Looking for a couple"herbal" recipes for this winter

[galanie]

I make a salve I really like with olive oil, comfrey leaves, and beeswax. I put the comfrey leaves in blender with just enough olive oil to get the blender chopping it all up well. Resulting slurry goes in a bowl. The bowl gets a pot lid and goes over a pot of water, making a double boiler (the glass bowl I use is larger diameter than the pot). I simmer the water in the pot for at least 4 hours, more if I can. In the last 30 min or so the pot lid comes off so any moisture can escape since I'm using fresh leaves. This will make a really GREEN comfrey infused oil.

Then it gets dumped in a strainer. After I've gotten all the oil out of the mash I can, it goes right back over that same pot of water. Then in goes the beeswax. I won't do this step in a microwave because no matter how careful I am, I feel it just gets too hot. So I do it the patient way, trying to cut up the beeswax into small chips and stirring and waiting till it melts. At first I use about 1/3 as much beeswax as oil then let it cool. If it's too thin, back I go adding more till it gets the way I want it.

Love this stuff. It promotes healing better than anything I've ever used.

Oh and if I have any Calendula on hand when making some, it goes in there too.

If you get all the moisture out of the oil when making it, this stuff will keep on the countertop forever.

 

[Kaitie09]

I get eczema in the winters that get so bad my hands are cracked, bleeding and itching. I used to be woken up by it and the only way to stop the itch was to turn the water to scalding and run my hands under it.

I don't know if this would work for you father but my doctor presrcibed me Hydrocortisone, a steroid ( it was called Cortisone-10). It worked wonders and I just had to make sure to wear gloves outside. I also carry a bottle of vaseline lotion around with me and I put that on whenever my hands feel dry.

 

[HeatherLynn]

I get eczema in the winters that get so bad my hands are cracked, bleeding and itching. I used to be woken up by it and the only way to stop the itch was to turn the water to scalding and run my hands under it.

I don't know if this would work for you father but my doctor presrcibed me Hydrocortisone, a steroid ( it was called Cortisone-10). It worked wonders and I just had to make sure to wear gloves outside. I also carry a bottle of vaseline lotion around with me and I put that on whenever my hands feel dry.

My dad has had just about everything under the sun prescribed. However, he is like me and we read all those warning labels and then he refuses to use them. So I am always looking for something he will consider safe and give him relief. Its a balancing act. He is 77 and his ways are pretty well set in stone, so I have to work around things. He doesn't have eczema though, my kids do. No clue what actually causes his and the doctor just keeps prescribing stuff and never finds out. I ordered a couple things from swanson that he said he would try. One from burts bees and another by a Dr Christophers? Anywho, he said he would try them and I am just going to hope like heck that they help. I am going to make a salve this weekend though for the kids skin stuff. I really prefer knowing exactly what I put on them, so its better to make my own.

 

[Going Bhonkers]

Shea Butter from bath & body works is really good too