This September New Moon Circle we honoring our connection to mother earth. To celebrate this Virgo New Moon, we will be crafting herbal salves which serves a ritual in connecting to our innate wildness (inner medicine women) and honoring our connection within nature’s web.

You will notice that the word “LISTEN” will be found on the bottom of your tin.  This will serve as a reminder to listen…

Listen to your heart & what your soul is yearning for.

To listen to each other with an open heart, with the intention to listen to understand.

Seek out quiet time in nature to commune and listen to mother earth.

Herbal salves are a simple, soulful and effective way to capture the medicine of plants. Salves are something that us Colorado wild women can use often. Salves are great for deep moistening hands and feet and can also be used for lip balm. It also can be used for cuts and wounds like you would use Neosporin or other medical creams.

Here is a super simple salve recipe. Please know there are lots of awesome concoctions and recipes you can use to create salves. So, feel free to look around the web or herbal books to see other plants, methods and recipes for making salves.

In your kit:

STEP 1: CHOOSING YOUR OIL AND HERBS

The key ingredient for your salve is an herb infused oil. Before making it, you will need to choose your oil base and herb (s).

Choosing oil for salve: I love using olive oil!  However, there are many other oils with their unique benefits. Here is a good website with some info on different oils:

Choosing herbs: Your kit contains dried calendula. Calendula helps to tighten, sooth, protect skin and has natural antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial properties. However, there are all kinds of awesome herbs you can use. You can use local wild-crafted herbs, garden herbs or dried herbs purchased at your local health food store.

However, it’s nice to pick herbs directly from nature to use in your salve. Herbs in your garden are awesome to use in salves. Many of you might have access to a garden with herbs like lavender, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, comfrey, calendula, sage or oregano. All of which are great to use in salves. You can google their “medicinal properties” to see what they will offer to your salve.

Some local herbs you can consider for salves this time of year in Colorado are:

When using fresh herbs, it is ideal to allow them to wilt & dry before pouring oil over them. You can simply put on towel or screen and have them dry for at least 12 hours (one solar cycle). This will reduce water content and decrease chances of rancidly or mold issues.

Here is fresh pick comfrey (on the left) and comfrey that was allowed to dry on a dish towel in the sun for 2 days. The comfrey on the right is ready to use.

STEP 2: MAKE INFUSED OIL WITH HERBS

Choose between making a Hot and Cold Infused Oil. Cold infused oils are created with sunlight over at least one moon cycle. Hot infused oils are created with heat and can be a quick way to infuse oil with plant medicine within a few hours.

Cold Infusion Step-By-Step Instructions

The cold infusion method is wonderful for both fresh and dried herbs. It’s so nice to harvest your own herbs but dried herbs can be nice as they can make more potent oil and there is less of a chance of rancidity.

Ingredients:

Fresh (wilted) or Dried herbs
Oil of your choice
Jar

Fill jar with herbs and measure them out to take up about half of your glass infusion container. I fill the jar 2/3 full with herbs (lightly packed) and pour oil over them so all herbs are just barely submerged in oil. It can be nice to put a sanitize stone on herbs to assure they stay submerged.

Use a stick to push the herbs under the oil and release all the air bubbles.

For fresh herbs: Some herbs will float to the top for the first week or two. Be sure to keep them completely submerged under the oil. This may require a lot of poking at them but eventually they will sink below the oil line. No not lid your jar. Instead, use a piece of cloth or coffee filter (sealed with a rubber band) which allows air to be released from the jar.

For dry herbs: Put a lid on the jar and don’t worry about it.

Place your jars in the sun for at least one moon cycle. It’s ideal to choose a space that is sunny, warm, but not too hot.

It’s nice to label the jars with the exact date you started them.

When done brewing use a strainer or cheesecloth to filter the herbs from the oil into a separate glass jar.

You can add some vitamin e oil to help extend the shelf life. Also, myrrh or rosemary essential oil are great for extending shelf life and protect from rancidity.

Herb infused oils need to be stored with a tight fitting lid in a cool dry place out of the light. If they are stored properly, the can last as long as the oils expiration date. Be sure to label your oil with the date you made it so you know when its shelf life will end. 

Hot Oil Infusion Step-By-Step

Infusing herbs into oils with heat takes less time, reduces the chances for fresh herbs to turn the oil rancid or mold. The hot oil infusion method allows you to make infused oil quick without having to wait weeks to infuse.

Ingredients:

Heatproof Mason jar, Pyrex bowl, or double boiler
Oil of choice
Herb of choice (fresh wilted or dry)

Super quick and easy method: Place the herbs in glass jar. Put jar on cookie sheet or shallow pan in oven. Turn on oven to 300 degrees and allow to come to temperature. Turn off oven when at 300 degrees and place jar in oven for 2-3 hours.

Here is the double boiler method.:This might take a bit longer but can extract more volatile oils and color.

Add water to your double boiler or old pot, about 1/3 up the pan. Place glass jar with oil in water bath. You want to be sure that when the jar is placed in the water, it has water up the sides, but you don’t want any water to come into contact with your oil.

Place the double boiler or old pot on the stove and turn the stove on low. The water should be steaming but not simmering or boiling. Ideally, you want the water under 170 degrees. Some people can do this in crock pots, but many get way to hot even when on low.

Allow the jars to sit in the warm bath for 4-6 hours, being sure the water never runs low, as that can crack the jar and destroy the herb, and never gets too hot and burning the herb.

Allow the oil to cool to room temperature and strain and storing as described above.

Step 3: Craft Your Salve

Now that you have this beautiful mama earth herbal infused magical oil…its time to craft a salve!

This recipe makes 2 ounces.

Ingredients:

1/2 oz. beeswax (you can use carnauba wax for a vegan salve)
2 oz. herbal infused oil(s) of your choice
10-15 drops essential oil of choice (optional)

Directions:

Place beeswax in a double boiler and gently warm over low heat until the beeswax melts. (You can easily create a make-shift double boiler by filling a pot about 1/4 full with water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and float bowl into the pot. The intention is to heat the bowl with steam and not the water.)

Don’t worry if you don’t get all the wax out of the tin. It will melt into the mixture when you pour the hot salve into the container.

Add herbal oil and stir over low heat until wax completely melts and ingredients are well-mixed.

Remove from heat and add the essential oil(s).

Quickly pour warm mixture into tin. Allow to dry fully before putting on lid.

Your salve will be good for 1 to 3 years. 

Salve versus Lip balm:  The consistency of salves can easily be adjusted depending on your preferences. Use less beeswax for a softer salve and more beeswax if you’d like a firmer salve that could be used for a lip balm.

Resources:

Salve Recipes
Here is a groovy list of recipes for different kinds of salves for a variety of ailments like PMS, Sleep, Headaches and DYI Neosporin.

Wild Plant Identification
I love this app for identifying plants in the wild. Its is awesome for making sure you have the right plant for the medicine you wish to make.

Magical Properties of Herbs
Each herb has a magical and spiritual use. This website has a list of many common herbs and their magical uses.

Kitchen Witch - Spiritual Uses of Kitchen Herbs
This is an awesome website with some info on magical & witchcraft uses of kitchen herbs.

Gumweed - Grindelia
Gumweed is used for respiratory health and skin aliments.
Here is a recipe for making a Gumweek Salve.