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Making your own healing salve is an easy and worthwhile project for every home herbalist.
Salves are mixtures of oil and wax that deliver benefits. The problem with most salves that you buy at the drug store is that these salves are petroleum based, using paraffin wax and petrolatum as the base.
Save $$ by making your own salves
You can buy herbal salves made with beeswax instead of paraffin wax or olive oil instead of petrolatum. Organic salves often sell for $15 to $20 or more for a 2-ounce tin. So by making your own you can save a lot of money.
In fact, with my easy method of salve making, you’ll feel like you’re getting paid to play in the kitchen. One salve making session, using my method, can set you up with all the salves you’ll need for months.
Local plants are more potent
Healing salves are easy to make from the weeds you have in your garden. Different weeds offer different healing actions so knowing what to expect from different plants can help you customize the herbal salves that you make to suit your needs.
The plants growing in your own backyard and in close proximity to your home are challenged with the same stressors that you are challenged by. If they are thriving they have the energetics to also help you thrive. Plants growing close to you, that you harvest yourself, will also be fresher and filled with vitality. So begin your herbal harvest in your own backyard for the most potent medicine.
Harvest only plants that you know haven’t been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides. Choose organically grown weeds. If you are harvesting on private property, not your own, ask permission before you harvest. If you are harvesting on public land ensure that you have the permission to do so.
Logistics of Ninja Salve Making
You’ll need:
- 2 saucepans
- 2 glass 1 cup measuring cups
- 2 canning jar rings
- 2 medium size cloth tea bags, approximately 4 x 6 inches
- Olive oil or other carrier oil
- Beeswax in 1 tbsp. (12 gram) portions
- Herbs, if possible dry herbs overnight before proceeding (except St. John’s wort flowers)
- Salve containers such as small glass jars with lids, salve tins, small jam jars
- Paper towels to wipe containers between recipes
1. Salve for Bruising and Cuts
This salve is made with local arnica flowers and yarrow flowers and leaves. Yarrow adds antimicrobial actions to the salve, while staunching bleeding. Both yarrow and arnica can reduce bruising. This salve works so quickly you’ll hear the word, “miracle”.
2. Calendula Salve for Sunburn
Gather the calendula blossoms as they open on the plants and dry them for salve making. Use the whole blossoms for this salve, not just the petals. The whole flower contains healing resins that will increase the benefit of calendula for healing burns. Calendula infused oil retains its sunny disposition for years.
Other herbs that can help with burns: Aloe Vera, lavender, St. John’s wort, comfrey.
3. Salve for stings, bites, and slivers from Plantain
Plantain salve is a must have in your cottage apothecary or your camping gear. It will ease the pain and swelling of a wasp sting, provided you aren’t severely allergic. It will stop the itching and redness of mosquito bites, and it will help draw slivers and boils to a head, so they can be removed.
Of course, if you have severe allergies you’ll need more than plantain salve to help you.
If the patient has been stung by a honeybee the stinger should be scraped out of the wound using the side of a card. As long as the stinger is in the body, it continues to pump venom into the system. Removing the stinger minimizes the pain, swelling, and inflammation.
Other herbs that can help with stings, bites, or slivers: Pine resin, arnica, lavender, nettles.
4. Salve for Sore Muscles, Aches, and Pains
This salve is made from St. John’s Wort infused oil. St. John’s Wort flowers should be infused in oil when they are freshly picked and just wilted. If you dry them to save for winter use, the flowers will lose their strong active principle. So pick them, let them wilt for a few hours and then macerate in oil.
Cottonwood bud infused oil is made in the spring when the resinous buds are getting ready to leaf out, but before bud break. Willow bark can be used in place of cottonwood buds, if you don’t have cottonwood growing near you. Both are analgesic and anti-inflammatory.
Other herbs that can help with sore muscles and joints: Pine or spruce needles, Pine resin, aspen leaves or bark, willow bark, birch leaves, arnica flowers, calendula flowers, golden rod flowers, ginger, turmeric, or dandelion flowers.
5. Chapped Skin Salve
This salve moisturizes and helps soothe chapped and broken skin with red clover and chickweed.
This may be used as a lip balm. Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa butter to the basic recipe to make this firm enough to use this in a lip balm tube. The yield will increase to 3 ounces.
Other herbs to use to help with dry, chapped skin: Calendula, self-heal, wild rose, violet, lemon balm, mint, comfrey, and lavender.
