“The Everything Skin Salve” + Infused Oil, Salve Making & Skin Healing Plant List

I love a good salve.

There’s usually 1-2 tins, or more, floating around our home for all kinds of skin, nerve, muscle and connective tissue ailments.

Making infused oils can be an easy thing. It looks overwhelming at first but once you get it, it’s quite easy.

Here’s the quick lowdown on the process. My herbal course HERE gives more details and LOTS of recipes, ideas and guidance.

I use 1 cup chopped herb to 2 cups organic olive oil as my 1:2 ratio. This makes a bit so if you want to try a few herbs then make smaller batches butkeep the ratio of herb to oil consistent.

Use dried herb or allow fresh herbs to wilt a bit as water is not your friend when making infused oils and can cause spoilage. It is the one thing that makes oils rot in the apothecary.

​CLIFF NOTES ON MAKING HERB INFUSED OILS + HERBAL SALVES:

- Some use a blender to start them - optional step
- Some add 1 TB grain alcohol per 1 cup dried herb and toss, allow to sit for 15m, add your oil - this can helps preserve and extract - optional step

- Stir daily with a chop stick or 3-4x/week for a month
- Keep in warm place out of direct light
- Warming is optional - place in the lowest temperature warm oven and stir every 30m for 4h - you should have a color change and aroma unique to the plant which you learn by doing; then strain (this is the sped up way)

- Label and date everything carefully as you go.
- Gravity strain through muslin - no squeezing as this releases any water and sediment.
Allow to sit for an hour and any water or sediment will drop to the bottom of your bowl. Then pour off the good oil and toss the stuff stuck to the bottom.

- Store in glass in a dark closet or cabinet; label and date.
- Shelf stable for 12 months; 18 months if stored in frig.
-First decide what your purpose is for the salve as this directs which plants or essential oils you choose.

-Salves can be more solid at 1:4 ration and more soft at a 1:8 ratio which is more ointment consistency for covering larger areas of the body.

- Beeswax or vegan wax to oil is the ratio, so to every 1oz of wax add 4-8oz infused oil.
- Use double boiler - have containers laid out and ready.
- Warm just until wax melts, add infused oils and any essential oils you may be using.
- Once melted fully you pour into containers and allow to cool. You can add a sprinkle of dried herbs if you wish (optional but beautiful).

- Cap and make your label with all ingredients.

RECIPE: The Everything Salve

The ElderMoon Everything Salve  - buy from me at 1oz $12 and you're set for the year.

Or make yourself: My recipe is 2oz each of Calendula flower, Comfrey leaf, St. Johnswort infused olive oil, 1oz beeswax, 20 drops pure Rosemary Essential Oil. This makes 7oz total at a 1:6 (beeswax to oil) ratio.
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If you make a batch, then you have enough for your home and some 1oz gifts for loved ones. 1oz tins or glass jars are available through an easy google search - or repurpose ones that have already come through your life. 

Calendula oil with beeswax melting (golden colored), the comfrey leaf oil (green), and the st. johnswort oil in the jar (red) are mixed for “The Everything Salve” □

