This week, Finn and I collected herbs from our garden to make our annual salve. We collected plantain, dandelions, bee balm, lemon balm, echinacea, lavender, and yarrow. I love making my own lip balm and salves and I love to make extras to give away for holiday gifts!
Have you ever made salve? For instructions on how to make your own easy salve/lip balm, check out last year's post.
I have never made salve. I think your herbs are lovely in the jar :)
ReplyDeleteI have some comfrey soaking in oil to do just that, should be ready to go soon.
ReplyDeleteLove the combination of herbs you used, will have to give it a try.
Gorgous! Maybe someday we'll try that here too.
ReplyDeleteThis will be our first year!!! I'm so excited!!! I have lavendar oil already done. In fact, its over done and I need to process it but I'm nervous! LOL! And I have a quart jar that I keep adding calendula to as we bring it in piece by piece from the garden, and dry it. I had no idea you could use all those other herbs, and just cram them together, not dried, into a mason! How many quarts of oil do you make each year? Just trying to figure out how much will get our family thru the year + have gifts to give. Off to look at your last years post.
ReplyDeleteJenny- actually, you CAN get bacteria in your salves from using very fresh herbs, especially depending on what type you are using, and those could potentially cause it to soil faster. I don't dry them first, but I let them wilt for a little while and then I do sort of crunch them up a little before I pour the oil in. I have made salves for the past 3 years and they have kept for a very long time. I know the herbs are less powerful after about 6 months, but I have salve from 2 years ago that has not spoiled.
DeleteIf you want it to be less prone to spoilage, keep on drying them first. I am too impatient to dry them, and have yet to have had a problem.
I usually just end up making one mason jar full and that gives me lots of lip balm to give as gifts (I add essential oils to these to make them smell nice) and then I save the rest as a salve (I use old baby food jars) for cuts and baby bottoms. Just dont put any essential oils into the salves, unless you know a baby bottom could tolerate it!I end up with several baby food jars for myself.
If you were going to give out larger containers of salves for gifts, you will need much more than this, but if you are sticking to lip balm as gifts, you could probably get away with a quart. I end up getting several baby food jars of salve and maybe 12 containers of lip balm from a quart? I can't really remember exactly, but something like that!
I am excited to hear about your process!
Oh- and sometimes it can be hard to get the consistency just right at first, but know that you can always pour it in, melt it, and add more beeswax or oil as needed to make it exactly how you want!!
I have a lovely drying trick: leave the herbs in a car for a couple days. At least that's what I do and it seems to work okay.
ReplyDeleteI would love to try this...I just don't know where I would get all the ingredients around here...I wonder if there is an "Arizona desert version."
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