Four Steps to Make a Simple Salve

Dear Oily,

I know it’s important to dilute my essential oils in a carrier oil because I’ve read your post here. But I get really tired of diluting my oils every single time I want to use them. When I come home from the gym, I just want to be able to rub PanAway on my sore muscles without dragging out bottles and jars.

How can I pre-dilute my oils and have them ready to use when I need them?

Please Salve My Problems!

Dear Salve,

This is quite a problem! Who wants to be hunting for the jar of coconut oil every time you want a back rub? We want our oils and we want them now!

Fortunately, I know just the thing for you: a simple salve.

Once you know how to make a simple salve, you’ll never need to be hand mixing your oils on the spot again. You’ll have all sorts of salve jars ready-made and on hand: post workout rubs, sleepy time salves, sexy massage mixtures, and immune supporting ointments!

Don’t worry, “salve” makes it sound fancier and more complicated than it really is. You’re going to blow all your friends away when you tell them you know how to make a salve. They’ll never need to know that all it takes is two ingredients and four simple steps.

2 Ingredients for a Simple Salve

Ingredients

• Coconut Oil
• Essential Oils

That’s it. Now remember, you’re putting this on your skin. It’s a pretty absorbent organ. You probably don’t want to be absorbing icky chemicals and synthetics through it. So pick your coconut oil wisely and only use quality essential oils.

If you don’t like coconut oil, you should probably get your head checked because there’s something wrong with you and then you can just use another solid carrier oil like shea butter.

Equipment

• Glass jar
• Pot
• Stovetop

You want a glass jar to store your salve in because essential oils can eat away at plastic. The pot and stovetop are for melting your coconut oil. No, don’t do that in the microwave. It can do funky stuff to the awesome coconut oil. Melting it on the stovetop should only add a few minutes to the process, but it’ll be well worth it.

4 Steps to Make a Simple Salve

Now that you have all your ingredients together, let’s make a salve!

Method

1. Melt the coconut oil by: filling the pot on the stovetop with a few inches of water; placing the jar of opened coconut oil in the pot; and turning the stove on low until the coconut oil is melted
2. Pour the melted coconut oil into your salve jar
3. Add your essential oils to the melted coconut oil
4. Stir

Done

Note: This is not going to have a very creamy or smooth texture to it. As the temperature changes in your house, this salve will melt or become very hard.

How Much Essential Oil?

You knew it couldn’t be that easy. We still need to determine how much essential oil you’re going to add to your salve!

The degree of dilution can vary greatly depending on: the age of the person using the salve (kids require more dilution), the strength of the essential oil involved, and your goal.

I made a chart to give you some basic guidelines. The rest is up to you!

Ask Oily Tip: Always start with a greater dilution. You can easily add more essential oil into the mix if it’s not strong enough, but it’s a lot harder to fix if you make it too strong the first time.

Like.. a lot harder.

Once you figure your dilution out, you’re ready to go! Don’t forget to impress your friends by showing off your suave salve skills.