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One of my favorite things to do when my family has skin ailments is to mix up a skin soothing salve. What I love most about doing this is making it specific to whatever ailment my family has – a sunburn, a rash, dry skin, etc.
Salves are great because you really don’t need to have an exact recipe, and you can easily substitute what you have on hand when you’re creating the base for the salve.
Here are some options for the base:
- coconut oil
- beeswax pellets
- Rose ointment
- shea butter
I made this particular salve with rose ointment and coconut oil as the base. It stays somewhat solid (at least in the cooler weather – on a hot day it would be runnier) and it feels amazing on the skin.
I didn’t measure this one, because the exact measurements don’t really matter for a salve like this. Here’s what I did:
- Filled my small tin halfway with coconut oil
- Added approximately 1 Tbsp-ish of Rose ointment
- added about 30ish drops essential oil total (if you’re making a salve for kids I would probably only use 10 oils)
I made this one for a family member who was dealing with a shingles rash – we’ve never dealt with shingles, but I needed something soothing, good for the pain, and good for nerves. The oils I used in this one were lavender, copaiba, clove, helichrysum, geranium, and tea tree.
I mixed it all together and that’s it – so simple!
If you want to make a firmer base to your oil, you want to add beeswax pellets or shea butter – you’ll need to melt them first before you mix so that they mix in with the other oils of your base.
You can also infuse herbs in oil to mix into your salves, like I did with this dandelion salve. Calendula is my favorite herb to infuse to put in a soothing skin salve – plus it’s very easy to grow!
Oils that are great for the skin:
- lavender
- frankinsence
- copaiba
You can add in oils that are specific to the ailment or body system you want to support. It doesn’t have to just be for skin – for our shingles salve, I added in oils like clove and helichrysum for pain relief.
These salves aren’t just good for skin. I recently made a muscle relief salve for my kiddo who had a running injury with these ingredients:
- coconut oil
- beeswax pellets
- panaway oil
Salves are a great way to naturally treat ailments without having to run out and buy a cream that has questionable ingredients or costs a lot of money!