Anti-fungal Salve

In my grody pictures post I mentioned the salve I've been using on Colletta's legs. It was really quite simple to make...but here's the process anyway!

From left to right we have tea tree oil, black walnut hulls (I ran over them with the van to separate the hulls from the nuts), some comfrey oil (it's been steeping since June), and various herbs from the garden/yard (a mixture of sage, echinacea leaves, and plantain). Not shown is the goldenseal powder, because it was in the freezer and I forgot to get it out for the picture.

I strained off about a cups' worth of oil from the comfrey, added the herbs and hulls, and rounded it all off with another cup of plain olive oil. Ideally I would pack a quart jar with the mixture and let it sit for a few weeks to get a really high-quality oil, but since I was in a hurry I put everything in a double boiler on the stove, put said stove on the lowest possible gas flame, and let it simmer for a couple of hours.

This method does the trick, but since it's more of a quick-and-dirty way that yields a less rich version, I'm going to have some oil cold-steeping in the pantry soon for future experiments.

So after a couple of hours I strained it off, and came up with this lovely black-green stuff. The walnut turns it super dark and stains my fingers (the first three fingers on my right hand are a couple shades darker than the rest of my hand thanks to the daily application thing).

At this point, with the double boiler still on some heat, I tossed in some grated beeswax and the tea tree oil. I'm not sure how much beeswax...maybe 4-5 tablespoons? And there was something like a capful of tea tree. I hardly ever measure anything, can you tell?

 The last time I made salve I had to hack wax off of a 1-lb block, and swore that that was a hassle and grated the rest. I'm so glad I did, for obvious reasons...beeswax is handy, but so stinking obnoxious sometimes.

After the beeswax melted I turned the stove off and poured the results into a couple of jelly jars. I have my tins, but they only hold 2 ounces at a time and I only wanted to have a couple of containers on hand.

There they go, solidifying up as they cool...

...and the finished result! I just wrote out the labels rather than printing them since they'll be for personal use. As soon as they were cool I ran out and slathered Colletta's scratches with them, sprayed the walnut liniment over the whole mess, and left it alone. So far I must say that her leg looks a lot better--the swelling has almost completely gone down, and while the skin is still tender and a bit raw it doesn't look near as nasty as it did.

The salve turned out well, except that I think I added too much beeswax. It's hard and a little grainy in texture, but if I crush it and melt it a little between my fingers before smoothing it on it works. Next time I'll cut down on the beeswax and hopefully will have a better oil on hand. But for now, this seems to be working.