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Balm making notes and suggestions for your home herbal toolbox:

Herbal Tool Box Balms: A balm/salve is basically infused oils &/or essential oils and beeswax: Ratios: (turns out to be pretty important!) 7 to 1 ratio of oil to beeswax ensures that the salve has enough body to stay solid in the container during a normal summer but not absolutely rock hard. Use the smaller 6:1 ratio of beeswax if you are in an air conditioned environment or you are making salve for winter. & the percentage of essential oils is also important as many can be irritant. (note: this can apply when creating bath oils)   Essential Oil Blend Percentage Essential Oil Amount Carrier Oil Amount 0.5% 1 drop 2 teaspoons 2 drops 1 tablespoon 10 drops 100 ml...

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Recommended books

Recommended books:  A Herbal Book of Making and Taking By Christopher Hedley and Non Shaw is as it says.  Found at the amazing publishers of aeon books: https://health.aeonbooks.co.uk//product/herbal-book-of-making-and-taking/94121 The incredibly useful Hedgerow medicine with great pictures and chapters which focus on the plants around us here in the UK is a must. There other book Wayside medicine is very interesting but unfortunately as the plants are not popularly used currently the research and uses seem a more scant in this book.     This little pocket guide called Herbs and Healing Plants of Britain and Europe (Collins Nature Guide) Paperback is what really helped me to know the plants all around me. Its is accessible, easy to use with some information as to their...

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Busy making tinctures!

So I have been busy making tinctures with the bounty of nature all around and I must say it's lots of fun.  I use organic grain alcohol which I buy using an alcohol license. The amazing herbarium website helped me do the paperwork which was easier then I had procrastinated over and can be found here:  Application for Authority to Receive Duty Free Spirits. Another option if looking for smaller amounts without a licence is 5 litres of 95% @ £85.50 at liquid essences. When I started making tinctures for use for home and friends I used coop gin. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I'm a fan of gin and tonics. In hindsight vodka would have been a cleaner alcohol as...

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Salvia Rosmarinus, (formally Rosmarinus officinalis)

Salvia Rosmarinus, (formally Rosmarinus officinalis): Family: Lamiaceae   Common names: Rose of Mary, elf leaf, friendship bush.  Part used: Leaf and flower   Flavor: Pungent Action: warming and stimulating, often drying (Popham, 2021)  Salvia Rosmarinus has been used for centuries in food and medicinally with a high point during the 17th century plague, where in London prices exceeded 6 shillings, well over the price of a pig at the time (Iverson, 2019). It was also burned with juniper in hospitals and sick rooms to cleanse the air. It is mentioned by Culpeper as it ‘helps weak memory and quickens the senses,’ and for windy digestion and poor eyesight, for which it is still used for today. Folk medicine saw it used a...

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Lemon Balm: Melissa Officinalis:

Melissa Officinalis: Family: Lamiaceae   Common names: Lemon balm, bee balm.  Part used: Leaf and stem  Flavor: sour Action: Cooling (Popham, 2021)  Melissa Officinalis has been recorded for healing since the 300 B.C in the Historia Plantarum. Paracelsus (1493–1541) utilized it for “all complaints supposed to proceed from a disordered state of the nervous system” (Sharifi-Rad et al., 2021). In European traditions it was used as aa elixir and memory tonic. In Iran it's been used for anxiety and depression, the Unani system use it for various complaints from halitosis, arthritis, mastitis, bell’s palsy, paralysis and epilepsy whereas in Morocco it has been used as a febrifuge, astringent, depurative and cholagogue and spasmolytic (Sharifi-Rad et al., 2021). In Uzbekistan it has...

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