Super Salve
Someone wanted help making a salve that can help aid in soothing and relaxing wounds and helping the body recover more quickly. We decided to call this specific formula the Super Salve. Ive made many salves before, but this was their first time making them. But they wanted to do something I've never done before. And I was very excited to review the results of this salve. They were kind enough to offer me a few salves in return for my assistance.
Here are the plants we used in the form of infused oils.
Calendula
Comfrey
Wild Lettuce (Lactuca serriola)
Ive gathered information on these plants, and studies to support these claims for you to review yourself if you'd like to do your own research.
CALENDULA
Calendula has a wonderful ability to help promote healing of skin wounds. This is because it helps the body create new blood vessels to increase bloodflow to the area, and reduce inflammation. This allows your body to do what it needs to do to heal itself faster.
COMFREY aka Bone Knit
Comfrey promotes rapid deep tissue healing by reducing inflammation and allow the body to heal itself quickly. Medical evidence confirms that it helps tissue and blood vessels that increase bloodflow and allow the body to heal itself faster.
WILD LETTUCE (Lactuca serriola)
There are many instances in history of people using this plant for aid in supporting comfort and soothing. Wild Lettuce has long been used for its benefits in traditional folk medicine.
All this being said, you can imagine the benefits of this salve.
Lets talk about how we made it.
The person wanting help making salves wanted wild lettuce resin in their salve to greatly amplify the benefits of the wild lettuce. This was done by creating an alcohol extraction, or a tincture, and then setting it out on a shallow dish with a cheesecloth on top to protect the purity of the liquid while the alcohol evaporated. This resulted in just the pure concentrated constituents of the plant. This was going to be interesting for sure.
We also needed infused oils to create the salve. This was done by sterilizing jars and their lids in boiling water, and then drying them completely. It is essential that all of your equipment is completely clean AND dry, as any moisture or bacteria will cause the oil to spoil and grow bacteria or mold.
We filled jars of each herb about two thirds of the way, and then filled the rest of the jar with olive oil. The jars then were stored in a dark place and agitated daily for about a month. Then we strained the jars and retained the oil. You can also buy infused oils, but we decided to make our own.
Before we started heating up the oils, we put a spoon in the freezer to get cold and allow us to test a sample and cool it quickly to examine the consistency will be like when we make the final product. We created a diy double boiler and heated up the oils to about 180 degrees Fahrenheit. It is important to keep track of how hot your oils are, because if they are too warm then the heat can destroy the chemical constituents of the plants that hold their benefits. In other words, if it gets too hot it wont be nearly as effective. We then added the wild lettuce resin and stirred it for about 20 minutes until the oil got much darker.
We then added our beeswax. It is a good idea to get beeswax in pellet form so it melts in the oils more quickly. We stirred it until it was fully dissolved. Then we added our Shea butter. This usually comes in large chunks, so we used a cheese greater to increase the surface are with the same idea that it would melt more quickly. Once these were all fully dissolved in the oils we removed the spoon from the freezer while the mixture is still on the heat, so if we want to adjust anything we can do it much easier if it is still melted. If its too oily, add more of the beeswax and shea butter. If it is too waxy, add more infused oils.
Once we got to the right consistency, we removed it from the heat and added vitamin e oil and jojoba oil. The heat will break down the vitamin e, so taking it off the heat first is important.
Once everything is combined and youve got your desired consistency with the frozen spoon method, it is time to pour it into the final containers. I prefer to put my containers on a tray to move them quickly and carefully. You can buy salve containers almost anywhere. I prefer the tin ones.
Once everything is poured, put your lids on and move them gently while keeping them level and put them in the refrigerator overnight. They should be completely solid the way through before use. If the salve is kept clean and dry, it should keep for at least a year, maybe two if you keep it cool.
The salve ended up having the perfect butter texture, melting into the skin nice without leaving an oily residue. My skin felt soft and velvety for the rest of the day. This formula is a good base to experiment with body butter making.
If you'd like to learn the exact formula and how to make your own salves or any other formula hands on, feel free to contact me and I will be more than happy to help you for a trade or monetary compensation. Im sure we can figure something out. I will be hosting workshops soon so we can learn how to make herbal formulas in a group setting. Stay tuned to join us.
Comments