"What is a salve anyway?” A salve is an olden and golden term for a healing solution that we put on our skin; creams, ointments, rubs and balms are all in the same family of kitchen magic. Generally, salves are fairly thick, shelf-stable, and include nourishing oils such as coconut oil, olive oil, sweet almond oil, or others. Salves unlike creams do not use emulsification and so last longer and are simple and sweet to make!
In our salve recipe, we prefer to use mostly oil which is also ultra-moisturizing. Because it is full of saturated fat that binds well with beneficial plant and herbal matter, especially cannabinoids. Depending on the herb, we use coconut oil or grapeseed oil for plant infusions, and we will cover that next Thirsty For Knowledge Thursday and will be using both to illustrate. Here's tonight's livestream where we made the salves together! https://www.facebook.com/mojoandmagic/videos/478343346882199/
We can also add a part of olive oil, almond oil or grapeseed oil to increase absorption and smoothness. We can option also to pierce a few capsules of vitamin E and add it to the mix or healing power and natural preservation. Other possible additions here are essential oils.
When making salves we use wax or butters to help them stay solid at room temperature. Tonight we will work with local beeswax, which is a popular option because it is readily available, easy to work with and creates perfectly smooth results. There are some vegan waxes available if beeswax is not for you. However, no matter which wax or ingredients you choose, be sure to use pure, reputable products, as our largest organ is absorbing this!
If we were using infused oil we would do that first, and then combine the oil with the other salve ingredients. We'll get fancy with that alchemy next week and make arnica & cannabis infused oils!
For today we will keep it super simple and just use the basic 3 ingredients (you can even use just coconut oil and wax:^) and I will add the optional ingredients in there in case you have a knack for flair! Let's get right to it!
3 Ingredient Healing Salve
1 ½ cups of coconut oil OR, 1 ½ cups of already-infused cannabis coconut oil
1/3 cup olive, grapeseed or almond oil (if you need to omit this, add only 1/4 cup of wax)
1/3 cup beeswax (vegan option: replace with the same amount of organic soy wax, candelilla wax, or carnauba wax)
In either a pot or double-boiler, add ⅓ cup of beeswax. Heat until it is completely melted. Now turn down the heat to low. Next, stir in 1.5 cups of coconut oil and 1/3 cup carrier oil. Now is the time to add the optional vitamin E plus a few drops of optional essential oils as well if you have felt so inspired. Stir until everything looks completely combined. Once it is, quickly remove the liquid salve from the heat and transfer it into your storage containers of choice.
*Yes, it's really that simple!
***The magical extra extra special spell... is putting our healing intention and energy in it, AKA infusing with Reiki or Universal Life Force for the greatest good!!! This can be done while we stir and pour, by placing our hands around the container and sending love in, by asking for it to be so, this or better, so mote it be! It can even be added to by placing it in moonshine, doing singing bowl above it, &/or using crystals around it or even inside the container to find later like a buried treasure! If you do that, don't use a porous stone if you want to reuse it, and if you mean to reuse it (other than just recharging in moonlight and placing back in a new salve when it's done), make sure to use one without too many crevices or you might be cleaning it for a few moons haha! Smaller "chips" or gemstones are lovely or this and will settle to the bottom if added while its hot and liquid.
*Notes: If you want to scale this recipe up or down: the general rule of thumb for salve is to use about 1 part of beeswax to 4 or 5 parts oil, including both coconut and olive oil. Since we use virgin coconut oil that is solid at room temperature, we can get away with lesser beeswax and the salve will still set up well. If you use a different base carrier oil that is liquid at room temperature unlike coconut oil, either omit the extra 1/3 cup olive oil mentioned above, or increase the amount of beeswax to 1/2 cup.