There are a variety of different natural products you can make at home with healing herbs, from lotions to poultices. Among these are what we call salves. Here are some tips for how to make salve at home using a variety of herbs.
How to Make Salve: What Is a Salve?
You may be wondering, what is salve exactly? Essentially, it’s a cream or oil-based product that can be applied to the skin for different healing properties.
You can buy herbal cream in a variety of health food stores, but it’s also possible to create a homemade salve. You can easily learn how to do it, and it’s also very fun to do.
Basic Materials for your DIY Salve
After learning how to make salve, you’ll be able to stock up your medicine cabinet with natural remedies for burns, scrapes, and many other health issues.
To start your DIY salve, the first thing you need to do is gather the right materials.
First, you will need to choose carrier oil or any type of organic oil. Coconut oil is often chosen, but you can also use olive oil.
For an herbal cream, you can use beeswax or any organic wax of your choice. Beeswax salve is one of the most common.
Next, you will need to choose your dried herbs, going with equal parts of each herb you decide to use. You can also use just one type of herb for your balms.
You will then need some shaved beeswax, jars, cheesecloth, and traditional essential oil if you want to use it.
Healing Salve Recipe to Try Out
While you should put together your recipes of salves based on the healing properties of the herbs, and depending on your needs, here is a basic DIY salve you can try out.
For the recipe, you’ll need grapefruit essential oil. This essential oil gives you more energy. Then, for the herbs, you’ll want to use lavender, rose, and calendula. Lavender and rose help relax you. Calendula is antifungal and antimicrobial.
First, combine eight ounces of your carrier oil, either coconut oil or olive oil, with equal parts of the lavender, rose, and calendula.
Once that is done, add a few drops of grapefruit essential oils. You can also choose to mix shaved beeswax until you achieve the consistency that you want.
What Types of Herbs Can You 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 or skin condition.
If you want to treat a condition like skin rash, diaper rash, eczema, psoriasis, or even sunburn, you will need to come up with a combination of herbs that can work together. Be sure to do your research to know which herbs work best together.
The salve often helps with a skin condition where it is applied. For example, you can make a mixture that can be rubbed on the chest when someone has a chest cold, this will provide immediate relief.
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
Takeaway
Now that you know how to make salve for yourself, go ahead and give these a try or make your concoction with any herbs you have on hand.
Good luck!