Comfrey salve

Has anyone done a comfry salve from infused olive oil and beeswax? Do you have to use a wet poultice for it to work, or can a salve do the trick.

I've made a comfrey salve. didn't use it much, but it seemed helpful.

I make and use comfrey beeswax salve. It's definitely a good moisturizer. I can't say whether the comfrey is specifically enhancing the efficacy. But the nice green color at least has some placebo effect

Here you go!
http://frugallysustainable.com/2012/11/how-to-make-a-comfrey-salve-great-for-diaper-rash-first-aid-eczema-burns-and-psoriasis/

Thanks for the quick responses. And Thank You for the link, Amedean. There was lots of useful information there. I guess what I'm trying to get at with my question is that comfry is for "knitting bones" and a salve is applied to the skin. Can it penetrate into the blood stream? I've always been amazed at the qualities of this plant and have always wondered how it works. I guess trying it is the best way to find out, but I was wondering if anyone had some experience with salve for bruises, wounds, etc.

This is a great picture. Have produced an identical salve from bees wax, comfrey infused in olive oil and a few drops of either lemon grass or peppermint oil for scent.

Started using this and giving it to friends and family perhaps two years ago. My wife puts it on her chapped lips every night, and we put it on everything from burns and cuts to age spots. It has been proven highly effective to us.

It leaves the skin feeling especially nice and seems to strengthen and improve the elasticity of skin. Wonderful for back and foot massage.

Highly, highly recommended. The salve alone is effective and no additional fresh poultice is needed.

Easy to make. I fine chop fresh comfrey and then infuse it for at least two weeks in olive oil. Melt wax in a small saucepan of water and add infused oil slowly until one achieve the desired consistency. I think it turns out to be 2-3 parts infused oil to one part bees wax ... or so.

So, a couple weeks ago while cutting brush in my orchard (or possibly while digging wild onions) I somehow got a bunch of poison ivy on my left arm.  A variety of minor eruptions up and down the arm but about four solid square inches in one patch of nasty, sticky, oozing, weepy blisters.

I have some cream (topical antihistamine plus calamine) that helps (a little) drying up the worst of a wet sticky poison ivy rash.  But then it usually scabs up and typically takes a really long time to heal, with angry red itchy scabs that can't heal readily because there's still some residual rash.  

When I got to that stage this year, I remembered hearing a podcast (probably Spirko, before his podcast wandered off into notions on current affairs that make me angry) about making comfrey salve.  I already knew comfrey is powerful medicine for rashes and skin wounds; my mother used a strong comfrey tea to soothe and heal my intolerable chicken poxes when I was a small kid. So I did some Googling and decided to make up a salve real quick and see how it would work.

Started with a bunch of super-fresh comfrey:



Added a few sprigs of rosemary for smell and preservation, would have used about three times as much but this is all I had on the one small rosemary houseplant I babied through the winter.  Plus about an ounce of commercial dried chamomile for extra soothing action:




Chopped the comfrey (actually held the bundle and scissored it straight into the crock with kitchen shears), threw in the other herbs, and added (possibly right after this picture, not sure) a pint of olive oil:



Because the chopped wet/fresh comfrey was mostly still out of the oil, I ran the crock pot on high temp until it wilted the comfrey down in volume, then I turned it to "keep warm", put a vented lid on the crock, and left it for 24 hours.  Then I strained out all the solids:



I put the infused oil back in the crock and added two ounces of beeswax.  Next time I will use just one ounce; the final texture is harder than a salve needs to be.



Once the wax melted down (about half an hour with the crockpot on keep warm, if I recall) I poured the final product through a plastic funnel into four jars.  They are, I think, a one-cup jelly jar, a four ounce pimento jar, a two ounce pimento jar, and a perhaps one ounce tiny jar that jam came in with room service in a fancy hotel.  By my math that means I left 1-3 ounces of oil in the discarded vegetable matter, which is about right; it was oily and I didn't take any steps to press it beyond mashing it with a big spoon.



I put some on my rashed-up scabbed-up arm as soon as it cooled enough to solidify.  By my estimation I would normally have expected to wait a week before that area healed up enough to let go of the scabs.  That was two days ago, plus a few hours.  I'll spare you the gross wound photos (the arm still looks like hell) but the healing has been dramatically faster than expected.  Virtually all the scabbing has dropped and the new skin underneath is pink and healthy, though still very tender -- not the angry red that I would normally expect.  I still have a bunch of outlying red bumps that were late-arriving blisters and the healing has a long way to go, but I am convinced; the comfrey salve is radically speeding the healing process over what I have come to expect from getting poison ivy rash pretty much every year.  I pronounce myself a fan of the stuff.

