Plantain!

[BearMedicineWoman]

Yes, wilting them reduces water content, lessening the chance of spoilage. You don’t want to dry them completely, just wilt them a bit and then they still work fine for an oil…

Your oil sounds lovely, and it’ll probably be fine. The plant matter can definitely add an interesting smell.

Ah, you have been influenced by Susun (a teacher of mine at one time), her instructions are great, to the point and profoundly useful.

As a tangental side note: In my experience, the debate on the two week or six week tincture maceration time is solved simply by understanding that if you use 95% alcohol (everclear or the like) with fresh plants, the cell walls will burst very quickly and your tincture will be finished much more quickly. If, on the other hand, you use fresh plants and a lower proof alcohol (like your normal 40% vodka or brandy), then the process will take longer. You’ll see what I mean, if for instance you make two tinctures of fresh plantain leaves, one with vodka and one with everclear.

I mostly use high proof alcohol and start using my tinctures after two weeks, but leave the plant matter in indefinitely (quite against herbal “rules” but it works for me). You generally need a smaller dose this way too and it tastes strongly of alcohol.

Exceptions are delicate flowers that I want to retain the taste of, like wild roses, where I usually use brandy, with an extra ten percent of alcohol added in… yum.

Too much information perhaps, but I will babble on for hours about plants if left unchecked

[WildeRix]

Too much information perhaps, but I will babble on for hours about plants if left unchecked

Nonsense! Please, babble away. I’ll even make a special board for you if you like called BearMedicineWoman’s Babblings.

Your oil sounds lovely, and it'll probably be fine. The plant matter can definitely add an interesting smell.

I think you’re right. I just need to get used to the smell of plantain, as I don’t know it as well as I know the smell of other plants.

I suspect though, that my wife won’t like the smell. Do you know of any ways that I can perfume the oil without compromising the quality of the oil?

Thanks as well for your comments on my blog about using different oils:

non-industrial (preferably wild, and preferably bear) lard is the best thing for herbal salves, extremely healing for our skin.

Vaseline is a petroleum product, and I don’t like salves made with it at all, and I’ve heard that it goes bad faster too.

If you use olive oil, use high quality extra virgin olive oil for best results. Coconut oil, sesame oil, almond oil are also good alternatives.

If you use lard though, the process if a bit different, and uses a slow heat infusion process.

What makes olive oil the best to work with? What does it bring to the mix that other oils don’t?

Could you describe the slow heat infusion process? I figured that using lard would require a constant source of heat to keep it liquid, but I couldn’t quite imagine how it would work.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom, BearMedicineWoman.

[BearMedicineWoman]

LOL, BearMedicineWoman’s Babblings! That’s kind of like what my blog is, endless plant babblings…

Two options for deoderizing your oil. One, mix it with a more pleasant and equally healing infused oil like White Sage, Mugwort or Lavender. Two, add a few drops of the essential oil of your choice, EOs like lavender increase the healing capabilities as well.

Well, you want certain things from your oil. One is absorbability into human skin. Another is the ability to pull constituents from from the plant. And last but certainly not least you want something that’s going to remain fairly stable rather than going rancid on you right away. Olive oil works really nice for all three things. Seed based oils, as a rule (though there are exceptions), tend to go rancid much more quickly, so flax seed salve just isn’t a really great idea most of the time. Also be sure that whatever oil you use is in the most unrefined state as possible.

For lard, the slow infusion process involves roughly chopping up your plantain and adding it to already melted lard (in a proportion of about 1:2). Now, the ways I’ve learned from native folks involve just throwing the lard and plant matter into a frying pan and heating til the plant matter is crispy. I don’t think it’s optimal to expose the plants to that much heat, so I put it all in a double boiler and simmer on very low heat for several hours (from three to twelve or so) or until the lard has taken on the smell and/or color of the plant, then strain and bottle. The plants will have become a bit crispy by then anyway but they shouldn’t be be brown, or smell like fast food. If you’re doing this with a plant where you want to retain the delicate scent of volatile oils, then you’ll want to do your heating with a lid on your double boiler (otherwise it doesn’t matter, and actually helps the moisture to evaporate).

Hope thats helpful.

[WildeRix]

Two options for deoderizing your oil. One, mix it with a more pleasant and equally healing infused oil like White Sage, Mugwort or Lavender. Two, add a few drops of the essential oil of your choice, EOs like lavender increase the healing capabilities as well.

Wonderful. I was hoping I could do something like that. Thanks for confirming my thoughts. It’s good to know too that I can increase the healing while I make it smell pretty. I’ll probably try the EO method first.

For lard, the slow infusion process involves roughly chopping up your plantain and adding it to already melted lard (in a proportion of about 1:2). Now, the ways I've learned from native folks involve just throwing the lard and plant matter into a frying pan and heating til the plant matter is crispy. I don't think it's optimal to expose the plants to that much heat, so I put it all in a double boiler and simmer on very low heat for several hours (from three to twelve or so) or until the lard has taken on the smell and/or color of the plant, then strain and bottle. The plants will have become a bit crispy by then anyway but they shouldn't be be brown, or smell like fast food. If you're doing this with a plant where you want to retain the delicate scent of volatile oils, then you'll want to do your heating with a lid on your double boiler (otherwise it doesn't matter, and actually helps the moisture to evaporate).

The double boiler method for lard makes perfect sense. So the 1:2 ratio is 1 part plant to 2 parts lard? or vice versa? And are you talking in terms of volume or weight or just eye-balling it?

I thought about using heat to drive away moisture–like rendering lard for pemmican and worried about what that would do to the volatile oils. It’s good to know that using a lid on a heated oil infusion works the same as keeping the oils from escaping a tea.

Hope thats helpful.

Immensely. Thanks!

[BearMedicineWoman]

Yikes, sorry to take so long to reply, I’ve been teaching myself hoarse.

So, yes that would be 1 part plants to 2 parts lard by by weight… but i just eyeball it.