Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Homemade Miracle Salve


Are you wondering what that thing is in the picture above?

It's a 20 pound brick of pure Beeswax.  
I live across the street from our local Bee Farm and was given this slab of pure Beeswax by the Bee Keeper.  When I make homemade soaps and balms or any homemade product that uses their honey or the by products I usually take over something for them.  


This is the under side of the Beeswax, can you see the Bee in the corner?


How about now?  

I've always bought my Beeswax online all cleaned up and in small packages so this was quite a surprise for me.  The smell is heavenly sweet honey!  

Making balms and salves is a good way to use some of my newly acquired Beeswax so
I'm going to show you how I made Miracle Salve today. My recipe is from Andrea at Frugally Sustainable, it's a fun and easy recipe that went over really well with my family and friends.


I've gathered my supplies, a re-purposed ice cream bucket of Beeswax chunks, my quart jar of herbs that have been soaking about six weeks in Olive Oil making a wonderful infusion, Lavender & Eucalyptus Essential Oils.


While I wait for the infused oil to drain through the strainer I measure out the Beeswax chunks to almost four ounces.  


 Next I use a double boiler to melt the Oil and Beeswax, then let it cool to about 145 degrees before adding the essential oils so they don't lose their wonderful fragrance. 


I poured the slightly cooled salve mixture into 4 oz. tins and 2 oz. twist up tubes and the left over into smaller containers to use for samples or purses.  


I made a double batch of the Natural Miracle Salve and now have five 4 oz. tins, two 2 oz. twist up tubes, two half oz. tubs and two half oz. twist up tubes.  These will be perfect to add to my holiday gift baskets for family and friends.

Natural Miracle Salve: The Recipe
Ingredients
2 1/2 cup good-quality olive oil
 0.6 ounces dried calendula flowers
0.6 ounces dried plantain
0.4 ounces dried St. John’s wort
0.4 ounces dried Oregon grape root
0.4 ounces Comfrey Leaf
3-4 ounces beeswax
-essential oils

I used a ratio of approximately 10% essential oils to the volume of oil/beeswax in the recipe.

I hope you enjoyed my Miracle Salve making tutorial of sorts today and might be inspired to trying making some too!

Do you need supplies for your homemade salve?
My favorite place to shop for the herbs to infuse my oils is The Bulk Store!

Great selection of bulk herbs, books, and remedies. Articles, Research Aids and much more.

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8 comments:

Cassie said...

You are so darn crafty, Jan! That is awesome that you were able to put the beeswax to such good use :D

April said...

Darn it, Jan....if I didn't love everything you do so much I could seriously hate ya.... This is a great project! How lucky to bee across the street from the bees....talk about local and sustainable!

Jennifer said...

This is wonderful! I would love to live near a bee farm! I think what you do is absolutely wonderful!

nwilliams6 said...

I want some - this is wonderful and so interesting. I love that bee in the corner. This is seriously cool. Do you sell this to friends? I would sure love to get some. Hugz!

Tami said...

I don't have a scale, are you able to convert the weight measurements into cup and teaspoon measurements?

Tami said...

I don't have a scale yet, are you able to convert the measurements to cups?

Tami said...

I don't have a scale, are you able to convert the weight measurements into cup and teaspoon measurements?

Jan Hunnicutt said...

Hi Tami,

The recipe is by weight instead of volume like you'd use in your measuring cups so I'm not sure how it would turn out done that way.

I've only made this by weighing it out on my scale.

Jan