I do believe that if I had been in less of a hurry, about three days on keep warm would have been better than one day plus a couple hours at higher heat.  But that's something to try for next time.

I should note that we have a SKIP/PEP badge bit for making comfrey salve, if anybody is inclined to do that style of documentation when they try this.  I have avoided the gamified skills-learning-and-documentation thing that people are having so much fun with for a few reasons, but in this case it's really simple: I don't feel like keeping an herbalism journal like an apprentice hedge witch. I'm not disparaging hedge witches, some of my best friends et cetera. It just doesn't feel right for my style of learning, documenting, and remembering.  I'm a set-in-my-ways curmudgeon, me.

This stuff continues to amaze.  Woke up this morning and reached over without thinking to scratch the itchy area and by the time my eyes were open a few seconds later, all the remaining scabs had dropped into a neat little pile on my sheet.  At the end of the day now the tender new skin I mentioned yesterday is almost to normal skin color (though still somewhat tender) and all the angry red outlying bumps have diminished and are now hard to see because their color is trending back toward normal.  I know how long it takes this kind of rash damage to heal on me and this is twice or three times faster than normal.

This thread is really useful!
Here's Bethany's salve:

Handcrafted Comfrey Salve

Bethany, I'm going to offer you some good advice and constructive criticism.  I can tell from your picture that you soaked dried herbs in oil without alcohol.  

You need to moisten your dried herbs with alcohol for a few hours to overnight before putting them in oil.  This opens up the pores of the plant material.  The alcohol will evaporate and there is no concern about mold.  When I make comfrey oil it comes out such a dark green it's almost black.

Kami McBride has an excellent herbal oils program, or you can look up books by the well known herbalist Micheal Moore, who is no longer with us.  

You will get so much more out of your oils by using alcohol first.

Thanks Bonnie! I'll have to try that!

While I agree with the soaking in alcohol first before adding herbs to oil, I don't believe that alone will change the colour of the salve. I follow Kami's technique and it is the blending of the herbs that pulls out the chlorophyll from the plants. The final result changes the colour of salves and oils greatly. This can be a good or bag thing. For instance, when I use Kami's technique to make my calendula infused jojoba oil, I get a very orange face oil, that is not attractive in the least. I have also given my very green salve to someone, who didn't like the green because it stained clothes. So, while I believe Kami's technique results in a superior product, it is not for all.

Bonnie Kuhlman wrote:Bethany, I'm going to offer you some good advice and constructive criticism.  I can tell from your picture that you soaked dried herbs in oil without alcohol.  

You need to moisten your dried herbs with alcohol for a few hours to overnight before putting them in oil.  This opens up the pores of the plant material.  The alcohol will evaporate and there is no concern about mold.  When I make comfrey oil it comes out such a dark green it's almost black.

Kami McBride has an excellent herbal oils program, or you can look up books by the well known herbalist Micheal Moore, who is no longer with us.  

You will get so much more out of your oils by using alcohol first.

Bonnie, Would it be possible for you to post a link to Kami's program?  I searched the net several times using various phrases but nothing comes up with her name. Maybe it's the spelling?   What kind of alcohol is used to soak the herbs? How would you remove it from the final product? I wonder if Bethany's product is more golden because of the yarrow that she adds.  Thanks!

Here's a link to Kami McBride's website. This one is to a specific recipe, but it will give you the opportunity to check out all of her offerings: https://kamimcbride.com/herbal-snack-recipe/

Cathy Fleischmann wrote:While I agree with the soaking in alcohol first before adding herbs to oil, I don't believe that alone will change the colour of the salve. I follow Kami's technique and it is the blending of the herbs that pulls out the chlorophyll from the plants. The final result changes the colour of salves and oils greatly. This can be a good or bag thing. For instance, when I use Kami's technique to make my calendula infused jojoba oil, I get a very orange face oil, that is not attractive in the least. I have also given my very green salve to someone, who didn't like the green because it stained clothes. So, while I believe Kami's technique results in a superior product, it is not for all.

Cathy, I agree the blending is also important.  I didn't take time to give complete instructions.  I still think the alcohol is most important.  Just blending without the alcohol will still not open the plant 'pores' to allow the oil to extract the plant constituents.  

Any oil will stain clothing no matter the color.  Anyone using oils should be aware of this.  

