Original Recipe Share: Super Eczema Healing Cream

Picture of finished salve

Okay, so the subject is a bit pretentious I have to admit, but honestly I am super duper proud of this recipe and I will tell you this much.  If you have severe eczema or know someone who does, first get tested for allergies (since that honestly was the first step in helping my son).  Second, try making this salve/creme.  If I had more time and motivation I'd seriously try to market it.  Yes, it is THAT good.

First a disclaimer.  I do not work for the FDA, I'm not evaluated by the FDA and wouldn't even know where to begin if I wanted to be.  I am not a herbalist or a naturpath and the only degree I hold is a marketing degree, so please do not assume by any means I'm an expert in this.  This is just something I've concocted through my own need for something to help my son's eczema and the research I've found through various sources.

Now, here's a list of base ingredients for you and why I used them.

1.  Calendula (aka pot marigold).  

This is the most mild and super moisturizing herb I could find when I researched the heck out of it.  I use it constantly in everything from soaps to salves for us around here.  Heck, I even made it into herb shampoo.  So, yes, I believe highly in this herb :).

2.  Comfrey

One of the most powerful topical healers out there, Comfrey has been known to do everything from help to knit bones to heal bruises faster.  It's a big one found in a lot of natural healing products.  I was sort of skeptical about it's healing properties, to tell the truth, until I used it to make a combo salve with Calendula.  Within a day my son's eczema patches were literally flaking off of his skin that was now healthy underneath.  The one drawback to just a comfrey/calendula salve was that the skin was healing TOO fast and making him itch almost as bad as the eczema did (although, honestly, he did look better without those cracked bleeding patches on him).

3.  Plantain

The best anti-itching herb I've found to date.  This stuff is used as topical application to help itching from things like poison ivy and poison oak, so I figured it was hopefully strong enough to combat the surface itching with eczema.  And it does.  So well so that I'm currently letting a 2 cup batch of plantain oil cure and I'm going to add it to a misting bottle to coat my kiddo when he flares.

4.  St. John's Wort

A good anti-inflammatory herb, I added this in to help with the terrible red irritated spots that just needed something to help reduce inflammation.  And it seems to work, so it's staying in the salve for now :).

And now here's the process to make it...

Step 1:  Make your oils.  Take 1/4 cup of your herb and place in a mason jar and add in 1/2 cup of olive oil to the jar.  Let steep for two weeks, turning a couple of times a week (be sure to label your oils so that you know what they are).

Step 2:  Once your oils are done, strain them through a wire mesh strainer (in the case of comfrey and plantain I'd definitely suggest using some cheese cloth to strain out any tiny bits too).  I then add the now herb infused oils to pint sized mason jars and relabel them so that I have them labeled for later use and be sure to label the BOTTLE and not the top of the jar...if you get your lids confused it can lead to bad things...not that I'd know anything about that or anything *looks off to side and whistles innocently*.  And now we're ready to rock with the actual recipe.

Note:  The recipe calls for a small portion of unrefined shea butter.  This is NOT shea butter lotion or something from the store.  It's like a hard butter consistency.  You can order it through Country Soap Shack on Etsy or other places I'm sure, such as E-bay.  You can also use any butter really...mango butter, cocoa butter (although this would make your salve smell sort of like chocolate), etc.  You can also find  a lot of supplies, such as Calendula at All About Herbs, so don't think you have to order this all online if you don't want to.

Eczema Healing Salve/Creme

• 1/4 cup Calendula Oil
• 1/4 cup Comfrey Oil
• 1/8 cup St. John's Wort Oil
• 1/8 Cup Plantain Oil 
• 1 1/2 TBSP Beeswax pellets or 2 TBSP grated beeswax (I use high quality beeswax bead thingies from Country Soap Shack, so I went with a tablespoon PLUS a little bit extra and that was it for mine.  It resulted in a soft salve once I mixed it up after cooled).
• 1/2 teaspoon (about I just broke off a small chunk that LOOKED to be about 1/2 teaspoon) chunk of shea butter
• 5 to 10 drops lavender essential oil, depending on preference (honestly I go with MAX 5 drops of lavender oil in my salves just because I find it's got a strong scent).
• 2, 1/4 Pint Canning Jars (at least the stuff I made filled up two of them without any extra)

Place infused oils in a double boiler on your stove or in a big microwave safe vessel (I actually use my 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup for this) and add beeswax and shea butter.  Heat over low heat on stovetop until beeswax and shea butter are melted or microwave on high for 1 minute and then in 20 second increments until beeswax and shea butter are melted.  Add your essential oil and mix with a chop stick until well mixed and then pour oil mixture into your canning jars.  Let sit until cooled and if it's got a hard consistency to it, I usually take said chop stick and just mush the crud out of the salve until it's nice and smooth, but this salve turned out very well for me and required little manipulation to get it to turn into a soft and light Vaseline-like consistency.

