherished, family-run boutique dedicated to the art of natural skincare and herbal balms. More about us Browse our products We take great pride in our c