Handcrafted healing herbal oils are the easiest place to start building or increasing the effectiveness of your natural first aid or home remedy tool kit so you can have something on hand (-before you need it, key point-).
I like to think of it as the least amount of effort for maximum return home remedy.
Handcrafted herbal oils are good for literally dozens of aches and pains, common ailments your natural skin care needs, they also wonderful for ritual, ceremony, anointing, all for amazingly little effort. They are so cool that way in how one thing, one remedy; one technique covers so many natural self-care needs,
Basically, handcrafted herbal oils are also really great if you are just starting out on your natural wellness journey because they are easy to make with multiple uses.
A handcrafted infused herbal oil is something that can be made at home, with simple kitchen equipment. It is not an essential oil. Essential oil production requires expensive distilling equipment and sometimes takes hundreds of pounds to produce a few ounces of essential oil.
“Handcrafted herbal oils can be made in your kitchen and don’t have the same safety restrictions that essential oils have……”
Handcrafted, homemade herbal oils are the process of infusing fresh or dried herbs into a base or carrier oil and then letting it steep until you have an infused herbal oil that has about a one year shelf life.
Here are a few of my favorite home-made herbal oils that we use in our household
Lavender (Lavendula angustifolia)
I had a therapeutic massage practice for 20 years. Lavender infused oil has a relaxing effect on the muscles and a calming effect on the mind.
It’s no surprise that herbal oils are the massage therapists dream because basically, the oils heal you while you are healing your clients. I used lavender infused oil more than any other oil with my clients. People loved the calming scent, it helped them to relax into the massaged and they enjoyed the added touch of my handcrafted herbal oils. I always felt like I had extra help from the herbal oils when I had this healing practice.
Mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris)
Mugwort oil has anti-spasmodic and blood moving activity. It is a delivery oil, which means it helps to enhance the effectiveness of other herbal oils that you combine it with. Mugwort oil increases circulation and helps speed the recovery of strains, sprains and bruises. One of my students uses this oil specifically as her go-to remedy during her period. She had severe menstrual cramps for years. She discovered mugwort oil. She applies it to her belly and low back and covers her belly with a heating pad, along with taking a couple hours of rest; this is the ticket for a more restorative instead of depleting menstrual cycle.
Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
(You can click here to find out more about making handcrafted herbal oils)
There’s a growing awareness of just how important it is to know what goes on your skin. Calendula is a super effective skin healing, skin rejuvenating herbal oil. It is amazing how many skin issues the simple home-made herbal oil can take care of, from revitalizing injured or irritated skin to moisturizing dried, cracked alligator skin or healing slow to heal sores.
Calendula oil is a good thing to have on hand. I am a gardener. I’ve always got something going on with my skin, some little nick or scratch…….. Calendula oil is super moisturizing for dry skin patches and sand paper feet and elbow elbows.
I am so grateful to have had the honor of for more than 20 years working with thousands of moms, families and people from all walks of life to help them activate what is hands down, the home remedy that my students and clients rave about the most and that they literally love to use for their family’s wellness care.
And that’s the other thing about your home made herbal oils they are one of the single best ways to get your family on board with the whole natural wellness thing (are you having any trouble with that?)
You can make big batches of lavender oil and train your children from the start to be self-sufficient in using safe herbal remedies to take care of their health. I have been using healing oils on my son since he was little but now he asks for it and uses it himself!
I mean, where are your kids at right now with their ability to take care of themselves using natural remedies? I’ll tell you what; using handcrafted herbal oils in your home is the best way to get your kids self-motivated and using natural remedies, safely.
I wasn’t raised knowing how to do this, in fact, most every adult in my life was on some sort of medication when I was growing up, and believe it or not, I never even heard the word natural remedy until I was in my early 20’s, I know crazy… but making infused herbal oils was the very first herbal remedy that I started working with during my very early herbal apprenticeship days more than 25 years ago.
No More Detective Work
It is extremely satisfying to make your own skin moisturizing oils. So much of what is found in stores contains questionable ingredients. The cosmetics industry which includes body oils and moisturizers is a self-regulated industry; you know, as in the fox watching the chicken coop type thing.
The important thing to know is, there are thousands of different chemicals that are used in standard body moisturizers. Did you know that many ingredients that the FDA doesn’t allow in food are used skin moisturizers?
The other surprising thing is that there are lots of ingredients that have not been tested that legally don’t have to be listed on the label.
So bottom line, when you make your own oils, you know what you are getting, and exactly what’s in them.
You know when it was made. You know exactly what’s in it, you know where the ingredients are from and what you really can’t buy, is that your love is in it! You made it with your own heart and hands! Maybe you got together and made it with someone that you love. That’s a palpable ingredient that you aren’t going to find anywhere else.
So in any case, when you make your own botanical moisturizing oils, no more detective work or being dependent on what a label says. Or even worse, what wasn’t listed on the label. No more settling for putting your health in the hands of a company that may not really care about your health, or being duped by ‘natural looking labels. Your family deserves better.
The truth is, it really is critical for your life long health to become educated and aware of what goes on your skin. Most people don’t realize it but your skin is your largest organ. What you put on it matters.
The really cool thing is that, making your own handcrafted herbal oils is the single best way to really get inspired to use truly natural oils and botanical ingredients for your skin care and avoid the hormone disrupting, harmful, skin damaging and toxic ingredients in the common body care products that wreak havoc on your hormones and your health. The herbal oils are wonderful in so many ways.
So, that is why I am a really big fan of having handcrafted herbal oils hold a central spot in your medicine cabinet.
You can watch this video on how to make handcrafted lavender oil here:
Click here to learn more about making handcrafted herbal oils
Having a trusted home remedy that you made and feel connected to that can help with pain, inflammation, swelling, bruising, and promote healing changes things. Now don’t get me wrong, your oils can’t take care of everything, but the whole orientation to your wellness shifts towards feeling more and more empowered when you really have the natural remedy tools on hand to take care of yourself, there’s just a peace of mind that comes with that.
I have an oil I wish to infuse but have only been able to find the dried herb. Please direct me where I can learn to infuse the dried herb rather than fresh herb.
I teach a course on it
Https://healingherbaloils.com/enroll-now
Hi, I live in New Zealand and we don’t have, as far as I know, the high proof alcohol that’s needed. Can I use a 40% vodka or would I be best to stick with the no alcohol methods of infusing oils. Thanks.
Yes, you can use whatever alcohol you have access to
Thanks so much for your reply Kami. I’m going to try this method. ❣️
I blend my own healing oils and it’s wonderful. I make blends that you can’t buy commercially and it really benefits my health. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been using natural handcrafted herbal oils which I acquired from our grandparents as it was their effective source of cure for certain illness. It’s really effective and we can always do it without spending a lot of money. Until now, I’ve been looking for more herbs that I can use for other disease. Thanks to this article.