Tonight I taught the Barony a class on making herbal lip balms. It was my first class, so thanks for taking it easy on me, you all!  I do hope that the balms all got solid. What I brought home looks good, at least.

I mentioned that I would share some links to the resources I used for my supplies.  Here they are.

First, the plastic jars and lids (food grade safe!):
Jars.  17 cents each.  http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=64706
Lids. 8 cents each. http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=33684&catid=683
Of course there's shipping, but those are pretty darned cheap!

If you want to get fancy, these metal tins are darned cute.
http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin7.html Again, food safe! This is important with cosmetics. Lip balm goes on the mouth so it needs to be in a safe container, especially with metal.
Pricing varies, bulk is naturally cheaper, but for just 12 you're looking at $1.31 each. You want 144 of them? Great!  Only 35 cents then, but who really wants THAT many?

These slide top tins are excellent for healing salves and other such ointments!
http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin7k.html
Similar pricing here. 1.10 each for 12 of them but bulk pricing is better.

Oh yeah. If you are really going for bulk, then these are another option. The lid screws on for these metal tins.
http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin7d.html
$62 for 100 so again you'd have to be doing a pretty big project for these.

Whatever container you choose, you don't want it to be more than about a half ounce. Otherwise it starts getting pretty big.

I am so sad that the source I bought the beeswax from is apparently no longer in business. But finding cosmetic grade beeswax should not be too difficult. Heck, finding some nice natural ORGANIC beeswax around the barony should not be too difficult, in fact!  ;-)

For the essential oils: choose something that is a real actual essential oil, not a flavoring. You'll know it's the right one if it's expensive. Unfortunately they're not super cheap!  But, you don't have to buy a huge container, or a large variety. Best choices are peppermint, and citrus ones - orange, lemon, grapefruit. I'm certain there are others but these are my best finds so far.

Extra virgin olive oil is what I used.

Have a peek at this. It's a herbal skin product being sold for $10 and it's almost just like what we made tonight!http://www.massageandskincaresolutions.com/Products.html
So as I mentioned, you can see how versatile this basic formula can really be.  Salves, ointments, balms, so many possibilities.

Hope these links will be useful, and ask me anything about it - if I don't know I'll sure seek for the answer!

~Aranwen
Aranwen@thewillowford.com
https://www.facebook.com/crowshade

Alright!  So I decided I was ready to enter my first A&S project entry at Magna Faire. The project? Plantain oil. It's something I had done, and felt I could document. Now the better way around, as Magdalena pointed out, is the other way around that, and afterwards I totally see why and agree.  In fact I ended up re-doing the project after I started documenting it, just to do some things right.  :-)

So I did pretty good I think for my first! My Laurel, Mistress Alianore, did of course also check it over and give me some pointers which really helped me finish things up right, as well as help me think of direction for next Faire. That combined with my judging commentary will definitely help me carry this project into another entry.

I figured I may as well enter it in both the Magna Faire as well as the regional Faire since I had some good sources documented and I came out with a 24.8/30 and 16/20 :D  I can live with that!

I've spotted a few nifty SCA related ideas I thought I'd wrote down to remember. :D

Fun group + recruiting holiday opportunities:
- Get together in garb and sing traditional carols in outdoor malls or other areas that might encourage such.
- Get together in garb and volunteer to wrap packages at stores.

Nifty gift idea for those with herbal/gardening interest:
Seed cards. Inside it tells all about it.
These could easily be self made.

With the knowledge learned from William Ismead's class, and using the measurement guidelines I found from Jadwiga Zajaczkowa's Making Herbal Preparations, I have successfully put together 3 different flavors of lip balms, and also some healing salves.

Lip Balms
The balms are simple: olive oil, beeswax, and something to flavor it. The oil could be infused, but the flavor comes from essential oil which provides benefits as well as the flavor.

Grapefruit - it's refreshing, stimulating, and even protects damaged skin.
It can cause skin irritation if exposed to constant sunlight after application. There are no other conflicts to note.

Peppermint - freshens breath, relieves painful skin; also nourishes and cools.
The aroma can help alleviate headaches, stress, congestion, athsma, and coughs.