Herb List for Skin & Body Care Salves/Balms

You can make salve with a single herb or multiple herbs, depending on your needs. It’s useful to make a variety of herbal infused oils so that you can easily craft a salve whenever you need it.
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Make small batches and use them up. It’s food for the body and needs to be fresh like the food we eat.
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Arnica flowers: Can help treat physical trauma, bruises, strains, and occasional muscle pain. Use immediately after strenuous exertion or injury to prevent, relieve, and reduce swelling, bruises and pain.
Birch Bark: fresh whittled black or yellow birch bark is easily infused into oil and the wintergreen smell transfers to it. This is great for sore aching, overworked muscles, swollen joints, pain, congestion of lymph nodes and chest congestion.
Burdock root and leaf: For skin infections (leaf is stronger than root for this), contusions and swellings, good for sensitive skin folks,
Calendula flowers: Wonderfully healing with all-around healing properties useful for a wide variety of skin irritations and conditions including wounds, insect bites, rashes, scrapes, abrasions, cuts, and much more. Suitable for sensitive skin and babies.
Cannabis: a profound skin healer and nerve repair remedy for external use. Best first aid for burns, general beauty treatments, contusions, bruises, hematomas, cuts, scrapes. abrasions, and even rubbed over packed sinuses or lymphatic regions to drain them.
Cayenne Pepper: Warming, good for occasional sore muscles, alleviates occasional pain, and itching.
Chamomile flowers: Minor abrasions, cuts, scrapes, swellings, and wounds plus for chapped chaffed skin.
Chickweed: Soothing: helps with skin conditions erupting from within(eczema, psoriasis), minor burns, and other skin irritations.
Comfrey leaf and/or root: Relieves occasional pain, swelling, supports muscle, cartilage, and bone. Assists with healing a wide variety of conditions.
Elder Leaf or flower: green leaf oil has a long history of aiding in ceremonies and rituals as an anointing oil but also heals abrasions, wounds, swellings. The flower is often added to cereals as an elevated beauty treatment for skin rejuvenation.
Echinacea herb and/or root: Beneficial for minor sores, wounds, insect bites, and stings.
Ginger root: Warming, use for occasional sore muscles.
Goldenseal leaf and/or root: Useful for treating minor wounds, infected wounds, and ulcerative skin conditions.
Lavender flowers: Soothing, calming, relieves occasional pain, has healing properties beneficial for minor wounds and numerous skin conditions.
Mugwort: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes minor sores, bruises, blisters, contusions and swelling, and damaged skin.
Myrrh Gum powder: Used for cuts, scrapes, scratches, and abrasions.
Nettle leaf: An effective herb for many skin conditions.
Oregon Grape root: Skin disinfectant for minor wounds.
Peppermint (and menthol crystals): insect bites, bruising and contusions, tired or overworked muscle rubs for increased circulation and repair.
Pine: I love hemlock, white pine and spruce trees for this. Great for sore aching, overworked muscles, swollen joints, pain, congestion of lymph nodes and chest congestion.
Plantain leaf: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes insect bites and stings, poison ivy, itching, minor sores, bruises, blisters, and damaged skin.
Poke Root: for questionable moles snd unusual non-healing skin lesions. (Caution with making - wear gloves and keep your room well ventilated as this is a strong one - come learn more in my herbal course)
Rosemary: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes insect bites and stings, late stage poison ivy, itching, minor sores, bruises, blisters, swellings, and damaged skin. Also a great chest rub for congestion.
St. Johnswort: Craft the deep red-colored oil from fresh flowers. Beneficial for minor wounds, cuts, bruises, insect bites and stings, nerve support, scrapes, and minor burns.
Thyme: Used for cuts, scrapes, and occasional sore muscles, chest rubs for congestion.
Yarrow Flowers: Apply to bruises, minor wounds, cuts, scrapes, and areas with swelling and bleeding.
Yellowdock root: yes! It’s quite antiseptic and offers swelling reducing properties too.

There’s more but this is plenty. We have so many plants! Drop the overwhelm.
I know, it can get that way.

My hope is this inspires you to start simple with one plant.

Learn the steps and it will be so easy to make these amazing products for your body and to gift or sell to others.

As healthcare wobbles more and more we are called back to the plants and creating home apothecaries. This allows us to add to our primary healthcare with remedies from nature that the majority of the world still considers primary healthcare. Linking your apothecary to others to move resources (ie. medicinal plants) around is a form of currency. It wasn’t that long ago that we traded eggs for a salve. If each tribe / family has one person that takes this knowledge deeper and creates a working apothecary, they can supply the friends and family who are in need. It begins simply. Start with one plant and make one oil into one salve. Then get good at it! Do it again and expand your skills.

I’m here for questions and cheering you on for we need more homes with small working apothecaries, connected to other small working apothecaries.

Much love, Jen