How to make a burn salve

If you've ever burned yourself you know how miserable it can make you! It hurts, then it itches and all the while it's peeling and flaking and...oh yeah, just what do you put on a burn anyway? Old wives tales range from harmful to hilarious. Cover it with butter, coat it with toothpaste, lick it and wrap cobwebs around it...wait, what? (that ones too weird even for me! Please don't try any of those!) 

There are much better methods for taking care of a burn. You want to cool and soothe the burn and then treat it with something to help it heal and minimize scarring.

I like to have different types of herbal preparations on hand to use whenever I need them but sometimes the need comes up so suddenly and you have to make something on the fly. 

Such was the case when I dropped my curling iron one day. It's one of those turbo heat large barrel irons that gets super duper hot in seconds. One second I was peacefully curling my hair and the next second that hot barrel was bouncing off my shoulder! Ouch! Luckily I had some herbs and other ingredients to make a quick herbal salve.

The first thing to do after getting burned is to cool the burn off. If you can run it under cool water for several minutes that is ideal. If you can't, you can wet a washcloth in cool water and lay it on the burn. I usually keep the cool cloth or water on it until I no longer feel any heat coming from the burn. 

While I'm standing there with a wet washcloth on my burn I grabbed my supplies. Luckily I had lots of dried herbs from summer. I needed coconut oil, dried plantain, dried calendula, beeswax and some lavender essential oil. 

I chose these ingredients because Calendula is excellent for healing skin. Plantain helps to heal minor wounds so well I use it in my 2 ingredient bug bite remedy. Coconut oil has antibacterial and antiviral properties. Lavender essential oil is excellent for burns and has antimicrobial properties. The beeswax helps to firm it all up.

How to make an herbal burn salve

What you'll need:
1 small clean jar. I used a mini Ball jelly jar because they're shallow and easy to reach into.
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 Tbs caledula petals dried
2 Tbs Plantain leaves. Hand crushed coarsely, don't grind. Here's how to identify and dry your own plantain from your yard.
1/2 ounce beeswax (I like these beeswax pastilles instead of the beeswax bars)
Lavender essential oil

I put the coconut oil in a double boiler and turned the heat on medium. I added the dried plantain leaves and calendula and stirred until they were submerged. I let it heat until the oil was very warm (don't let it boil) then turned it down as low as possible and let it stay on warm for about 20 minutes. 

After the time was up I removed it from the heat and strained the herbs out. (you can see how I separate the herbs from the oil in this post) 

I put 1/2 ounce of beeswax in the double boiler while it was straining and let it melt. I didn't actually have to turn the heat on for this, the pan was still warm enough to melt the beeswax. 

If you do have to turn it on, just put it on low for a minute. Once melted I added the herbal oil and about 5 drops of Lavender EO and stirred them together. I poured this into the small mason jar and allowed it to cool before using. 


I applied the salve twice a day until the top layer flaked off on it's own. If you let it dry out it gets itchy. Scratching it makes it bleed so try to not touch it. My burn healed up very nicely within 2 weeks and I don't have a scar or any type of mark at all now. I'm very happy with the results.

I use a similar recipe to make a salve for dry and cracked winter skin if you want to try that one out too: Make Your Own Calendula Skin Salve. I really love making these types of things as I need them. 

The only drawback is that without all the commercial ingredients they don't keep as long as the store bought stuff. I just make small batches as I need them and that way I can customize them with whatever herb I need each time.

~L

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I am not a doctor or other health care professional nor do I claim to be. I am not trained in any medical field. I am simply passing on information that has worked for me. This information is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical condition. see a Dr if you are ill. Click for my full disclaimer.

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