How to Make Herb Infused Oils

A big thank you to Cory Trusty of Aquarian Bath for sharing such a well informed article with us.

How to make Herb Infused Oils

by Cory Trusty, Aquarian Bath

A herb infused oil is a base oil such as Extra Virgin Olive oil or Coconut oil that has been steeped with freshly wilted or dried herbs. Herb infused oils are fun to make and can be used for many purposes including culinary, for anointing, as body massage oils, for general skin care, or as a base for natural salve, lotion & balm remedies. Infused herbal oils are similar to essential oils in that they contain volatile oils from the herbs used to make the infusion, however the concentration of the volatile oils within an infused oil is significantly lower compared to essential oils. For this reason herb infused oils have a number of advantages for the average person compared to working with pure essential oils. First herb-infused oils are very safe, whereas working with essential oils is relatively dangerous and requires extreme care in regard to storage and dilution. There are many recipes in books and online for using essential oils, which are not particularly safe. Second, herbal infused oils can be made easily in the home with abundant herbs which can be harvested ethically, respectfully and sustainably in your local bioregion. For example, in Central Florida common plants like Southern Plantain, Elderflower, Pine.  Plants that are harvested lovingly and respectfully will generously share their healing magic. This is not something that is quantifiable, though many successful herbalists will tell you that the harvester's intention and interactive relationship with the plants is paramount in medicine making. While the energy of infused oils may appear subtle, the healing plant spirit shines through in herbal infusions in a way that is not quite comparable with essential oils, though preparations made with organic and wild harvested essential oils do have their purpose in providing stronger medicine for more stubborn conditions.


There are a variety of methods for making herb infused oils, and each has its own advantage. They each have in common that fresh wilted or dried herbs are used to make the oil. Generally leaves, flowers, twigs or resins are used. The first method for preparing infused oils is the 'cold' method in which chopped herbs are added to a clean glass jar, filled with oil and left to steep in for a number of days. This method has it's advantage in that no external energy is required to make the oil, however with this method the chance of spoilage increases when using fresh herbs due to the residual water content in the plant material. Also infused oils cannot be made effectively using resins with this method. A second method is the crock pot method. This method is very convenient in that it is self contained, however much care must be taken to ensure that herbs are not overheated and burned. The third method, which I will present here, is the water bath (Bain Marie) or double boiler method. This is the method gives me the best results. Using a water bath herbs are heated slowly in a glass or ceramic container which sits within a larger container of hot water. This method is fast and convenient, there is little chance to overheat the herbs, and there is low likelihood of having residual water in the finished oil. It is important that the oil remains water free, because water-containing preparations are susceptible to bacterial growth.

Materials for Making Infused Oils by the Water Bath Method
~ Electric or gas burner
~ Freshly wilted wild harvested or home grown herbs OR dried wild harvested or organic herbs
~ Stable base oil (preferably organic) appropriate for either culinary or external use depending on your choice of herbs and your plan for the finished oil: Extra Virgin Olive oil, Coconut oil, Fractionated Coconut oil, Jojoba Wax, Sesame oil, Lard. Fractionated Coconut oil and Jojoba wax have an unlimited shelf life. When making body oils, persons with sensitive skin may wish to avoid coconut oil or use it at not more than 50% of your total oil solution.
~ Double boiler which can be made with a small pot and a Pyrex glass container, a mason jar, or other heat resistant glass or ceramic container. Use a glass container than you don't mind recycling if you are working with a resin.
~ Very clean utensils including: spoon or chopstick, knife, funnel, glass storage jar for finished oil, small plate, and cutting board for working with fresh plants.
~Cheese cloth
~Sharpie pen or sticker label & regular pen
~ Vitamin E
~ Pipette
Method
Clean and clear your workspace. Gather all necessary utensils and containers. Clean containers and utensils thoroughly in a dish washing machine or by hand with hot soapy water and a small amount of borax. You may also chose to sterilize utensils in the same way that one would do for canning. Another option is to wipe down utensils with high proof alcohol. Let containers and utensils air dry. Oil containers and utensils must remain free from water throughout the infusion making process.


