You can make a salve with a single herb or multiple herbs, depending on your needs. As a supplier of herbs, we're unable to provide information about the specific uses of herbs in remedies, however, there are many wonderful books in our shop that can help!
Please note that this is only a partial list, and many other herbs can also be incorporated into salves. Happy salve making! Irene also served as a member of the Board of Directors for nonprofit Cascadia Wildands from Our Blog. How to Make Herbal Salves Herbal salves are such a simple, effective, and useful way to take in herbal goodness! Have you checked out my experiment using coconut oil as well?
I realize your coconut oil is fractionated, but I was surprised at the start differences between the texture of coconut oil and beeswax vs olive oil. Happy experimenting! Any recommendations for formulating a blend to use as a substitute for paraffin in hot baths to dip hands and feet? Paraffin is nasty stuff, but works wonderfully to coat dry hands and feet. I am seeing private spa blends online with everything from soy, beeswax, jojoba, coconut, and shea but no DIY recipes for getting the right mix for this purpose at home.
Hi Bernadette! I would recommend looking for a wax that has a lower melting point than beeswax to use in the mix on its own or with beeswax —I think soy wax is your only natural option. Good luck! I just wanted to thank you so much for doing this — and especially for doing it buy weight.
My lesson for this afternoon is, beeswax is a comparatively soft and low-melting wax, and not to expect recipes made with other waxes to be the same. Which I knew, of course, and yet failed to apply to practice. The solid perfume I just attempted at of rose floral wax real rose, but so much more affordable than attar of roses and jojoba turned out not just firm but hard like unto a rock, and did not melt thoroughly on my skin even when rubbed vigorously.
Thank you for doing this post and the others like it! I also love that the amounts are by weight, not volume. Again, thank you for doing all the hard work and sharing the results! Thank you so much for sharing this! I would have never taken the time to do this test myself so it is so generous of you to share and save time for people like me! I would like to get that firmness, texture, and consistency. Hey Chris! I was wondering if you could help me out?
Thanks a bunch! Have you looked at the oodles of lip balm recipes I have published? Marie M. Any reason why you want to use them all? It can actually be drying. I make a lip balm using vegetable butters rather than wax to make it solid, but it took me a lot of work, time, experimentation, and documentation to get the consistency to work otherwise it goes grainy and horrible , and even after doing it for years, I still sometimes get it wrong.
Putting wax in will help stabilize it, but…I really recommend starting simple. And then once you have a foundation, you can start experimenting with other ingredients to see what you like. Hey Katy! When I find something useful online I always like to donate as a thank you and bitcoin is so easy to do that.
Hey Matthew! Not really sure? I read both of your guides and I am thinking about the combination of all 3 products. I want to make a hair pomade.
I think I will start with ratios and take it from there. Maybe slightly less castor oil. Not looking for very shiny finish. Hey Jim! Dear Marie, Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to do this and the kindness and thoughtfulness to share it with everyone.
I am going to make this today and was unsure of the exact ratios………………… not any more. No worries! This stuff has got to be the best moisturiser ever. That is so awesome!
I do also have cocoabutter and sheabutter in the mix. Meaning the cosistensy. Hey Peter; Yes, if you include a thicker butter in a concoction, that will impact the consistency. Thank you so much for this! Attempting to render my own beeswax scrapings. I stopped in at a local Mennonite farm, here in Southern Ontario and asked if I could have some beeswax.
I think they thought I was an idiot, because the wax is a by-product of their production, so it was in a big pile, overflowing onto the floor.
Fingers crossed. Oooh, how fun! I really look forward to hearing how your adventures in DIY beeswax rendering goes! Made a few mistakes, learned a lot, and am excited for try number 2. The yeild in the end, was much less then I was expecting, but I should have enough for some lip balm, and a salve. It was a nice way to fill a rainy day. Thank you, Marie, for this article. I had a question, however, I tired to scale up a batch for some friends and boiled all my ingredients beeswax, coconut oil and argon oil in a metal pot instead of individual containers double boiling like I usually do and it came our so much harder than normal!
Not silky and melty to the touch like normal. Any idea what the issue could be? Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Hi there! I know this is an older post, but i was wondering which ratio you would use for a good stick deodorant consistency?
Would you say the or ratio is soft enough to dispense through a bottle vs a jar? Thank you for such thorough explanations that are still easy to understand.
I love experimenting with raw ingredients! Oh and if not, would cera bellina wax be better for that kind of thing? The CD Hair Balm uses beeswax along with some solid and liquid oils but I had only planned to use olive and safflower oil.
Hi Marie from tropical island of Bali. I want to use beeswax, jojoba oil and shea butter. Thanking you so much. As you can see in the photos, the beeswax is golden. I was about to go scour the internet for this information and lo and behold, you provided it years go!! This is a great starting place. Thank you so much! I wan to use jojoba, but I was told Castor oils is better for this.
Have you tried soy wax? Im thinking of making vegan beardbalm so a substitute for beeswax is needed. Do I skip Coconut oil and just use the Hemp and butter and bees wax?
Why so much of those oils? I would first like to thank you for this amazing experiment. It has helped me a ton. But, I have one question. And this question pertains to this aritcle and the one about the coconut oil ratio I make a pomade and I use butters AND liquid oils.
It always seems a bit too hard for my liking. So, I believe ratio is what I am looking for and my question is: When calculating my beeswax to oil ratio, do I add the butter and oils together as my [4]? Or, does the ratio only work when comparing the beeswax to butter alone. Something harder like shea butter is likely to result in a firmer end product.