Carla Burke wrote:Here's a link to Kami McBride's website. This one is to a specific recipe, but it will give you the opportunity to check out all of her offerings: https://kamimcbride.com/herbal-snack-recipe/

Thanks for getting that, Carla.  I was unable to get back to her quickly.

Thanks for the link Carla. I cannot take her offered course at this time so if someone could still please explain about the alcohol questions I posted prior...

Denise Cares wrote:Thanks for the link Carla. I cannot take her offered course at this time so if someone could still please explain about the alcohol questions I posted prior...

Hi Carla, the formula is 1 part dried powdered herb to 1/2 part alcohol (vodka is fine), to 7 parts olive oil.  Mix dry herb with alcohol in a wide bowl just to moisten, cover with a towel/cloth, and leave several hours or overnight.  Combine this with the olive oil and blend until it's warm, repeating blending several times, or keep on very low heat for a few hours.  If I'm making a quart or less, I sit this on a mug warmer.  For larger amounts, a crock pot on low works with the lid ajar.

Strain through cheesecloth or flour sack towel, twisting and squeezing to get all the oil out.  I then save the marc in the towel in a plastic bag in the freezer and use it as a poultice.

I make up a salve with comfrey, olive oil and beeswax.

I've just discovered a downside though...

I use it on my disabled, diabetic neighbour's feet. He has to wear support socks, and he needs help to change them and care for his feet so I go around there to assist as needed. Only today I must have used a bit too much salve, or not massaged it in well enough, or maybe we were in too much of a hurry to get the socks back on so he could get on with Doing Stuff. Some of the lotion managed to ooze up through the sock and bead on the surface, and he's had a convoy of bees visiting him for the last few hours removing the lotion, or maybe just reclaiming their wax.

He didn't seem too bothered by the experience but I'm wondering what the best way to handle it is. Apply less lotion? I tend to use plenty as his skin is in need of quite a lot of assistance to keep it even vaguely intact. Maybe massage it in better? Or maybe apply it in the evening then go back in the morning to put the socks on, which would also give the skin on his feet and lower legs more time to breathe? Or should I find an alternative to the wax to use in the lotion?

If they are available, shea butter or cocoa butter could be substituted for the wax as a solidifier for the beeswax.

Alternatively, you may wish to make a batch of infused comfrey oil without wax and keep it in a bottle, it would still have the same beneficial healing properties.

I have never made soap or lotions but understand that animal fat can be used to make creams, perhaps that is another option?

I do that with a couple of mine, and it works out well. If the oil isn't too thin, it's perfect in a roll-on bottle. Doing it this way has the benefit of less dilution, of the comfrey, too.

We’ve made our comfrey sale with plantain leaves added in. We let the leaves wilt on the dining room table before immersing them in olive oil for several days on a low crockpot water bath with the jar lids open to let moisture out. We use beeswax as a stiffening agent. It does stain clothing. It is a great salve to use for sore backs and around wounds.

I read this thread with interest last week.
I have plenty of homegrown comfrey and beeswax, but existential threats don't leave me much headspace for salve-making right now.  
Then on Wednesday I cut my finger open while chopping vegetables and I remembered this thread about comfrey. I went to the garden and picked some and applied it fresh.
The bleeding stopped quickly and a few days later (following more applications of fresh leaf) it has healed very nicely. Considering I have diabetes and wounds can take time to heal for me, this is impressive.
The moral of this story is that if you don't have a chance to make salve, don't forget comfrey works fresh too!

Jay Vinekeeper wrote:

This is a great picture.  Have produced an identical salve from bees wax, comfrey infused in olive oil and a few drops of either lemon grass or peppermint oil for scent.

Started using this and giving it to friends and family perhaps two years ago.  My wife puts it on her chapped lips every night, and we put it on everything from burns and cuts to age spots.  It has been proven highly effective to us.  

It leaves the skin feeling especially nice and seems to strengthen and improve the elasticity of skin.  Wonderful for back and foot massage.

Highly, highly recommended.  The salve alone is effective and no additional fresh poultice is needed.

Easy to make.  I fine chop fresh comfrey and then infuse it for at least two weeks in olive oil.  Melt wax in a small saucepan of water and add infused oil slowly until one achieve the desired consistency.  I think it turns out to be 2-3 parts infused oil to one part bees wax ... or so.

Thank you for the recipe, Jay. Looks great. I make fertilizer for all of my plants out of nettle and comfrey.