Salves
I love preparing plant salves and other medicines for the body and soul. Plants have healing properties that can transform and integrate our bodies and connect us to elemental energies that vibrate in all of us.
You can use plant medicines in so many ways to keep in touch with your basic nature. You can smell them. You can apply them to your skin and hair and carry them with you so that at any time, you can pause and breathe in and connect with their healing and strengthening vibrations, the places they grew, and the universal energies that created them.
All Purpose Salves
Soothing and moisturizing with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and “drawing” properties. Use for daily and heavy-duty moisturizing, to help heal scrapes and rashes, to help remove splinters, bee stings, and pain, and to absorb the great mix of plant smells and properties. All Purpose salves contain a batch-specific mix of olive, almond, avocado, grapeseed, and sunflower oils infused with a mix of Plantago (P. majore, P. lanceolata); dandelion (Teraxacum officinale), calendula (Calendula officianalis), yarrow (Achillea millefolium) sage (Artemesia tridentata), Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and maybe some other herbs found in abundance that year, plus beeswax.
Specialty Salves
Heal My Skin
Salve with gentle, earthy, nerve calming herbs that pack an antiviral punch.
Lovely for moisturizing and effective in speeding recovery from cold sores. All purpose oil mix infused with St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) a bit of mullein (Verbascum thapsus) and comfrey (Symphytum officinale); plus beeswax.
Triple C Ranchers Salve
Salve with anti-inflammatory and skin repair properties; deeply healing to skin.
All purpose oil mix infused with cottonwood buds (Populus trichocarpa), calendula flowers (Calendula officianalis), and comfrey leaves (Symphytum officinale); plus beeswax.
Methow!
Aromatic salve of Methow plants with some calendula to smooth them out.
All purpose oil blend infused with sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata), cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), calendula (Calendula officinalis); plus beeswax.
Basic Reflexology Blend
(soft) mousse with neutral to slightly cooling energetics, no scent
All purpose oil blend with a little castor oil for grip infused with Self Heal (aka All Heal, Heal All, Prunella vulgaris) and native rose leaves (Rosa woodsii), beeswax. Self heal promotes self healing and Rose leaves are slightly cooling and astringent with gentle, heart-supporting properties. May also include St. John’s Wort and lavender to calm the nervous system.
Rose, Yarrow, Calendula
Soothing, mildly astringent yet moisturizing salve; nice for face.
All purpose oil blend infused with wild Rose (Rosa woodsii), calendula flowers (Calendula officianalis), and yarrow flowers and leaves (Achillea millefolium); plus beeswax.
Arnica & More
Salve with neutral to slightly warming energetics, anti-inflammatory, helps to heal bruises, naturally scented by intrinsic arnica and cottonwood oils
All purpose oil blend infused with flowers of sustainably-harvested Arnica cordifolia and leaf buds of cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), goldenrod (Solidago canadensis); plus beeswax.
Ski Season Salve
Mix of herbs with slightly warm energetics to to enhance circulation and recovery from exercise. Is good for all seasons, not just ski season!
All purpose oil blend infused with Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), arnica (Arnica cordifolia), goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), Saint John’s (Joan’s) Wort (Hypericum perforatum); plus beeswax.
Where To Purchase
You can find my products available online at Methow Valley Goods, also available in person at their brick-and-mortar store on the TwispWorks campus.
Frequently Used Herbs
The herbs I use most frequently are well tolerated by most people. They have relatively “neutral” energetics (i.e., are not overly warming, cooling, drying, or dampness inducing) and scents (though a few, such as cottonwood, arnica, sage, and pine have their own delicious aromas).
Arnica (Arnica cordifolia)
Locally harvested because Arnica grows abundantly in the Methow – especially after fires (and we’ve had alot of those!). Good to bring circulation to an area and the primo herb for speeding the healing of bruises.
Rose (Rosa woodsii)
native, delicate, astringent, lightly scented, heart easing.
Plantago (Plantago majore and P. lanceolata)
Locally available in gardens as a weed and along riversides in the Valley. Fabulous general-purpose skin herb, great for drawing out “stings” of all sorts. Plantago is especially famous for pulling out bee stingers – the leaves can be chewed in the mouth and then “spit” out on the sting as a “spit poultice” and allowed to set.
Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata)
The locally abundant sagebrush with distinct aromatic scent that uplifts and energizes.
Calendula (Calendula officianalis)
Not native (though other aster species are), so I grow this in my garden. It is almost the quintessential skin herb with such an amazing list of qualities you wouldn’t believe me if I wrote them all down. I’ll at least say that calendula nourishes the skin and has antimicrobial qualities. Neutral energetic qualities (maybe a little cooling/astringent) so good for all situations and people for short or long-term use.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Native, astringent, aromatic, enlivening, delightful, and considered protective energetically.
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa)
A signature conifer of the Methow Valley, it can be found growing in almost all habitats and with an amazing resinous and vanilla-ish scent that heals broken skin and draws out infection and heat.
Cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa)
Locally abundant, especially as long as our rivers stay healthy. Wonderful, vanilla-y, “balm of gilead” scent, primo for reducing inflammation, as an antibacterial, and to speed skin healing. Yes, an amazing suite of abilities.
Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)
A nonnative herb that has definitely naturalized here, mullein has mucilaginous qualities that help it sooth dry, rough skin (and lungs!).
Saint John’s (Joan’s) Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Native along stream beds but also somewhat invasive in disturbed areas, SJW calms the nervous system and is known to have antiviral (especially to the Herpes viruses) qualities.
All plants used in my preparations were harvested from my organic garden.
As windfall branches in the beautiful shrub-steppe, riparian, and forest habitats of the Methow Valley, or, in the case of the occasional at-risk or potentially invasive species, purchased from a responsible company such as Mountain Rose Herbs in Oregon. I use dried and fresh plant material, as it is available to me.
All my salves are prepared in small batches, so each is unique, using traditional methods of combining herb-infused oils with beeswax. Oils are infused for weeks to months with herbs and then decanted. The decanted oils are warmed and mixed with local beeswax which provides the firmness. A little goes a long way, but you can also slather them on.