Last week, within the span of one day, three of my kids needed a band-aid for some reason. With five kids who like to climb, jump and live in their treehouse, this is a common occurrence, so I decided to find a natural salve option to use instead of conventional ones like Neosporin.
A Healing Salve…
I’m not a fan of Neosporin because its made with petroleum jelly and there are natural options that work just as well.
My homemade healing salve (or “boo-boo lotion”, according to the kids) is helpful on cuts, bruises, stings, poison ivy and skin irritations. It also helps diaper rash and baby skin irritations- just don’t use with cloth diapers or line them first.
It’s easy to make and some of the ingredients even grow in your front yard during the summer… One of the herbs I use is Plantain, which grows in most parts of the country and is great for the skin. Most people just know it as a common garden weed. It also calls for optional yarrow, which helps with itching and rashes.
This salve is naturally antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and astringent. It also doesn’t contain petroleum! I never goes bad, so I make it in big batches, but you can reduce the size if needed. I always keep this on hand while gardening for skin irritations and bug bites.
All ingredients and tins and lip chap containers to store it in can be found online. (Storing in a lip-chap container makes it portable and easy to apply. )
Healing Salve Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups olive oil (or almond oil)
- 1 tsp echinacea root (optional)
- 2 TBSP comfrey leaf
- 2 TBSP dried plantain leaf
- 1 TBSP calendula flowers (optional)
- 1 tsp yarrow flowers (optional)
- 1 tsp rosemary (optional)
- ¼ cup beeswax pellets
Instructions
Infuse the herbs into the olive oil:
- Either combine the olive oil and herbs in a jar with an airtight lid and leave 3-4 weeks, shaking daily
- OR heat the olive oil and herbs over low heat in a double boiler for 3 hours (low heat!) until the oil is very green.
Make the salve:
- Strain the herbs out of the oil by pouring through a cheesecloth. Let all the oil drip out and then squeeze give the herbs a squeeze to get the remaining oil out.
- Discard the herbs.
- Combine the infused oil and beeswax in a double boiler.
- Heat over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the wax is melted.
- Pour into small tins, glass jars, or lip chap tubes and use as needed.
Notes
Also try my version made with chickweed!
Ever made your own salves? Share below!
Is this good for after birth wounds?
I have used it for that…
I’m going to give this a try! Quick question, what do you think of anise seed? I read it is an expectorant herb and since I have some at home I was wondering if I could add it to this recipe, if so, is it [anise seed] okay for toddlers.Thanks!
Is the plantain you refer to the one with long, tapered leaves and seedy sticks on long stems, or the short, rounder leaves with the seedy sticks on short stems? I’ve seen both pictures on google. I’m sure the taller plant is refered to as “English Plantain”. When I had allergy testing done about a decade ago, the doctor told me that I was allergic to English plantain. Do you think it would be unsafe to use like this, or could it just be the pollen that agravates my allergies and not the leaves?
I would guess your allergy is just to the pollen, but you might want to leave the plantain just in case…
Does infusing multiple herbs together in the same jar of olive oil take away from the effectiveness (potency?), as opposed to, say, if you were to infuse each herb in its own jar of olive oil?
P.s. your website has become a favorite! I share it with as many people as I can… it’s really helping me change my lifestyle – for the better 🙂 Thank you!
How long is a batch of healing salve last before it turns rancid and how to store it?
If made from dried herbs it will last for years…
I made this, turned out wonderful. didn’t have calendula, though.
This is so sad it’s funny. We have the best medicinal plants growing freely all over and we are taught that they are all weeds. I had no clue what plantain was and looked it up on google. This has been plaguing my yard for the last 3+ years that I have lived here and I am constantly ripping it up because I don’t want to use pesticides! lol Now I feel silly. Looking forward to the spring and my yard full of plantain, dandelions & other stuff this year! 🙂
I know I’m late to the party but I just wanted to say, all plants have uses! We’ve been conditioned to believe that some plants are undesirable. There’s an old fable about a youth who studied herb lore with a master herbalist. The master told the youth that his final test was to go out and find a plant that was useless. The youth spent weeks trying to find one and finally came back and told his teacher he couldn’t find any growing thing that was useless. The master told him, you have passed the test. 🙂
There are many good books out there about plants and their uses. Be careful what you ingest or put on your skin, of course. And enjoy the green growing world!
This looks great. I’m looking for something that I can make and store – any idea how long this might store before it “expires”? Thanks.
Colleen
If made with dried herbs, it will last indefinitely…
I have comfrey in my yard – lot of it but I made a salve and it smelled so bad – is that normal? I did a jar of olive oil and comfrey leaves and then after it sit – I made a salve adding beeswax. it was more of a soupy green and stank so bad. it wasn’t stink it was Stank – I ended up just tossin it. does comfrey smell bad – or maybe my neighbor was wrong and it wasn’t comfrey. They were some nice big leaves. Thanks D*
I’ve never had it smell bad like that… it definitely has an earthy scent, but not bad… probably good that you tossed it!
Did you use fresh leaves in the oil and how long did you let it sit? Fresh leaves are very juicy and will start to rot and this will smell nasty, best to dry the leaves first so there is no water in your mix!
Maybe if you used fresh herbs they started to go bad or get moldy and that’s what caused the scent…
As others said, it is likely due to using fresh herbs at air temp. Heating it will steam off water before it has a chance to rot. To infuse at room temp, dried herbs miGht be a good way to go.
My mother used to call this leaf a Frogs leaf because of the way it resembled a frogs back. I still use the whole leaf for infected cuts and the like!