How to Make Your Own Herbal Salve
There are a variety of different natural products you can make at home with healing herbs, from lotions to poultices. Another popular product to make is a salve. A salve is essentially cream or oil-based and can be applied to the skin for different healing properties. Here are some tips for how to make your own herbal salve.
Necessary Materials to Make Your Salve
If you want to learn how to make your own herbal salves, you are on your way to stocking up your medicine cabinet with natural remedies for burns, scrapes, and many other health issues. The first thing you need to do is gather the right materials. To start with, you will need to choose a carrier oil or any type of organic oil. Coconut oil is often chosen, but you can also use olive oil.
Next you will need to choose your dried herbs, going with equal parts of each herb you decide to go with. You can also use just one type of herb. You will then need some shaved beeswax, jars, cheesecloth, and traditional essential oil if you want to use it.
Sample Salve Recipe to Try Out
While you should put together your own recipes of salves based on the healing properties of the herbs, here is a basic salve you can try out. This one includes grapefruit essential oils to give you more energy, plus lavender and rose to relax you. There is also some calendula in there as well. What you want to do for your salve is combine coconut oil with dried herbs like lavender, rose, and calendula, then a few drops of essential oils. You can also mix in your shaved beeswax to give it the right consistency.
Types of Herbs You Can Put in Your Salve
Keep in mind that most salves are going to use more than one herb, because they are trying to treat a particular medical, skin, or mental health condition. The salve often helps with an actual skin condition where it is rubbed, but not always. For example, you can make a salve that is rubbed on the chest when someone has a chest cold, as it provides soothing qualities.
As a good place to start, here are some of the best herbs to add to your salve, depending on what you are using it for:
* Chickweed
* Comfrey leaves or roots
* Burdock
* Chamomile
* Arnica
* Plantain
* St. John’s wort
* Goldenseal leaf
* Echinacea leaf
* Thyme
* Yarrow
* Dandelion
So many people have asked me (the homestead wife) to share more about my various herbal concoctions and experiments!!! I have a whole shelf full of projects. My knowledge of these wonderful plants is not expert-level, but I am happy to show you all what I am doing.
Give these a try or make your own concoction with any herbs you have on hand.