WiseWoman Tradtions
OSusun S. Weed January 1st, 2012
Be Your Own herbal Expert Part 6
herbal medicine is the medicine of the people. It is simple, safe, effective, and free. Our ancestors used – and our neighbors around the world still use – plant medicines for healing and health maintenance. It’s easy. You can do it too, and you don’t need a degree or any special training. Ancient memories arise in you when you begin to use herbal medicine – memories which keep you safe and fill you with delight. These lessons are designed to nourish and activate your inner herbalist so you can be your own herbal expert.
In our first session we learned how to “listen” to the messages of plant’s tastes. In session two we learned about simples and how to make effective water-based herbal remedies. The third session helped us distinguish safe nourishing and tonifying herbs from the more dangerous stimulating and sedating herbs. Our fourth session focused on poisons in herbs and entered the herbal pharmacy to herbal tinctures, which we collected into an herbal Medicine Chest. Our fifth session found us still in the pharmacy, learning how to make and use herbal vinegars for strong bones and healthy hearts.
In this, our sixth session, we remain in the herbal pharmacy and turn our attention to herbs in fat bases. We’ll explore fresh infused oils, ointments, salves, and lip balms, essential oils, and even herbal pestos.
herbal Oils: Infused vs. Essential
I make and use many infused herbal oils. I use little or no essential oils. Why?
Infused herbal oils use a small amount of plant material; essential oils require tons of plant material. Infused herbal oils are safe to use internally or externally; essential oils are poisonous internally and problematic externally. Infused herbal oils are good for the skin; essential oils can cause rashes, burns, and other skin reactions. Infused oils are used full strength; essential oils are diluted before use. Infused herbal oils have subtle scents; essential oils have powerful scents.
The scent of an essential oil can kill gut flora just like antibiotics do, according to Paul Bergner, director of the clinical studies program at the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies. He told me that breathing the oils puts them into the blood stream very quickly and can be a major disturber of intestinal health and contributor to poor immune functioning.
Massage therapists are embracing Natural Scent Therapies such as growing live aromatic plants in their treatment rooms and using pillows of dried aromatic herbs instead of essential oils. Their skin and their immune systems are thanking them for the switch.
Making Infused herbal Oils
To make an infused herbal oil you will need the following supplies:
- Fresh plant material
- Scissors or a knife
- A clean dry jar with a tight lid
- Some olive oil
- A label and pen; a small bowl
Harvest your plant material in the heat of the day, after the sun has dried the dew. It is best to wait at least 36 hours after the last rain before harvesting plants for infused oils. Wet plant materials will make moldy oils. To prevent this, some people dry their herbs and then put them in oil. I find this gives an inferior quality product in most cases.
Coarsely chop the roots, leaves, or flowers of your chosen plant. Fill your jar completely full of the chopped plant material. Add olive oil until the jar is completely full. (Patience and a chopstick are useful tools at this point.)
Tightly lid the jar. Label it. Put it in a small bowl (to collect seepage and over-runs). Your infused oil is ready to use in six weeks.
Fresh Plants That I Use to Make Infused Oils
Arnica flowers (Arnica montana)
Burdock seeds (Arctium lappa)
Calendula flowers (Calendula off.)
Comfrey leaves or roots (Symphytum uplandica)
Dandelion flowers (Taraxacum off.)
Plantain leaves (Plantago majus)
Poke roots (Phytolacca americana)
Spruce needles
St. Joan’s wort flowers (Hypericum perforatum)
Yarrow blossoms (Achillea millefolium)
Yellow dock roots (Rumex crispus)
Using Your Infused herbal Oils
I use my infused herbal oils to heal and ease the pain of wounds, bruises, scrapes, sprains, burns, rashes, sore muscles, insect bites, and aching joints. I make my infused oils into ointments, salves, and lip balms. I use my infused oils in rituals, to anoint. I use my infused oils after bathing, to moisturize. I use my infused oils as stunning salad dressings. I use my infused oils as sexual lubricants. I use my infused oils to nourish my scalp and hair.
I apply my infused herbal oils directly to the body. I rarely take infused herbal oils as internal medicines although it would be safe to do so. I use my infused oils to make salves, ointments, and lip balms.
Making Salves, Ointments and Lip Balms
When herbs are infused into animal fat, they form a natural salve, without need of thickening. But herbs infused into oils are drippy and leaky and messy. They need a little beeswax melted into them to make them solid. The more beeswax added, the firmer the oil will be. A little beeswax will make a soft salve. A medium amount will make a firm ointment. And a lot will make a stiff lip balm.
- Pour one or more ounces of infused herbal oil into a saucepan or double boiler.
- Grate several ounces of beeswax.
- Put a small fire under your oil.
- When it is slightly warm, add one tablespoon (more or less) of grated beeswax.