Basic Herbal Salve
Create a basic herbal salve with these easy to follow instructions
Materials
Basic Salve
- 4 parts olive oil or other liquid carrier oil
- 2 parts medicinal herb, dried or 4 parts medicinal herb fresh, wilted
- 1 part beeswax
Salve for Bruises & Cuts
- 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 1 Tablespoon Dried Yarrow Leaves and Flowers
- 1 Tablespoon Dried Arnica Flower Petals, chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Beeswax (approx. 12 grams)
Sunburn Salve
- 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 2 Tablespoons Calendula Blossoms, dried
- 1 Tablespoon Beeswax (approx. 12 grams)
Salve for Stings, Bites, & Slivers
- 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 2 Tablespoon Dried Plantain Leaves, crushed
- 1 Tablespoon Beeswax (approx. 12 grams)
Salve for Sore Muscles, Aches, & Pains
- 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil infused with St. John’s Wort Flowers
- 1 Tablespoon Cottonwood Bud Infused Oil (balm of Gilead)
- 1 Tablespoon Beeswax
Salve for Chapped Skin
Instructions
- Create a double boiler by placing a glass measuring cup on a canning jar ring, in a saucepan. Fill the saucepan with water so that the water comes half way up the side of the glass measuring cup.
- Place the dried plant material in a reusable cloth tea bag. Place the tea bag in the measuring cup. Cover the tea bag of plant material with the oil.
- Bring the saucepan to a simmer over medium heat. Continue simmering gently for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat. When the tea bag is cool enough to handle, press the tea bag with the back of a spoon to strain out as much herbal infused oil as possible. I find that a potato ricer is very helpful in getting the last drops of herbal oil out of the macerated herbs. Compost the spent herb. The cloth tea bag can be washed and reused several times.
- Return the infused oil to the glass cup. Add the beeswax. Simmer once again over medium heat to melt the beeswax. As soon as the beeswax is fully liquid remove from the heat. Stir well. Continue stirring while the mixture begins to cool.
- Prepare your chosen containers by sanitizing them with 99% isopropyl alcohol on a paper towel. Wipe down the inside of the container and the lid. Allow the containers to air dry.
- When it looks like the salve is beginning to thicken, spoon into the sanitized salve containers. Wait until the mixture has cooled fully before placing the lid on the jars. Capping the jars while the mixture is still warm will cause condensation inside the container, which can lead to contamination.
- Label the jars with the name of the salve and the date, and any instructions.
Notes
The 4 to 1 ratio of oil to beeswax ensures that the salve has enough body to stay solid in the container at normal room temperature. It makes the salve easy to apply. The salve will melt on contact with the skin and won’t leave a sticky feeling.
If the salve seems too greasy or oily try using a drying oil like grapeseed oil in place of olive oil. I use olive oil in these recipes because it is inexpensive. You can substitute with another carrier oil, but please avoid the use of genetically modified oils such as canola oil, soy oil, and corn oil. These oils are likely contaminated with glyphosate, a known carcinogen.
Ready to make you own salves?
Herbal salves are expensive. Yet they are all made the same way, by infusing herbs in a carrier oil and adding beeswax for texture and consistency. Make your own salves and save yourself some money. Doing it yourself also allows you to customize your salves to deliver the herbal benefits most needed. And now you know that your own herbal salves are more potent and active than the salves you can buy from elsewhere.
This is just the beginning of the useful herbal recipes you can make from weeds and plants growing in your garden or in the area around your home. Homegrown herbs are more potent and active than imported herbs. Find out more about Homegrown Healing and potent herbal salve making by visiting Chris at Joybilee Farm
Bio:
Chris is a teacher, author, gardener, and herbalist with 30+ years’ of growing herbs and formulating herbal remedies, skin care products, soaps, and candles. She teaches workshops and writes extensively about gardening, crafts, and medicinal herbs on her blog at JoybileeFarm.com. Chris is the author of The Beginner’s Book of Essential Oils, Learning to Use Your First 10 Essential Oils with Confidence and Homegrown Healing, from Seed to Apothecary. Her new book, “Beeswax Workshop, How to Make Your Own Natural Candles, Cosmetics, Cleaners, Soaps, Healing Balms, and More” will be released in December with Ulysses Press.
I have made and used the calendula salve and found it to be a great healing aide, for minor cuts, for scrapes, for bruises, for sunburns. I love the additional recipes. Thanks!
