Green Salve

I just finished making a cut, scrape, bite, and burn salve. It's jojoba oil infused with wildcrafted plantain, yarrow, and curly dock, lavender and tea tree essential oils, with vitamin E and some aloe pulp. This is my third salve, and
so far they've all turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. My mom used to make a version of it all the time - I think she added comfrey, but I didn't have any.

For some reason I was always intimidated by the process. I imagined bizarre alchemical equipment and timing and instructions that had tobe followed to the letter... Looking back, I don't know where the idea came from that it had to be difficult. I mean, I watched my mom do it. But it couldn't be /easy/, could it?

In fact, I wouldn't even say it's easy. It's trivial. At least my experiences so far have been.

It's just a base oil, plus whatever other oils, with some beeswax.

I got started with it because I have a friend who's allergic to all the over-the-counter antibiotic creams. I figured, she needs some tea tree oil! So I did some research on making a tea tree salve, looked up recipes, and whipped her up a batch.

I had fun making it, so I had to go and get fancy.

I infused some lavender and sage in olive oil for the second salve, as just a smell-good hand cream. The lavender scent didn't really seem to take very well, although I may have just been impatient. I only left it in for a couple days, but I also tried heating it on the stove for about a half hour... eventually I just added lavender essential oil, and then some vanilla extract. The smell is green and sweet, a little kitcheny but without really smelling like food.

There is kind of a trick to the oil infusing - you have to make sure all of the herbs are completely covered by the oil, because if the air gets to them they'll rot. (You also have to not forget about them.)

At some point I should probably start measuring my ingredients...