14 Homegrown Healing Salves From Local Plants
14 Homegrown Healing Salves From Local Plants
14 Homegrown Healing Salves From Local Plants
Joybilee Farm,
Salves are mixtures of oil and wax that deliver benefits. If you’ve ever rubbed a Vapor Rub™ on a child’s
chest or had someone put it on your chest, you’ve used a salve. If you’ve ever applied a tube of Chap
Stick™ to your lips, you’ve used a salve. If you’ve ever used a tube of diaper rash cream on a baby’s
bum, you’ve used a salve. The problem with most salves that you buy at the drug store is that these
salves are petroleum based, using paraffin wax and petrolatum (Vasoline™) as the base.
Your skin is your largest organ. The skin absorbs whatever is put on it. If you apply salve to your skin,
your body absorbs the benefits of the herbs, infused in the oil that the salves are made from. Herbs can
be used to balance, detoxify, and heal the body by applying the herbs to the skin, in a salve. This is only
one way that herbs can help your body heal.
The plants growing in your own back yard and in close proximity to your home are challenged with the
same stressors that you are challenged by. If they are thriving they have the energetics to also help you
thrive. Plants growing close to you, that you harvest yourself, will also be fresher and filled with vitality.
So begin your herbal harvest in your own backyard for the most potent medicine.
Harvest only plants that you know haven’t been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides. Choose
organically grown weeds. If you are harvesting on private property, not your own, ask permission
before you harvest. If you are harvesting on public land ensure that you have the permission to do so.
2 saucepans
Herbs, if possible dry herbs overnight before proceeding (except St. John’s wort flowers)
Salve containers such as small glass jars with lids, salve tins, small jam jars
1 part beeswax
The 4 to 1 ratio of oil to beeswax ensures that the salve has enough body to stay solid in the container at
normal room temperature. It makes the salve easy to apply. The salve will melt on contact with the skin
and won’t leave a sticky feeling.
If the salve seems too greasy or oily try using a drying oil like grapeseed oil in place of olive oil. I use
olive oil and coconut oil in these recipes because they are inexpensive. You can substitute with another
carrier oil, but please avoid the use of genetically modified oils such as canola oil, soy oil, and corn oil.
These oils are likely contaminated with glyphosate, a known carcinogen.
Create a double boiler by placing a glass measuring cup in a saucepan, on top of a canning jar
ring. Place the herbs in a cloth tea bag. Pour the oils over the tea bag. Simmer on medium heat
for 30 minutes. Press out the herbs to release their herbal goodness into the oil.
Mix the oils with beeswax to make the salve stiffer and easier to apply. Melt the beeswax in the
oil over medium heat.
Add essential oils to shift the scent or enhance the medicinal benefits of the herbs (optional).
Technically salves that have essential oils added are called “ointments”. While pure salves
contain no essential oils.
Label and date the container to identify the contents and remind yourself what the salve is used
for.
Salves made with infused oils that begin with dried plant materials last longer than salves made with
fresh plant materials. Fresh plant materials should be wilted overnight before infusing them in oil. This
allows some excess water to evaporate instead of ending up in the salve. St. John’s wort infused oil
should always be made with fresh, but wilted St. John’s wort blossoms. Dandelion infused oil should
always be made with dried dandelion blossoms. When made with fresh blossoms it gets funky fast.
Pine Salve
2 tbsp. pine pitch
Comfrey Salve
2 tbsp. olive oil 2 tbsp. comfrey leaf, dried
3 Compound Salves:
Cracked Heel Salve Better Than Vicks
All Purpose Healing 3 tbsp. coconut oil Vapour Rub
Salve 2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 tbsp. infused oil, calendula 1 tbsp. avocado oil
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. infused oil, plantain 1 tbsp. cocoa butter
2 peppermint tea bags
1 tbsp. infused oil, yarrow 1 tbsp. calendula infused oil
2 rosemary sprigs, fresh
1 tbsp. pine pitch, cleaned 2 tbsp. beeswax
1 tbsp. beeswax
1 tbsp. infused oil, St. John’s 15 drops of peppermint
wort essential oil 5 drops peppermint essential
oil
1 tbsp. infused oil, comfrey 10 drops of lavender
essential oil 5 drops rosemary essential
3 tbsp. cocoa butter oil
10 drops of tea tree essential
3 tbsp. beeswax oil 5 drops lavender essential oil
Follow the basic directions Follow the basic directions 5 drops pine essential oil
for salve making. for salve making.