Hi Marie, great post. Im actually looking to start a business making all-natural shoe and leather care products here in Southeast Asia, locally-made beeswax, rice bran wax and coconut oil are cheap. Im actually surprised that wax and oil ratio which is ideal for a shoe leather conditioner hardens the way it did, I guess Ill have to use a solvent.
Other than something like d-limonene which is expensive here can you recommend any other types of natural solvent? It kept falling out of solution, no matter how much I gently heated the mix. I added other components to try to pull it into solution but as soon as it comes, it fell out again. So frustrating… Finally, I added my essential oils and bottled the mixture. Something interesting happened once it cooled completely. Even though much of the wax did fall out of solution it imparted a honey texture to the oil blend.
The oil blend has a viscosity that can only have been added because of the beeswax. In use, it creates and almost satin seal upon the skin. I live very close to Canada, in an area of harsh climate with extreme weather variability. I had defence against the cold chasing wind and snow like never before while at the same time my friends and husband commented on the change in my skin appearance and texture.
Thank you for your inspiration. How interesting! Your end product sounds like a wonderful happy accident—I love it when that happens! Very helpful post!
Thank you for doing and going through all the extra work to share the results of this experiment! How would I adapt the recipe if I was adding shea butter? Would I count the shea as part of the wax weight?
Shea butter would be much closer to the liquid oil—it is nowhere close to being a wax, thickening-wise. I came here to ask the same thing as Noah haha! Wondering what product you are doing your measurements with? I assume you are using some type of digital scale? Yes, I am using a digital scale. I have more details here. I use bw:OO with a few drops of Tea tree oil added. I use this as a heavy duty gardening hand cream and for waterproofing my leather walking boots! I just found this and it was extremely wonderful and a emotional saver.
I am trying to make my own hair product using beeswax as the base and for the life of me,I could not figure out how to get it soft! This saved the day. My last question is, I am trying out different oils to see what it will do to the beeswax texture. I was wondering if there was anything I could do to keep the mixture from drying out when I put it in my hair? I have made really great batches but once I put it in my hair, it leaves. Hello Courtney!
I too love these guides!!! It is wonderful to hear that you are trying out different oils to experience them and how they work together.
If I am reading your first question correctly, if you have a higher percentage of beeswax in your formula, it will be tricky to wash out. Maybe this will help you out! Check out this link for various hair balms Marie has made. Very helpful information!
If you have wax in the pellet form, just measure the pellets by the spoonful. If you have a block of wax, shave the wax and press the gratings into a spoon. Alternatively, you could measure wax by displacement: pour oils into a measuring cup, then drop in pieces of wax until the liquid level meets the desired measure. For example, for a ratio, fill a clear measuring cup to 6 oz. That equals 6 oz. Once the wax has warmed enough in to dissolve and vanish into the oil, take the oil off the heat.
When using herb infused oils, you want to treat them gently and heat them as little as possible. Do be careful with peppermint oil, though—too much will make your lips burn. Think something along the lines of 2 drops of of peppermint essential oil per small tin of lip balm.
Same goes for scents. Use a light hand. A few drops will do it in most cases. Also, I should add that you can infuse oils with scented herbs, like dried lavender buds or rose geranium leaves or chamomile flowers. And a lot cheaper. Make sure your containers are dry and clean.
Dirt or water could lead to contamination and mold. Pour it fast, before the mix starts to cool. I find that the lip of a liquid measuring cup gives enough control to fill even those fiddly little plastic lip balm tubes. The soda lifts and traps the grease. It works like a charm.
Self promotional note: We cover all this stuff in much more detail in Making It: salves, lip balm, deodorant, etc. Thanks for the great info. I am a scanner when I read. I actually read every word you wrote. Your post on the pot marigold was also useful to me.
I have a relatively large area un landscaped that follows a handicapped ramp leading to a stage in an amphitheater. Your info is a helpful start for me. Thanks for that tip about the baking soda! That clean up part has always been the hard one, and usually end up using some boiling water to dissolve it down the drain — where it gets to clog by pipes and septic system. Now, an alternative!! I really need to plant some calendula in my garden. I am wondering—does it grow well from seed?
I just started my herb garden this year, and I find that it grows really easily from seed! I am very happy with my from-seed plants, and as a matter of fact just picked my first flower from the plant today! When using a scale or measuring cup, you will be measuring mass or volume, respectively.
So, how do you mix it with a scale, what proportions, that is? Does your book give the proportions of both for mass? Everything you have given, measuring in a measuring cup and displacement are volume. Is it possible that a teaspoon of oil and a teaspoon of beeswax have the same mass? Knitter Mama: It grows very easily from seed. It self-seeds once established.
See the first post in the series. Parsimony: I misspoke. It was late at night, and I was thinking about soap ingredients, which are measured on a scale. Stick to volume. Displacement is the easiest and least messy way of measuring things like wax, at least to me. Aside from this piece, Healing Herbs includes articles on herbs that can help with pain relief, sleeplessness and stress relief; herbs for teas; how to cut and dry herbs; preparing and preserving herbs; foraging for medicinal herbs; and becoming an herbalist.
You can purchase this volume, Hobby Farms back issues as well as special editions such as Living Off the Grid and Best of Urban Farm by following this link. She enjoys cooking, crafting and finding ways to stretch her shopping dollars. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Use Beeswax to Make Salves and Balms Here's how to mix herb-infused oils with beeswax to make salves and lip balm that keep your skin moist and offer other healing properties.
Rhoda Peacher is a freelance writer and photographer in Oregon. Previous Article Next Article. You Should Also read:. X Sign up for our newsletter and receive a free e-book. X Thanks for signing up!
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