- Stir, preferably with your finger, until the beeswax melts.
- Test the firmness by dropping a drop on a china plate. It will solidify instantly.
- Too soft? Add more beeswax, a little at a time.
- Too hard? Add more infused oil (if possible) or plain oil.
- Pour your finished salve or ointment into wide-mouthed jar.
- Pour lip balms into little pots or twist tubes.
Pestos
The simplest pesto is green leaves pounded with salt and garlic. I don’t put cheese or nuts into my pestos when I make them, as these ingredients spoil rapidly.
I use a mini-size food prep machine for the “pounding”. A blender will work too, but watch that you don’t burn out the motor.
The oil in a pesto both preserves the antioxidant vitamins in the fresh green herbs and also softens the cell walls so minerals become more available. With the added health-benefits of garlic, herbal pestos are great medicine as well as superb eating.
Basic herbal Pesto
Stays good for up to two years in a cool refrigerator; up to five years in the freezer.
- Start with half a cup of extra virgin olive oil.
- Add 2-4 coarsely chopped cloves of garlic.
- Add a good sprinkle of sea salt.
- Add a large handful of prepared herb leaves and blend.
- Continue adding leaves and oil as needed. Perhaps more garlic and salt? Blend.
- When all is blended to a fare thee well, pack your pesto into a skinny jar.
- Leave some space between the pesto and the top of the jar and fill this with olive oil.
- Cap, label, and refrigerate.
Green Herbs for Pesto
Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis)
Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella)
Violet (Viola species)
Yellow dock (Rumex crispus)
Coming up
In our next sessions we will learn how to make herbal honeys and syrups, how to apply the three traditions of healing, and how to take charge of our own health care with the six steps of healing.
Experiment Number One
Make three or more infused herbal oils from different plant parts, such as leaves, roots, and flowering tops. (See list for suggestions of plants to use.)
Experiment Number Two
Make several infused oils from the same plant at the same time using at least three different kinds of oils and animal fats, including ghee. Label carefully. After six weeks, decant and compare.
Experiment Number Three
Make a salve, ointment, or lip balm. Beeswax is sold at farmer’s markets, health food stores, and craft shops.
Experiment Number Four
Treat at least three injuries with an herbal oil or ointment that you have made. Record your observations. Plantain, yarrow, calendula, or comfrey are good choices for this experiment.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER FIVE
Make an herbal pesto. (See list for suggestions.)
Further study
- Buy a small bottle of essential oil. Also buy the plant the oil is made from. Lavender and mint are good choices for this experiment. Smell the plant, then smell the essential oil. How do you feel afterwards? Taste the plant, then taste a drop of the essential oil? What do you perceive? Put a drop of the essential oil on your skin; rub the plant vigorously on your skin. Are there differences?
Extra credit: Make an infused oil of the same plant and repeat this experiment using your infused oil in addition to the essential oil and the plant.
- Use organic animal fat to make an herbal preparation. Keep the fat barely warm – in the sun or by a pilot light – until it is infused. No need to add beeswax. The fat will solidify at room temperature.
Advanced work
- Read about the production of essential oils.
- How is a hydrosol different from an essential oil?
- Can you make a hydrosol? (Jeanne Rose is a good resource on this.)
Study with Susun Weed in the convenience of your home! Choose from three Correspondence Courses: Green Allies, Spirit & Practice of the Wise Woman Tradition, and Green Witch – includes audio/video tapes, books, assignments, special mailings, plus personal time. Learn more at www.susunweed.com
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- Comments(2)
Hi – my daughter and I made infused herbal oil with our comfrey plant. However after six weeks when we opened the jars the oil smelled rancid and we ditched the lot. What did we do wrong?
Please see http://bit.ly/sTh400 for an explanation of what we did.
Susun, you make a number of generalized and rather negative comments about essential oils at the beginning of your article on making infused herbal oils, and I’m wondering where you got your information and what quality of essential oils you were using if you have indeed used them yourself. I have been studying essential oils and using them therapeutically since 1999, and I’d like to share some additional information your readers might find useful.
First of all, there is a vast range of quality among essential oils, and it’s important to make the distinction between pure, therapeutic grade oils and those of lesser quality. Your strong cautions about the dangers of essential oils do NOT apply to pure, therapeutic grade essential oils, which are only available from a very few reputable companies who have a strict quality control process and do independent testing to guarantee the purity and quality of their oils. I know that Young Living Essential Oils and Creer Labs do this, and their essential oils actually exceed the ISO and AFNOR standards used by European nations to assure quality. There are a couple of others companies who are likewise as dedicated to quality, but most of them are not, and it shows, which unfortunately gives essential oils a completely undeserved bad reputation among people who don’t understand the distinction. It’s important to educate people to the true situation.