This is some cool stuff.  It goes on super soft and the shea butter makes the salve just have this soft after-effect on the skin.  I love how it makes my son's skin feels after I apply it and the salve heals the eczema outbreaks super fast.  Now I just need to make an anti-itching tincture to counteract the internal effects of the eczema and I'll be set :).

Here's a picture of my son's foot and ankle 24 hours after I started using this stuff.  Picture the "before" picture being the same leg, but with scabs and some open bleeding from him scratching the skin off the top of his foot...

Even after a severely nasty flair up the last few days, his skin is already doing better and the nasty skin is flaking off.  I'm not easily impressed with salves and cremes, but this stuff, so far anyway, rocks the Casbah!

Wondering where I buy my herbs and stuff so you can make your own?  Well here you go...

• Calendula:  You can purchase this by the pound, but only the full flowers (least that I found) at All About Herbs in Palmer and Wasilla.  The last time I was in there it was 13.00 for a lb bag.  I order mine online through Jen's Enchanted Garden on Etsy right now.  I love that she goes by weight, not volume, so even 1/4 lb is a REALLY nice amount of calendula petals.  AND it's the petals, not the full flower, so you end up with more petals that way :).
• Comfrey, Plantain, St. John's Wort:  I ordered mine through The Bulk Herb Store.  Love that place :).  By the way, 1/2 lb of Plantain?  Will last you forever.  Awesomely huge amount :).
• Shea Butter, Beeswax beads:  Country Soap Shack on Etsy, but I know you can find them other places as well.  I know for sure that the Bulk Herb Store also carries the beeswax.  Country Soap Shack, I've found, just has great quality products and their beeswax is pretty darn cheap (1 lb of the stuff cost me 12.00 shipped and that'll be enough Beeswax to last me a long time :).
• Lavender Essential Oil:  Cheapest place I've found essential oils, now that Fred Meyer stopped carrying them (I miss the sales on those oils *sniff*) is Amazon.com.  In SOME cases, such as Sweet Orange Oil, it seems like All About Herbs isn't too bad, but I've found that even through Marketplace sellers on Amazon AFTER shipping the oils are many times much cheaper than buying them through All About Herbs. 

And there you are folks.  One of the "projects" I've been up to lately.  Enjoy!  I'm off to make pork and sauerkraut for dinner (it's a Polish thing I picked up from my grandma and her husband for luck in the New Year).  Enjoy your evening!

EDIT:  Just a couple of answer to some quick questions I've gotten from people about the instructions.

1)  The olive oil used is just good old olive oil you buy at the store...nothing special about it.  I just buy mine at Costco or Three Bears in the big mondo jug as it's more cost effective.  Olive oil is used because it's like the only oil that naturally doesn't go rancid on you, thus is good for making health and beauty products out of.  It gives you a long shelf life.

2)  When I say, "turn the jar a couple of times a week" I don't mean to turn it over and leave it.  Sorry about that.  If you do that you're going to end up with oil all over your counter as mason jars do NOT vacuum seal unless you can them.  Just swish the contents in the jar enough to get the herbs and oil moving around and then put it right back on the shelf to steep some more :).

3)  YES, if you lose track of time you can steep the herbs and oil indefinitely.  Some people were concerned with the 2 week thing.  That's just a minimum amount of time you're going to want to steep your oils for so that they're effective.  Honestly the St. John's Wort oil and the Calendula oil I'm using right now *coughs* got strained at about a month because I didn't need them right away and lost track of time.  I, like you, am human, so don't sweat it :).

4)  You can mix the salve with metal or wood utensils, yes, but NOT plastic ones unless you want one heck of a oily coating on them.  I use the chop stick to mix because it gets into tight areas without issue and trust me you make salves a couple of times you'll learn to love the chop stick (once you try to stick a teaspoon into a thing of newly formed salve to mush it up and you'll quickly see what I mean :).  Just pick up some throw away sets at your store's sushi counter or ask for a couple of extra pairs the next time you get chinese food.  They come in very handy.

5)  1/4 pint mason jars are found at the grocery store.  You don't have to order them online or anything.  I was in this phase where I thought you needed "lotion" containers and ordered them online.  They were double walled plastic deals and were expensive.  They're nice containers, don't get me wrong, but I didn't like the cost involved, especially after handing out a couple of jars of salve to relatives and realizing I was going to have to reorder them.  I found that you can get 12 1/4 pint mason jars, even in off season pricing, at Fred Meyers for about 10.00, which was a LOT cheaper (I was paying that for 4 of the double walled plastic ones after shipping).  And the nice part about the mason jars if that you won't feel badly if you end up giving a couple away for people to try your new salve.  Just make sure you label your jars (labels come with the jars) so that you know what is in them as beeswax makes pretty much everything turn yellow, so it all tends to start looking the same.

If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me, Facebook the question or post it here (if Blogger will let you :).