Infused Herbal Oils

Since I have made SO many friends in the Young Living and Doterra community (NOT), I hope they are continuing to monitor my blog and read other informative posts like this one.  I am all about teaching and education because it really is very easy to make your own natural remedies for the home.  Not for more serious conditions-seriously if you have cancer get your butt to a DOCTOR!  But if you just have a cold going to the doctor is a waste of time.  they really can't do anything for you unless you have a secondary bacterial infection that needs to be treated.

Now as far as our "friends" over at Young Living and DoTerra, there are pros and cons.  I am very happy to see people interested in essential oils and trying to take control of their own health.  BUT essential oils have their limits.  There is NOT an oil for everything and essential oils are NOT interchangeable with the herb.  Besides, only about 5% of plants contain essential oils so why would you cut yourself off from 95% of the healing botanicals available to you?  This makes absolutely no sense to me.  One other thing you should consider is the enormous amount of plant material it takes to make a tiny bit of essential oil.  It takes 15 TONS of rose petals to make one POUND of rose oil.  That's on the extreme end but you get the idea.  Then the rose oil is VERY expensive and if you don't store it properly you run the risk of the oil oxidizing and losing potency.  And the rape of all this plant material can't be good for the environment.

With all that said, I wish more people would learn how to make infused herbal oils.  I'm not going to talk about how to do them but I am going to talk about the benefits and you can look up how to make them on the internet.  Proceed with caution though-I have seen many people post videos on the internet about making infused oils calling them essential oils.  These are 2 completely different things.

Here some advantages to making your own oils:
-There are many healing plants that don't have essential oil like comfrey, plantain, marshmallow, dandelion and nettles.
-You can infuse them in the vegetable oil of your choice, or even lard or animal fat to add to the healing power.
-You will get ALL of the plant constituents in your oil, not just the essential oil
-You can grow many of your own aromatic and non-aromatic plants to make your infused oils
-You can use your infused oils for massage oils, bath oils, as a base for your own creams or salves
-You can still add a little essential oil to your oil to boost healing power
-Using the herb is cheaper than using the essential oil
-It takes less plant material to make an infused herbal oil
-You can capture more elusive scents in an infused oil with some work-think honeysuckle and lilac
-You will get satisfaction you can't imagine from making your own infused herbal oils
-Making them yourself is way cheaper than buying them!
-Many plants can be gathered from the wild or even your own yard

There are some infused oils that I have going at all times for use in my business.  I ALWAYS have a batch of chamomile infusing in olive oil and almond oil to use to make my cold cream-my best seller BTW.  And I always have dried comfrey leaf and lavender flowers infusing in olive oil to make my Rescue cream.  The chamomile oil I make in half gallons and as soon as I strain one batch I start a new one so as soon as I run out I have more ready to go.

In fact, I was inspired to create my cold cream after I made my first batch of chamomile infused oil.  It smelled so sweet that I had to make something special with it and in time my cold cream was born.  This was something quite accidental that now has a very large and loyal following!

So I challenge all essential oil devotees to try to expand your horizons and your healing arsenal!  Give it a try and I promise, you'll never look back.  I love essential oils but I also firmly believe it is NOT healthy to use them for EVERYTHING and I can't imagine not having true herbal remedies in my home.