Gather your herbs. If you are working with dry herbs, then organic or wild harvested are the best choice. Mountain Rose herbs is a good source for dry herbs. For fresh herbs, gather plant material with consideration to the ecosystem from properly identified specimens that are free from blemish and are at least 8 feet away from any roads. The best time to collect herbs is late morning when there is no dew or rainwater on the plant. Collect not more than 10 percent of a wild population of plants.   Depending on your belief system you may wish to ask permission from the plant, explain your intentions, and leave an offering for the plant such as a stone, tobacco, or one of your hairs. Especially for making oils for medicinal purposes it is believed that your oils and medicine will be more potent if you have a good relationship with spirit of the particular plants that you harvest from.  Chop herbs coarsely and let them wilt in the shade for a few hours. Wilting herbs decreases the water content of the herbs.

Fill your clean jar or glass or ceramic container with herbs, then cover with the base oil of your choice. Coconut oil and Extra Virgin Olive oil are my personal favorites. I also use Sesame oil very often. Place your herb-oil container in your water bath and turn on heat to medium-high. Ideally you can cover your herb & oil container partially but not completely with a lid. Next let the herbs infuse in the oil for approximately 1-2 hours. The oil should get warm, but not so warm to burn the skin. You will need to monitor the oil and adjust the temperature. To check the temperature of the oil use your clean spoon or chopstick to drip oil onto your wrist. The oil should feel warmer than your body temperature but not so warm to burn the skin. After testing the temperature place your oily spoon on your clean plate. Be cautious throughout this step not to let water from your boiler to splash up into your herb and oil container. You will know when your oil is becoming ready when it has taken on the color & scent of the herbs. If you have used fresh herbs then you will want to steam off any excess water remaining in the oil before decanting. There are two good ways to check for lingering water in the infused oil when working with fresh herbs. First check the herbs with your spoon, they should have a crisp feel about them. Second, use your lid to completely cover the oil for a minute or two, then look under the lid for condensation. If there is condensation, then continue to infuse the oils with the lid partially covered so that water can steam out of the container. Check again until you are satisfied that the oil is water-free.

Next turn off the heat and remove the oil container from the water bath. Carefully dry the outside of the container and prepare to decant the oil. Place the clean funnel in your clean dry glass storage jar, and line the funnel with a couple of layers of cheese cloth. Pour the oil and spent herbs into the funnel and let strain. When the oil is strained completely, you can squeeze or press the cheesecloth to maximize your oil yield.

If you would like to make a double or triple infused oil then you can repeat steps 3 and 4 with this freshly infused batch of oil.

Double check your infused oil for water if you used fresh herbs. Let the jar of infused oil stand over night. Check the bottom of the jar for water droplets. If there is any water at the bottom of the jar, then you will want to pour the oil into a fresh jar, or pipette out the water droplets.

Storage and shelf life: Now you should have a fresh batch of infused oil that is clear with no remaining leaf or flower pieces. Oils, including infused oils go bad after a time because of oxidation. Rancid oils are oxidized and will have an off scent. To maximize the shelf life of your oils, put it in a container with a small amount of air overhead, keep it cool and dark. Add a small amount of Vitamin E to extend the shelf life of your infused oil.

