Three hours...A Little Effort...And

A whole lot of homemade salves, chapstick and facial creams.  Seriously, I could not believe how much stuff I ended up with...for us...for gifts.  But the best part was how easy it was to make.



About 3-4 weeks before I decided to make the salves, I placed my herbs in wide mouth mason jars, covered them with olive oil and put them out in the sunshine.  Shake daily if you remember.  This is called a cold infusion. The hardest and messiest part was straining the herbs after the infusion was finished.  I used a cheese cloth and poured the herbs onto it and squeezed all of the oil out.  I then placed the infused oil into another jar because it was a couple more weeks until I got around to salve making.




Salve making day arrived.  I heated the infused oil and beeswax pastilles.  It takes the beeswax a little while to melt.  While it was slowly melting, I was free to do other things that needed to be done.  I added 30-50 drops of tea tree oil after I removed it from the heat. I put a little bit of mixture on a spoon and put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes.  The consistency was great, so I poured the salve mixture into the containers to allow to harden.

Here are the salve making supplies.

Here is the beeswax and oil being heated.

I made...

Healing Green Salve  it contains...

plantain

echinacea root

echinacea leaf

comfrey leaf

yarrow flower

tea tree oil

Diaper Rash Salve

calendula flower

comfrey leaf

St. John's Wort flower

Muscle Rub Salve

St. John's Wort flower

Arnica flower

Lobelia leaf

Comfrey Leaf

Peppermint Leaf

Cayenne

This was quick and easy, so I decided to make chapstick.  This turned out great.  It is the best chapstick I have ever used.  It is very soothing.  I had bought several brands of organic chapstick before and it always seemed to dry my lips out.  I was very pleased with my 42 tubes of chapstick.  

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons beeswax pastilles

3 tablespoons cocoa butter

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

50 drops peppermint essential oil

25 drops orange essential oil

I also made Rosemary's Perfect Cream from Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal

It is fabulous.  It has cocoa butter and smells slightly of chocolate when it is first applied.  It only takes a small amount.  This recipe will go very far.

Since the boys have had Poison Ivy, I made a cream for this as well. I haven't used it yet, but I'll have it on hand when I need it.

Next on my list...shampoo and tinctures