Follow the basic directions
Use for everything – bites, Use after a bath or shower to for salve making.
scratches, inflammation, seal in moisture on feet, and
pain, help dry, cracked heels to Use like Vicks™ for chest
stabilize and heal. congestion. Omit essential
oils for children under 5.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp. olive oil
Directions:
Follow the basic directions for salve making.
Other herbs that can help with bruising and trauma: St. John’s wort, valerian, chamomile.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp. olive oil
Directions:
Follow the basic directions for salve making.
This salve is best used after the heat has been removed from a sun burn, through the use of cold
compresses.
Other herbs that can help with burns: Aloe Vera, lavender, St. John’s wort, comfrey
Of course if you have severe allergies you’ll need more than plantain salve to help you.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp. olive oil
Directions:
Follow the basic directions for salve making.
This can be applied immediately to bites and stings. Apply as often as needed to bring relief.
If the patient has been stung by a honeybee the stinger should be scraped out of the sting using the side
of a card. As long as the stinger is in the body, it continues to pump venom into the system. Removing
the stinger minimizes the pain, swelling, and inflammation.
Other herbs that can help with stings, bites, or slivers: Pine resin, arnica, lavender, nettles.
Cottonwood bud infused oil is made in the spring when the resinous buds are getting ready to leaf out,
but before bud break. Willow bark can be used in place of cottonwood buds, if you don’t have
cottonwood growing near you. Both are analgesic and anti-inflammatory.
Ingredients:
3 tbsp. olive oil infused with St. John’s wort Flowers
1 tbsp. beeswax
Directions:
Follow the basic directions for salve making, beginning at step 4, using St. John’s wort infused oil and
cottonwood bud infused oil.
Other herbs that can help with sore muscles and joints: Pine or spruce needles, Pine resin, aspen leaves
or bark, willow bark, birch leaves, arnica flowers, calendula flowers, golden rod flowers, ginger,
turmeric, or dandelion flowers.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. dried red clover flowers and dried chickweed leaves, crushed
1 tbsp. beeswax
Directions:
Follow the basic directions for salve making.
This may be used as a lip balm. Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa butter to the basic recipe to make this firm
enough to use this in a lip balm tube. The yield will increase to 3 ounces.
Other herbs to use to help with dry, chapped skin: Calendula, self-heal, wild rose, violet, lemon balm,
mint, comfrey, and lavender.
2. Simmer the herbs in the oil for 30 minutes, keeping the temperature of the oil just below the
simmering point. Turn off the heat. Allow the oil to cool to room temperature.
3. Strain out the herbs. Squeeze the tea bag to remove the last of the oil from the herbs.
4. Return the oil to the simmer. Add the beeswax. Simmer on low until the beeswax is fully
melted. Remove from the heat.
5. Stir in any essential oils, if you are using them. Continue stirring until the mixture begins to
thicken. Pour into a tin or jar. Label with the contents. Date the jar.
Note: that essential oils should not be used for children under 5, infants, or pets. Their livers are not
developed enough to remove the excess essential oils from the blood stream.
Herbal salves are expensive. Yet they are all made the same way, by infusing herbs in a carrier oil and
adding beeswax for texture and consistency. Making your own salves saves you money. Making your
own also allows you to customize your salves to deliver the herbal benefits you need most. And now
you know that your own herbal salves are more potent and active than the salves you can buy from
elsewhere.
This is just the beginning of the useful herbal recipes you can make from weeds and plants growing in
your garden or in the area around your home. Homegrown herbs are more potent and active than
©Christine Dalziel, 2016 (all rights reserved)
http://joybileefarm.com/ Page 9
My New Book on Beeswax Workshop: How to Make Your Own Natural Candles, Cosmetics,
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imported herbs or pharmaceuticals for healing and balancing the body’s own systems. Find out more
about Homegrown Healing and potent herbal salve making by visiting Chris at Joybilee Farm
About Chris:
Chris is a teacher, author, gardener, and herbalist with 30+ years’ of growing herbs
and formulating herbal remedies, skin care products, soaps, and candles. She
teaches workshops and writes extensively about gardening, crafts, and medicinal
herbs on her blog at JoybileeFarm.com. Chris is the author of the The Beginner’s
Book of Essential Oils, Learning to Use Your First 10 Essential Oils with Confidence
and Homegrown Healing, from Seed to Apothecary.
Her new book, “Beeswax Workshop, How to Make Your Own Natural Candles, Cosmetics, Cleaners,
Soaps, Healing Balms, and More” will be released in December with Ulysses Press. You can pre-order it
on Amazon.