Suggestions for Herb Infused Oils
Culinary: Oregano, Rosemary, Basil, Mint
General Skin Care: Calendula flowers, Mulberry (Morus alba) leaves, Elderflowers, Plantain leaves
Invigorating Massage oil: Mugwort leaves, Camphor resin, leaves or twigs, Lemongrass, Goldenrod flowers
Congested Chest Massage oil: Camphor resin, leaves or twigs, Lemongrass, Pine twigs & needles, Mint leaves
Anointing oil: Frankincense resin, Myrrh resin, White Sage leaves
Extra strength: double or triple infuse your herbal infused oil
Locally grown: What is growing in your back yard or neighborhood in abundance? Check out a field guide from your local library. There are many medicinal wild weeds, trees, and ornamental plants with culinary or medicinal value that would be great to experiment with.
Natural colorants: Annato seed (below), Alkanet root (see first blog image)

Article by Herbalist and Soap maker Cory Trusty in Daytona Beach.  Visit Cory’s online at twitter, Facebook or Shop at Aquarian Bath.

Copyright 2011 Cory Trusty, Aquarian Bath.  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

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Baby Carrots - Do You Know What You Are Eating?

I'll admit I never gave a second thought to a baby carrot until I read about them in the latest magazine issue of Mary Jane's Farm.  Then I just wanted to gag.  Sure, they are cute.  And yes, I always thought that they were a good alternative to giving kids chips for lunch.  The grocery stores where I live out East have multitudes of them.  Organic, non organic.  And who among us has not munched on them for a "healthy" snack or at the appetizer table?

Baby carrots are not actually "baby" carrots at all.  They are cut down from regular full-grown carrots that have been rejected for size and deformities.  The are not as nutritional as regular carrots because, as we all know, most of the nutritional value of a carrot comes from the skin and the area around it...which is peeled away on a baby carrot.

Since these baby carrots are pre-peeled, they are then soaked in a chlorine solution to kill the bacteria and help preserve that lovely right orange color (that never seems to change, if you stop and think about it).
Unfortunately, this is a standard practice even for organic carrots.

Watch what you are buying.  Read the labels closely and look for "true" organic carrots, those that are grown and harvested as babies.  Better yet, spend and extra 5 minutes in the morning and cut them up yourself for your kid's lunch.  It's less expensive that way too.

This is just another small way to "go green" folks, and improve the quality of your diet as well.

~ diane

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Qigong: An Interview with Joanne Kornoelje (part 2)

-- Yoga and qigong both deal with energetic movement and esoteric issues, but yet they are also quite different. Often people will study yoga for years but have never heard of its counterpart. Can you elaborate on that?--

Actually I think the root yoga and qigong are all about the same thing - keep the energy moving. I again do not have much experience with yoga - although I have been taking a kundalini class now for a couple years. The movements are different, but the intent is the same.

Yoga is more popular than I think qigong will ever be - at least in the foreseeable future. I think part of the issue is that yoga appears more familiar - at least in set-up, and as more people do it, a newcomer loses the trepidation of starting something "weird". To my eye it seems more similar to standard aerobic gym classes with a set of exercises not necessarily joined with a connecting theme. Much of the language going along with the class depends on the instructor - I'm not saying there is no connecting theme, just that the instructor may not be comfortable with talking about it in a certain setting. And it can be that the teacher doesn't know or is not interested in the more "invisible" or esoteric side of the work. That can be the case with qigong as well.

Qigong has only recently gained more momentum in the "fitness" world. T'ai chi was the art most instructors were offering, and that looks much easier than it is. It is a set of moves - a "form", like a karate "kata" that requires practice and understanding of body mechanics for what seem to the onlooker to be very simple moves. My thought is that many people started t'ai chi with interest and high hopes, and assumptions that something that slow had to be quick and easy to learn -- and found out it wasn't so, and dropped out. Instructors could also tend to be teaching in the Chinese style - that is, not explaining what was going on, just expecting the students to do what was told. We, in the US, do not enjoy that lack of information. By the way, this has changed dramatically as more and more senior U.S. instructors have captured students through video, as well as personal instruction. While qigong has come a long way in the media in the last 20 years, it certainly does not have the name recognition yoga does. I don't know why!