I’ve been making bee balm for about 17 years now….I use lots more ingredients but found that rice bran oil works better than most oils since it has a natural vitamin E in it and doesn’t oxidize. The oxidation (down the road) is what eventually ruins the bee balm. I buy it online by the gallon from California Rice Bran Oil Company…..Actually the oil doesn’t come from California which may be a good thing since the rice fields have had too many pesticides used on them and our rice comes up with arsenic in it!! I know, not good….But I believe this company’s oil comes from Thailand where they don’t use the pesticides. It’s a great cooking oil too for high temperatures!!
Do you use the flowers and the leaves. Or simply the leaves. I have it dried. What is it good for?
Are you talking about the Bee balm plant (Monarda)? Or a balm for bee stings? If using Monarda (bee balm) do you use the flower, leaf or stems?
I am surprised she uses chickweed leave dried. I though it loses it medicinal value when it is dried.
Chickweed leaves are super moist. You’ll need to at least wilt them before adding them to the oil, or you risk introducing moisture that could ruin your salve.
There’s different schools of thought on whether to use chickweed fresh or dried so feel free to follow your own plan.
Since this is salve making in a day — rather than using premade infused oils, the salve is less likely to spoil if you use dried chickweed leaves.
If I was making an infused oil for later use, I’d wilt the freshly harvested leaves overnight on a towel, and then infuse the oil, at room temperature, for long term storage.
Made chickweed salve last year and gave it to friends works great for shingles !!!! My hubby gave several jars to friends who had them God designed and created the leaves of the fields for our healing !!!!
Would love to see pictures of each of these plants. Neat article.
Can you use essential oils in the place of the fresh herb in your recipe?
This is fantastic! Being new to some of these plants, I would have loved pictures to go with the descriptions. Eager for your Beeswax Workshop book! thanks!
Is there another option than Beeswax? Allergic to bees :-/
Jackie, if you are allergic to bees, it is a bee sting allergy…meaning you have an allergy to the bee sting venom…which is not in beeswax or in honey…it is possible to be allergic to honey or beeswax, but only if you have a pollen allergy…if you only have a bee sting allergy, then you probably would have no problem using beeswax…
Jackie, I use coconut oil when I make magnesium butter, as I am also bee sensitive. It is not the same texture & in my climent it gets hard in cold weather and very soft in hot weather. Hope this helps.
Made a salve using plantain, lemon balm, chamomile, lavender and lemon thyme. Used a combination of olive and coconut oils with beeswax. Added lavender essential oil. Works for bites, cuts , rashes. Eases redness. Thanks for the inspiration.
I just finished reading your “Make 5 Healing Salves This Afternoon” and I’m going to get Bees Wax this weekend and make Salves!
Thank you for your inspiration!?
But where are these beautiful molds from?
What if you do not have any of these plants in your yard?
You can buy dried versions online and most likely in local health food shops.
@Mountainroseherbs
I make most of those salves or similar, but other than plantain, birch, and dandelion, none of that grows near me (there is cotton wood, but most everyone I know cuts it down or it’s in a spot unsafe to access) so I buy the herbs. Everyone loves the ones I make.
Love this article and your blog. So happy to get the links to all your books here. Have made a few meds and remedies as well as extracts and infusions. I love that unlike many I have seen online you dont use a ton of ingredients. I believe the active ingredients should be boosted, or they just kind of get overwhelmed. Also the smell of many is just way too overpowered in my opinion. One note I just wanted to make for those who may not be aware… all beeswax is not made alike. What I mean is recently I made a trip to Michaels to get some and there were only 2 choices. One was a 1 oz block and the other were the tiny bits called respules I believe. The thing was neither said 100% pure natural beeswax. The bar had a more dull yellow color and the respules were a very bright fresh buttery yellow. Finally I smelled the packages. OMG… the respules were very fragrant of fresh honey. Yes, it was so scentfull that it came thru the package. :) Cant wait for my own bees to give me wax!!! Namaste ;)
Thank you for sharing and inspiration.
I am so anxious to make my own salve.
Thank you
Hi!
Can’t wait to try these out!
I am allergic to bee products (beeswax & honey). What can I substitute for the beeswax?
Thanks!
There are types of vegan wax but I haven’t tried them.
@Amanda, cocoa butter would work as a substitute for beeswax, or shea butter. Any hard plant fat would work. If it is not as hard as beeseax you just use more to get the final set you like. You could even just use coconut oil instead of both olive oil and beeswax, if you either live in aclimate where coconut oil is soild, or if you kept it in the fridge.
I believe in natural remedies. I know that they are wonderful for healing as I was taught by my grandmother & her siblings & their spouses. Thank you for your help.