The truth is that pure, therapeutic grade essential oils are very safe and extremely effective, and can be used for tremendous healing benefit. In fact, essential oils have been used for both physical healing and spiritual meditation for thousands of years – the oils of ancient Egypt and those referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures are only a few examples. Essential oils were used by military doctors on the battlefields in Europe in both WWI and WWII in place of antibiotics, to give one more modern example.
The problem is that most companies today are selling primarily synthetic, perfume grade “essential oils” containing only a small amount of actual natural plant oil, the rest of it being fillers and other chemicals intended to mimic the smell or the approximate chemical make-up of the original plant oil. However, because of the lack of a standard for quality in this area, they can still market it as “pure essential oil,” and most people don’t know this is being done. All they know is that it smells nice, but when they use it therapeutically it doesn’t work and can even be dangerous. Sadly, most massage therapists use these lesser quality oils, most likely because they are cheaper (you get what you pay for, though). Most “natural” body care products which claim to contain essential oils also use these inferior, synthetic, and/or adulterated oils.
Such adulterated and “extended” perfume grade oils are never safe for internal use as they do not have the same balanced chemical constituents or energetic properties as the pure oils, and they can cause negative reactions applied externally as well, but that is NOT “caused by” the essential oil! Such adverse responses are caused instead by the synthetic materials contained in the inferior products, or by the fact that some oils which are labeled with one name (Lavender, perhaps) are not purely that oil but have actually been extended with other related oils (such as Lavendin, a cousin of Lavender with a similar scent), which do not have the same natural chemical constituents or the same therapeutic action when used. While true Lavender heals the skin from burns, Lavendin, which has its own beneficial properties that differ, can actually cause a burn to worsen!
Therefore, you should never use an essential oil therapeutically if you cannot guarantee its purity and quality. And wouldn’t you say the same thing is true about the herbs you recommend? But that is not the same as saying that all essential oils are dangerous. Just like with any herb or plant product, quality matters. Where and how was the plant that became the source of the oil grown? What were the soil conditions? What about the source of the seeds? Were any pesticides used in the growing process? Was the harvesting done at the optimal time for that plant in order to ensure the most therapeutic benefit? How was the plant material handled, stored, and/or transported from the farm to the distillery? What method, temperature, and length of distillation was used and was it the most appropriate for that plant? Was the oil tested after it was finished to make sure that its chemistry matches the standard for that plant’s essential oil and nothing has been altered, added, or removed? These are all important and relevant questions and if the company making your essential oils cannot give you the answers, you cannot trust their oils.
Pure, therapeutic grade essential oils can assist the body with detoxifying, which may perhaps prompt temporary detox symptoms such as rash or other reactions. Even using therapeutic grade essential oils while also using personal care products containing petrochemicals can provoke such a detoxification. Again, these symptoms are not a reaction to the oils but to the toxic materials being flushed out of the body as the oils bring the system back into balance and remove the toxins! This should be familiar to anyone who understands the detoxification process.
Perfume grade oils are not to be used internally. However, if you have pure, therapeutic grade oil from a source you trust, any oil that is found on the FDA’s “GRAS” (generally regarded as safe for internal consumption) list can be used internally. Know the source and the quality of your oils! It’s true that pure, therapeutic grade essential oils are very concentrated and potent, and therefore using them in the exact same way as a more diluted infused herbal oil is not always appropriate. But making sure you have pure, therapeutic grade oil to start with is the best safety measure. Then simply follow the safety guidelines for the use of therapeutic grade essential oils and use common sense. Most applications of an essential oil use a drop or a few drops, and that’s all you need.
Pure, therapeutic grade essential oils, when used safely and correctly, do not “kill gut flora” or cause harm to the immune system. If someone claims to have experienced such a reaction from using an “essential oil,” the first response should be to determine whether the oil was a pure, therapeutic grade oil or if, as I suspect, it was synthetically created or altered or contained fillers or additives not found in the natural plant. There are many scientific studies being conducted right now using pure, therapeutic grade oils which are finding that in fact, essential oils such as cinnamon and clove have tremendous beneficial properties for reducing overgrowth of bacteria and fungi, even MRSA; that oils like lemon and orange can help people overcome depression and anxiety; that oils such as frankincense and orange can stop or even reverse tumor growth; that oils like peppermint can improve mental clarity and aid students with focusing in the classroom or taking tests; and much more.
If you or your readers want more information about therapeutic grade essential oils, I would encourage you to look at the Essential Oils Desk Reference, 5th edition, published by Life Science Publishing, which includes both historical uses and modern scientific references as well as info on the chemistry and energy of the oils, and which is considered by many to be the definitive source on essential oils and their use. Another excellent reference book is the Reference Guide for Essential Oils by Connie and Alan Higley.