This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.
Preparing herbs with oils is a gateway to a variety of herbal remedies, making customization easy and rewarding. Many oil-based remedies are topical, meaning that they go on the outside of your body rather than the inside. This is an ideal way to target external situations like skin issues, but it’s also a way to work with herbs you might not be able to handle internally for whatever reason (looking at you, St John’s wort).
Your end goal will help you decide things like what kind of oil to use in the preparation, so let’s look at some options.
- Olive: an ideal all-purpose oil especially if you’re starting out and aren’t sure what to use. It’s particularly good for dry skin, easy to find, and relatively inexpensive compared to other oils. Depending on exactly what herb you’re working with, you might end up adding herbal olive oils to food too. Downsides: olive oil will stain the ever-loving heck out of fabrics and is incredibly difficult to get out.
- Coconut: pretty easy to find now and days, coconut has inherent anti-fungal qualities. Working with it a lot can be drying, so if you’re looking for something particularly moistening, maybe skip the coconut.
- Lard/tallow: source from healthy animals! They’re similar to human fats, so our body utilizes them fairly easily.
- Lanolin: source from health sheep! Lanolin is a byproduct of processing wool and therefore it doesn’t harm the sheep to procure it. It’s also similar to human fats, though some people find the scent off-putting.
- Almond: lighter than olive oil, which is helpful if you or someone else has texture/sensory issues around feeling greasy. Almond smells wonderful and it’s easier to wash out of fabrics than olive oil.
- Grapeseed: even lighter than almond, aim for cold-pressed to minimize rancidness.
- Jojoba/shea butter/cocoa butter: very moistening, also very thick. Can get pricey quickly, especially if you’re prioritizing sustainable sourcing, but they also have their own medicinal benefits
- Rosehip/argan/sea buckthorn: like the above, these are very costly, though they have their own medicinal benefits. These tend to show up in cosmetic/skin care herbal remedies. Investigate the production methods to make sure the very act of producing them doesn’t make them rancid.
Infused Oil
Infused oils have a similar preparation method to tinctures, and like tinctures there’s a standard method and a faster method. You can make oils with dried herbs, though fresh herbs are usually preferred. If using fresh herbs, let them wilt a little before you start the oil–this helps ensure that nothing molds.
To make an oil the standard way: take a jar and fill it between a 1/4 to 3/4 of the way with your chosen herb, then add oil until you have about an inch of oil covering over the herbs. (You might need to wait for the herbs to settle to make sure there’s enough oil.) Then cap, label, and wait 4 to 6 weeks, depending on how strong you want the oil, and strain, keeping the oil and discarding (or composting!) the herbs. Voila! An infused herbal oil.
The faster method is to gently heat your herb and oil for 8 to 24 hours. You can do this in an oven-safe container in an oven set to the lowest possible temperature, or in a crock pot/slow cooker set to low. I have a small crock pot dedicated to making herbal oils, but that is not necessary.
The low heat is important to ensure that the oil doesn’t go rancid from overheating
Once you have herbal oils, you can use them as is or transform them into other preparations!
Salve
Salves are essentially herbal oil plus chopped beeswax and slow heat. Salves have the benefit of being easier to transport and less messy than oils, and for some the texture works better for sensory concerns. They will melt if they get too hot though, so keep that in mind for transport.
To make salve: warm your oil either in a pot on the stove or in a crock pot/slow cooker set to low. Add your chopped beeswax and stir til it’s melted. To test consistency, dip a spoon in and stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes or so to make it set. If it’s too soft, you can add more beeswax; if it’s too hard, add more oil. This is very much a preference thing, so adjust the consistency until you’re satisfied. 1/4c of beeswax to 1c oil (a .25:1 ratio) is a good starting point.
You can buy cute little tins or small jars to pour the finished salve into, or you could reuse any old empty jar you have around the house, as long as it’s clean.
(Fair warning, as you get more and more into making your own herbal preparations, you will begin to amass quite the old empty jar collection. Try to cull it once a year to save yourself some space.)
Lotion
If salves are herbal oil plus beeswax and slow heat, then lotions are herbal oil plus “water” and a blender. “Water” is in quotes here because it doesn’t need to be regular spring water–it could be rose water, orange blossom water, witch hazel (without alcohol), other flower water, herbal tea, etc.
Lotions don’t melt like salves–point in their favor–and it can also be a better sensory alternative to pure oils. They’re also incredibly quick to make, once you have the ingredients. But these lotions are food grade, so they’ll only last a few months. (This can be extended by using rosehip tea water for your lotion, the vitamin C will help preserve it!)
To make lotion: put one cup max of “water” into the blender, put the lid on and run it until the water is frothy. Then take the lid off, run the blender on the lowest speed, and slowly add the oil in a thin stream until it’ll all added. Use roughly the same amount of oil as you did water, less if you want a thick lotion, more if you want a thinner lotion. The sound will change abruptly to something gloopy-sounding–it’s a very distinct sound. Turn off the blender and check the consistency. If it’s good for you, then your lotion is done!
So those are some oil-based herbal remedies! Salves and especially lotions can be elaborate, but hopefully these simple approaches will help them not be intimidating.
Have you made an herbal oil, salve, or lotion before? How did it turn out?
This is the fourth post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.