All-Natural Soothing Recipe: Super-Healing Hand Balm

Those who work with their hands, especially gardeners, appreciate a salve that soothes dry, chapped skin. This blend of all-natural ingredients, including healing comfrey, contains no harmful preservatives, colors or chemicals.

July/August 2004
By Natural Home magazine editorial staff 
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Those who work with their hands, especially gardeners, appreciate a salve that soothes dry, chapped skin. This blend of all-natural ingredients, including healing comfrey, contains no harmful preservatives, colors, or chemicals.

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Makes about 7 ounces

Comfrey-Infused Olive Oil
1 ounce comfrey leaf, dried and coarsely ground
1 ounce comfrey root, dried and coarsely ground
6 ounces cold-pressed olive oil

Super-Healing Hand Balm
1 ounce plus 1 tablespoon jojoba oil
2 ounces plus 1 tablespoon shea butter
1 ounce beeswax
3/4 teaspoon lavender essential oil

To Make Comfrey-Infused Olive Oil: Place powdered leaf and root in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Pour olive oil over herbs, stir, close the jar. Allow jar to sit 2 to 6 weeks as the comfrey infuses into the oil. Turn jar every day.

After steeping, place a strainer lined with a thin cloth over a bowl and pour in oil to filter out the comfrey.

To Make Hand Balm: Place all the balm ingredients (except lavender oil) in a large Pyrex measuring cup. Add 2 ounces of the Comfrey-Infused Olive Oil. Set the cup in a hot-water bath and stir until ingredients melt.

Remove from heat and stir for a few minutes to cool, but not thicken.

Pour into a wide-mouth jar, add the lavender oil, and quickly cap the jar with a tight-fitting lid to prevent oil from evaporating. Allow butter to cool overnight.

Recipe copyright Dina Falconi. Reprinted with permission from Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair by Dina Falconi (Ceres Press, 1998).

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Comments

  • Janice Key-Walding 2/7/2008 12:00:00 AM

    This salve sounds as if it would be very soothing. I make a
    similar salve every Spring when chickweed and plantain are bursting
    forth with new growth. My basic salve is like the recipe you
    featured, except I infuse olive oil or sweet almond oil (about 8
    ounces for each herb) with about a quart each of chickweed and
    plantain. The chickweed is very cooling for burns and the plantain
    helps ease the sting of insect bites. Janice Key-Walding The
    Southern Herbalist

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