How do I easily make a healing, medicinal herbal salve myself?

Today I am going to tell you how you can easily make a healing, medicinal herbal salve yourself. You can do this using a medicinal herbal oil that you have prepared in advance. If you are in a hurry, you can also make an ointment using a herbal oil created on the spot using the warm infusion method that I will describe in a later blog.

Note: this salve is not suitable for vegans because it uses beeswax. Making vegan salves and ointments is complicated because there is always either an artifice or an environmentally harmful component, or both, involved. You need either hardened vegetable oil (a UPF and therefore artifice) or a vegetable fat that is naturally solid at room temperature. Coconut fat is an example of the latter. Due to the transportation involved and the effect on nature in the countries where it is produced, coconut oil is not really a great option. I haven’t yet found a solution that is both healthy and ethical.

Vaseline as a carrier

Many people make salves using petrolatum, aka petroleum jelly or Vaseline. However, Vaseline is only suitable for those type of ointments of which the ingredients aren’t supposed to absorbed by the skin. Petrolatum remains on the skin and does not penetrate it. In fact, it seals the skin off from the outside world.

In applications where this is an advantage or requirement, you can use petroleum jelly, of course. Consider, for example, a balm to clear the airways. You can easily make this with some Vaseline and an appropriate essential oil. However, that’s not the subject of this blog.

Making a medicinal herbal salve using beeswax

So today we are going to talk about how to easily make a healing medicinal ointment using beeswax. For this I use beeswax that has been collected in a bee-friendly way, for example by a biodynamic beekeeper. It’s more expensive, but you’ll know that the bees have not suffered for it.

Altogether, we need the following:

• Pre-prepared medicinal herbal oil
• Beeswax
• Optionally, essential oils, depending on your recipe
• Possibly other ingredients, depending on your recipe, such as vitamin E.
• A measuring beaker
• A glass or earthenware bowl
• A pan into which the bowl fits well
• A fork
• A metal teaspoon
• Clean and dry salve jars with lid