Herbal Medicine Making Skill: Salve Making

Salve comes from the root word that means “salvation”. Salves are healing balms that have been used for millenium and a staple in the herbal apothecary. Salves are easy to transport in your luggage. They don’t come under the same scrutiny as herbal tea and alcohol based tinctures when travelling internationally. For air travel package your herbal salve in containers that are 2 ounces or less and label each tin or jar clearly with the name of the remedy, the weight or volume, and the expiry date. Softer salves should be packaged in leak-proof silicone containers to minimize leakage, and placed with your liquid allowance in a Ziploc bag.

For weekend travel lip balm tubes and tins make excellent salve containers and take up very little space in your luggage.

Tweaking the recipes

Salve can be made harder or softer depending on what you need based on the ambient temperatures in your region, as well as the intended use of the salve. Salves used for wound care should be a little softer so that the wound isn’t further traumatized by the salve being applied.

In hot desert climates, salves should be firmer than in colder mountain regions. Test salve recipes in your personal circumstances and tweak them by adding more beeswax or more oil to change the consistency. The table below shows the ratio of beeswax to olive oil and the consistency of the salve. This is only true for olive oil though. If you are using another oil like coconut oil, you may find the results differ.

Softer salves can be packaged in the silicone containers used for travel. These come in 1 ounce and 2 ounce sizes and can be easily cleaned and reused. They should be included in your liquids bag, if you pack them in your carry-on luggage, for air travel.

How to use the ratios

A 1:3 ratio means 1 part beeswax to 3 parts olive oil. The part can be measured by weight or by volume. If you are measuring by volume you could use a tablespoon as the measure. This would give you 1 tablespoon of beeswax to 3 tablespoons of olive oil for a 2 ounce total volume. Conversely in a 1:5 ratio use 2 teaspoons of beeswax (8 grams) to 10 teaspoons of olive oil for a total volume of 2 ounces.

Ratio of Beeswax to Olive Oil