Nourishing Homemade Skin Salve
adapted from Academy of Culinary Nutrition
Benefits of Ingredients: Calendula: This herb‘s petals protects our skin against cell damaging free radicals. through it’s anti-inflammatory effect, which reduces skin redness and irritation. The flowers also promote the metabolism of protein and collagen that supports the skin in promoting new cell growth.
Plantain: The leaves of the Plantain are anti-inflammatory. Often used for treating sunburns, stings, insect bites, poison ivy breakouts, rashes, burns, blisters, and cuts. The leaves astringent properties, stops the bleeding of minor wounds and promotes the healing of skin cells.
Lavender: Lavender essential oil, is very calming and soothing for healing burns, relieving the itching of insect bites and rashes, quickly healing small cuts.
German Chamomile:is highly anti-inflammatory which allows it to address all types of skin irritations. Making it adored for its calming & soothing effects.
My daughter has extremely sensitive skin and although the Spring & Summer seasons are kind to her, thear seasons is when the ingredients are growing for me. Although her skin responds well to the salve, I can’t help but to think, “her skin is actually responding to the self love that she’s preciously rubbing.”
Nourishing Homemade Skin Salve
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 5 mins
Total time: 35 mins
Ingredients
¼ cup organic Calendula petals, dried
¼ cup organic Plantain leaves, dried
¼ cup olive oil
3 Tbsp coconut oil
2 Tbsp cocoa butter wafers (grated beeswax could also be used, reduce to 1 Tbsp.)
6 drops Lavender essential oil
6 drops German (Blue) Chamomile essential oil
¼ tsp Vitamin E oil as an antioxidant (mixed tocopherols)
Instructions
Place the dried Calendula petals and dried Plantain leaves in gently warmed olive and coconut oils. Let the herbs infuse in the warmed oil, with the heat off, for at least 20 minutes. You could also infuse the herbs for several days.
In a double boiler, melt the cocoa butter wafers (or grated beeswax) and set aside until the infused oil is ready.
Strain the herbs out of the infused oil by lining a sieve with several layers of cheesecloth and placing sieve over a bowl. Pour the oil through the cheesecloth, gather all the edges of the cheesecloth and over the bowl squeeze all the oil out of the herbs. Your herbs and cheesecloth can be composted/recycled. It's always nice to return the herbs to the earth!
Mix the infused calendula/plantain oil with the melted cocoa butter.
Add the Lavender and Chamomile essential oils and Vitamin E.
Pour the salve into a clean glass jar and allow it to solidify at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Once cooled and solidified, put on a tight-fitting lid and label with the name of the salve and date it was made.
The salve should be stable for at least 2 - 4 months at room temperature (use a spatula to take the salve out for use so as not to contaminate the salve) and for several months in the refrigerator.