-- You mentioned that after you became involved with the Healing Tao that you understood the whole esoteric component connected to the practice. To me, studying that is just as important as the forums and exercises themselves. Can you talk a minute about the esoteric component to qigong?--

I certainly don't want to give the impression I know the "whole esoteric component" of anything! Part of the reason I enjoy t'ai chi and qigong is that it is a never-ending study. As you come to understand something, you realize it opens up a whole new avenue of exploration.

Qigong is rooted in Taoist philosophy. It shares many of the ideas that Buddhism made popular in the west, but differs in one major way. In the Taoist idea, we are here on this planet to BE here, not to try to find an escape. Being here is full of challenges, as we all know. Practicing t'ai chi shows you how to move to deflect the challenges, to relax into the present and stay rooted in yourself. T'ai chi mastery is seen when the energy of an individual is so powerful that just by being in a place, the "vibe" (as we would call it) shifts and productive work can be done.

Qigong is a method to help discover yourself. As your focus and movement slow down, and become deliberate and intentional, so too does your mind, and then ultimately, so too does your spirit. You begin to re-establish contact among these parts of yourself.

As a more specific example, the system in the Healing Tao asserts that each of your five primary Yin organs has a consciousness of its own, and has its own set of attributes, including color, emotion, sound, familiar animal, linkages to the physical body, and more. The meditations encourage You, your mind, to get in touch with your organs, understand them and nudge them to work more as a team than a set of 5 individuals going their own way.

Many people work only with the esoteric side - they get interested in the meditations and never move to the movement piece. I started with movement and got into the meditations. I am sure there are qigong and t'ai chi practitioners who do only movement. There is benefit everywhere - the more focus you bring the more benefit there is.

-- After studying qigong for a while I was inspired to create a series of paintings depicting the theme "Connecting Heaven and Earth". Can you explain about the connection and balance of heaven and earth chi?--

A big feature of the Chinese classics is the balance of Heaven and Earth. Heaven is seen as the male essence, creative, outward oriented. Earth is seen as the female essence, nurturing and inward oriented. In the yin-yang sign, Heaven is the light color, Earth is the dark color. Notice in the yin-yang that within Earth there is the circle of Heaven, and vice-versa. Each has consciousness and desires to move to wholeness. They need each other to reach that state, and the human is introduced as the means to connect them, sort of like a lightning rod that works both ways. In some specific qigong forms we've worked with, the intention is clear. One move is called "Bring Down Heaven Qi", and another is "Bring Up Earth Qi". Without the human to facilitate this, would it be possible? Who knows?

-- Finally, one of the last classes I took from you, you were working on a system of using yoga mudras (hand gestures) and combining them with the qigong healing sounds. It was an interesting process. Can you explain about that a little further? What are the healing sounds and how are they used?--

The healing sounds relate to the 5 organs I mentioned before. The sounds can be used to relieve stress on a certain organ system, sort of like humming to your child to calm it. The sounds are not difficult chants, simply syllables which can be used out loud for physical conditions, or in your thoughts for energetic issues.

There are many physical exercises as well that relate specifically to the organs. A friend of mine, Andrena Bonte, an acupuncturist, had developed a series of mudras which also related to the organs. I thought it would be interesting to put all this together in a series following the organs through their daily active cycle, using physical exercise, mudras, meditation and healing sounds to really get in touch with what's inside us. One of the big ideas (in my mind) in t'ai chi and qigong is that we work from the inside out. In other words, we work on the organs inside us, and the rest will take of itself. This in direct conflict with the normal western approach of getting rid of the flab, or developing muscles, or deliberately stressing the heart through approved cardio activity.

*Joanne Kornoelje is an Associate of the Healing Tao and has been practicing t'ai chi, qigong and meditation for over 20 years. She has taught for over 10 years with students ranging from 9 to 90.

'Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you live it is what makes the difference.'

artwork: "Connecting Heaven and Earth: Through Time" by Diane Fergurson

Part 1 of Interview

Related posts:
From Jing to Qi to Shen:  An Interview with Healer Darren Orr