Working Hands Healing Salve
Here's my recipe for a healing salve that's great for soothing minor irritations like you'd get from a day of working in the garden or around the yard. It's wonderfully soothing and promotes the rapid regeneration of tissue.
Yield: 4 Tins
Cost: $5.00
Equipment
- Mason Jar
- A double-boiler, or make-shift double boiler – such as a pot within a pot, or a glass pyrex bowl or stainless steel bowl perched on top of a saucepan with water below. The use of a double-boiler is important to reduce overheating the herbal oil which would reduce its healing potency.
- 2 oz. glass jars or tins (you'll need four of them)
Materials
- 2 parts comfrey leaf - 1/2 cup
- 1 part calendula or yarrow flower - 1/4 cup
- 1 part purple dead nettle - 1/4 cup
- 1 1/2 cups carrier oil
- lavender essential oil - a few drops
- 1 oz. wax beeswax, candellila or carnauba
- vitamin E oil optional - 1/2 tsp.
Instructions
- Place your dried herbs in a mason jar, leaving a few inches of headspace.
- Pour in your carrier oil until your herbs are covered. Your oil should be at least one inch above your herbs in the jar. I love sweet almond oil, but you can also use jojoba, olive or another quality fixed oil.
- Place the jar on a warm, sunny windowsill for 2-3 weeks.
- Shake a few times daily.
- When the oil has been infused with your herbs, strain your herbs from the oil.
- Mix one cup of the herb infused oil with 1 oz. of wax (more or less depending on the firmness you'd like to achieve), and a few drops of essential oil.
- Using a double boiler, melt your wax into the herbal oil.
- Pour into 2 oz. glass jars or tins.
- Allow to cool - they will harden as they cool off.
- Store in cool, dry, dark place for a up to 2 years.
Notes
Tip: I like to add a small amount of vitamin E oil, as this helps preserve the salve, as well as add a vitamin boost.