Basic Salve...and variations

 There are so many benefits to learning to make your own body care products.  You can save boatloads of money.  Although the initial investment in ingredients may seem scary, most will last you for many, many batches of products.  You can have fun with basic science.  You will learn exactly which ingredients do what and can have all kinds of fun experimenting and coming up with custom blends to meet your exact specifications. You will know exactly what is going on (or in) your body--no more mystery chemicals with potentially troublesome side effects.  And, if you're like me, there's that little "I did it!" thrill which is priceless as far as I'm concerned.

Basic salves couldn't be easier and once you have the process down you can make lotion bars, lip balms, deodorants, and more.  The basic formula is 1 part oil/1 part butter/1 part beeswax.  Depending on my end product I might use olive, coconut, or apricot kernel oil along with shea or cocoa butter.  Vitamin E oil is both nourishing for the skin and a good preservative so I always add a bit to just about everything I make. You can certainly use some of the more exotic oils like argan, avocado, macadamia nut, rose hip seed, or jojoba but these are quite expensive.  Including a small amount in your total is an affordable way to add a little luxury.  Once you start adding essential oils (and you should, both for their healing properties and their delicious aromas) your basic moisturizing salve technically becomes a balm.  

A family member asked me to attempt to duplicate a product she loves from a small local producer who appears to have gone out of business. I looked at the ingredient list and saw the following:  Calendula infused olive oil, beeswax, shea butter, Vitamin E oil and essential oils of rosemary, tea tree, lavender, and peppermint. I filled a jar with dried calendula blossoms, topped them with olive oil, and put the jar in water in a double boiler over very low heat for a few hours to infuse the oil with the anti-inflammatory and skin healing properties of calendula.  After straining it a few times to remove all traces of solid matter, I added one ounce to a glass canning jar along with an ounce of shea butter and and ounce of beeswax pellets. I used my kitchen scale for accurate measuring, resetting to zero after I added each ingredient.   Two notes here:  use a designated jar for melting beeswax--you'll never get it clean again so you may as well hand it over for the cause.  And, if at all possible, buy natural beeswax in pellet or pastille form.  Yes, you can use blocks, but then you have to grate the wax.  It takes forever and it makes a mess and you then need a dedicated grater.  Pellets are no more expensive than blocks of beeswax and are so much easier to work with--I highly recommend them.

Put your jar of wax/oils in a pan of simmering water and stir until everything is liquid.  Again, due to the tenacity of beeswax, I use bamboo skewers for mixing and stirring.  They are cheap and can go in the compost when you are done--one less thing to try and clean.    Once everything is melted, remove from the heat and pour into the container of your choice, and add vitamin e oil and essential oils.   Quickly and gently stir to blend (use that bamboo skewer or a toothpick) and then leave to cool completely.  Once the salve is semi solid you can carefully transfer it to the refrigerator to cool completely if you are in a hurry. 

For this particular balm, I used 2 drops of rosemary essential oil and 10 drops each of tea tree, lavender, and peppermint.  If you are interested in exploring essential oils further, please take a look at this simple Essential Oil Guide I wrote for one of my classes.  

I purchased my containers at The Portland Homestead Supply Co.

For printable directions for making a basic salve/balm, click here.  

Please let me know in the comments if you make this salve and how it turns out for you.  Once you see how easy it is, I hope you'll make lots!

Elderberry Syrup

April 8, 2013:  This is an old post, one which has received more page views than anything else I've written, from back in 2009 when we were all worrying about H1N1.  Apparently there's still  a lot of interest in homemade elderberry syrup as well there should be.   It's great stuff for fighting viruses, it's easy to make, it's tasty and versatile and so much cheaper than what you can buy.


September 2009:  Now that I have a 17 day break with holidays coming up, I expect to share some tasty new food finds with you but first, I wanted to let you know about my recent experience making my own anti-flu medicine because I am just so thrilled to be able to make a proven antiviral flu remedy for a mere fraction of the cost of the commercially prepared variety.

Elderberries grow on tall, spindly bushes and the tiny dark blue-black berries develop in clusters after the feathery flower fade. Elderberry bushes are apparently quite easy to grow so I will be looking to add one to my garden soon as elderberries are extremely nutritious, rich in antioxidants, an known to stimulate the immune system in response to flu viruses. As the H1N1 hysteria grows (along with the pressure to subject our children to a virtually untested vaccine) you can bet I want something safe and free of side effects to give my family when we head into crowded synagogues and classrooms later this month.


Elderberry syrup, as it turns out, is super easy to make. The only hard part is finding your berries. Here in the Portland metro area Morning Shade Farm has a row of u-pick elderberry bushes. It took about 10 minutes to fill our buckets with snipped berry clusters. The only fiddly bit is coaxing the berries off the stems. After that, a quick rinse, a bit of a simer, some straining, adding honey, and bottling. That's it! Seriously. Instead of paying $9-12 for a 4 ounce bottle of Sambucol, I have nearly a quart of the stuff which cost about $2, plus another 4 batches worth of berries in the freezer. How cool is that?

The recipe I used came from Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal which is the source of The Dreaded Tonic, our standard homemade cold remedy. I made a double batch of the elderberry syrup by gently simmering 2 cups of washed elderberries in 4 C water for 45 minutes. I let things cool and then strained the juice through a fine mesh strainer, mashing all the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. I then mixed in about a cup and a half of raw, local honey and poured the mixture into a 1 liter ez cap bottle (I buy mine here).  Because you want the benefits of raw, local honey, it's important that the berry juice be cooled down before you mix it with the honey or the enzymes and other good stuff will be destroyed.   I will keep this refrigerated. The great part is that, unlike the tonic, this stuff is good. Really good. Like pour it on your pancakes or drink straight from the bottle good. I only used about half the suggested quantity of honey and it's still sweet and fruity and ever so delicious. I won't have any trouble getting my kids to take their daily dose. That would 2T/day for big kids and adults and 1 T/day for younger ones as a preventative measure and twice that amount to reduce severity if someone falls ill with the flu. Another option is to mix a few tablespoons of syrup with some plain bubble water for a flu-fighting soda.   Because of the honey I wouldn't give this to babies.

One thing I learned as I did a little research: under no circumstances should you substitute red elderberries which are quite toxic. And don't eat your black elderberries raw--they can cause stomach upset.

I understand that the hard part here is finding the elderberries. But they are out there--ask around. And if you can't find fresh, you could make this with dried elderberries purchased online. I figure that using my u-pick berries I can make close to 5 quarts of this stuff for under $10 which might be an incentive to plant a bush in your garden. I hope you are able to try this and that we all stay healthy this fall.

Edited 9/9/09: I just learned that you can buy dried elderberries from The Herbalist and it's still very cost effective at $2.33/ounce. You only need 1/2 cup of berries to make 4 C of syrup so making your own is still a huge savings.

4/7/13  Another good source for dried elderberries is Mountain Rose Herbs where I recently purchased a pound of dried elderberries for $10.50.