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First, before you can get to actually making the salve itself you'll need to make a herbal oil infusion. For this you'll need a base oil to work with, personally, I use regular ole' Vegetable Oil because it works great, it's inexpensive and you can pick up a big container of it right at your local grocery store. However, any base oil will work. Most people would prefer more expensive oils, but honestly in my opinion going fancy is overrated. Sunflower oil, olive oil, or grapeseed oil will work great too as a base but they tend to be a little more pricy. Seriously vegetable oil works JUST as good as any other oil on your skin. You want to make sure that you have enough to fill half of a medium-sized saucepan - or enough to fill a mason jar (which is what I store the infused oil in after it's made until I'm ready to make the salve.)
After you have a base ready for your herbal infused oil- next you'll need to make sure you have the herbs. Living in the woods, I try to harvest what I can myself from the plants that grow around in my own backyard. What you can't find by wild harvesting you can find easily enough online to make this. Amazon.com or azuregreen.com are good sources.
Here is a rundown of the herbs I use. I'm including pictures to help you identify certain herbs in case you should want to attempt wild harvesting them yourself. The pictures are to use as a reference guide- *disclaimer* NO pictures in this post belong to me and have only been shared from Google as a means to help you identify certain plants/ dried herbs if you are unfamiliar with them.
Jewelweed: ½ cup stems, leaves, flowers fresh or dried
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These plants like wet woodsy areas, marshes, and bogs. They can usually be found from late spring to early fall growing from 3 to five feet tall at maturity.
The flowers are usually bright orange. The stem when ready to pick should be purplish in color and full of liquid. You can always tell by touching the stem if it's mature because the liquid inside will make it feel squishy.
I normally harvest these around late July to mid-August. If I'm not making a batch of salve "That Day" I dry them out to store for later use. Jewelweed can normally be found in areas where poison ivy, poison sumac, and or poison oak grow. This is because jewelweed is a natural treatment for rashes that can be caused by these poisonous plants. Simply crushing the leaves or stem and rubbing them on the affected skin that was exposed helps soothe the skin. I have found that it also does wonders for rashes in general, especially when teamed up with other plants which is why I always use it in my all-purpose salve.
