My husband and I have a lot in common. First of all, we love living out away from town. We also love animals especially dogs, horses, and barn cats. We love road trips and Mexican food. Another thing we share are mysterious bumps and bruises, scrapes and cuts. Every week, as we work around the place, we come up with bumps and bruises, scrapes and cuts and a lot of the time we have no idea how we got them! I guess we are so focused on what we are doing at the time that we don’t notice when we get some minor ding.
Next thing you know we’re in the kitchen and looking at our arms, for example, and wondering how that got there! It’s not that we’re accident prone. Well, maybe we are but we are only small accident prone. When we went to see the dermatologist recently he told us that plain old Vaseline works best on minor stuff and we were not to use antibiotic ointment. Imagine that! I decided to make my own salve as I am not in favor of petroleum products no matter how recommended they are by the good, ole doctor!
Here’s my concoction:
Fairfield Ranch Salve
Makes 4 ounces
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup beeswax – grated
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 Tbsp. shea butter
- 2 Tbsp. honey
- 1 vitamin E capsule (400 IU)
- 6 drops lavender essential oil
Supplies
- Measuring cups (I use stainless steel because you can pour boiling soapy water on them afterwards making it easier to clean the beeswax out)
- Measuring spoons (same thing- stainless steel)
- Double boiler (it’s very helpful if the top pan has a spout)
- Small bowl (I use Pyrex custard cups. They are also easy to clean afterwards by pouring boiling soapy water on them.)
- Straight pin
- 4-ounce jar (glass or plastic – either is fine)
- Wooden stick (I use hibachi skewers)
Instructions
Melt the beeswax, olive oil and shea butter in top of double boiler. You can use a microwave but I feel that’s harder to control because you can’t see what’s happening. If you do use a microwave go for small increments of time. It would be unpleasant to have to clean melted beeswax off the inside of your oven. Start out at short intervals until it melts.
Turn off the heat and leave the mixture in the pot to stay warm and melted. Put honey in small bowl. Drizzle 2 teaspoons of the melted beeswax mixture in to the honey and stir together. Stir until it becomes creamy. It will start to solidify so don’t delay in stirring it. If you delay you may find that there are small lumps and it won’t be 100% smooth. Now add the mixture to the rest of the beeswax mixture in the pot and blend. It won’t blend very well because the olive oil is resistant. Just do your best. When you pour it into the small bowl near the end there will be an opportunity to cream it.
Poke a pin in the small end of a capsule of vitamin E and squeeze it into the mixture. Add the essential oil and mix as best you can. Now pour it into a small bowl and let it sit for a minute. It will start to solidify. After a minute or two while it’s still warm, cream the mixture. Once it’s creamed, spoon it into small jars and cool. Cover with a lid. This is good for minor scrapes, cuts, rashes, insect stings, mild sunburn, etc. The honey has anti-microbial properties and the vitamin E is good for your skin.
Clean up: Put all your utensils in the pot, squirt dishwashing liquid in and pour boiling water over all. It should be easily cleaned this way.