Healing Salves
The salves were also really simple. I decided upon a mix of my infused plantain oil, vitamin E oil, some dried chamomile, and lavender essential oil.
It would be ideal if I had allowed the dried herbs to simmer slowly in the oil for some hours then discard the powdered herb material after all the oil was poured off the top; however I took a different route. I did allow the crushed herb particles several minutes in the warm oil to ensure they were completely saturated. But then I went ahead and stirred them directly into the mixture. This won't hurt a bit but might leave a bit of sediment at the bottom. This is the only real downfall. I did try stirring two of them up after the mixture was cooling but it did not look smooth, pretty, and attractive like the rest so I left well enough alone! ;)  I believe that if the mixture could be slightly cooler before pouring up, the crushed herb particles could be stirred in and they would suspend properly.
So using the dried herbs straight is still a bit of a work in progress.  But I am still pleased with the salves.

Greetings fair readers,

I bring to you today further good tidings upon the virtues of Plantain. I must say that again I have practiced my own medicine. Yesterday while out picking more of these plentiful beneficial "weeds" from the side lawn, I managed to embed a piece of something right directly into my cuticle. Ouch! I couldn't pick it out right away so it got sore. I did remove it but it continued to get sore. So, this would lead me to believe that either the impailer had some type of irritant in it, or that fragments not visible to me are still lodged into the the delicate skin here, at either rate causing the skin to need to push this foreign matter out.

What helps speed this?  Drawing salve. And it's so easy to make!
I put just the direct plantain oil on my finger before bed under a band-aid, since I haven't prepared an ointment from it yet, and the soreness was SIGNIFICANTLY better by morning. :)
This presents the perfect opportunity to share a few notes about the next phase my experiments will be heading in, now that I have completed some balms.

"Once upon a time, a homemade drawing salve formed the cornerstone of a family's first aid chest. Everyone kept drawing salve for use on humans and animals alike. Homemade drawing salve consists of various healing herbs mixed into a beeswax and oil base." --Homemade Drawing Salve

"The purpose of a drawing salve is to rid impurities or small foreign bodies from the skin. Drawing salves are often used to remove splinters, bee stings and the toxins in boils, for example" --eHow

Prepare an infusion of plantain leaves and lavender flowers by placing the clean, dry herbs in a glass jar and filling it with oil. Plantain leaf is the active ingredient in the drawing salve, and lavender is an herbal antiseptic.

The base of your drawing salve can be made from one of two ingredients according to your preference: melted beeswax or melted vegetable shortening. Add 1/2 teaspoon of benzoin to each pint of salve after it has melted. This will act as a natural preservative.

You will blend your oil and base in a separate container. Mix them together well. You'll want the concentration to be about half oil and half wax or shortening. This will allow the salve to set when it cools without being so hard that it is difficult to apply to the skin.

While the salve is still warm and easy to mix you may wish to add a few drops of other beneficial essential oils. After all, this is one of the advantages of preparing your own homemade drawing salve. Add only two to three drops of each oil and mix them well.

After you have put the salve into its final storage container, it will stay fresh for weeks or months. Pay attention to the smell for indications that it has turned rancid. Apply it to the skin as needed by smearing it on the affected area and covering it with a bandage. The salve should work quickly to draw forth the infection, boil or splinter.

In order to submit my Magna Faire project, after talking with Alianore about the project and deciding where I was heading with this, I made the choice to do things in the right order -- not by making something then documenting it, which as Magdalena pointed out can be difficult to get documented properly. I used the documentation to determine what I needed to do with this project in order to really create this as it would have been in Medieval Period, which is really the whole point!  So, I am re-working the oil.

First I picked a nice batch of ribwort from the yard. Next I washed and dried it.

Then I tore it by hand and crushed it to bruise the leaves with a mortar and pestle.
 Then I placed the bruised leaves into a glass jar, NOT pressing them down but just to fill the jar.
(How nice that I picked exactly enough!)
 The last step at this phase is to pour olive oil into the jar, just to cover the leaves. Shake or tap to get the air bubbles out so that all leaves are in all contact with oil. 
 Cap the jar and wait a couple of weeks. You will know it's ready when it smells sort of like pepperoni!

At that point you just strain the oil through a cloth into another vessle, and it's ready for whatever you plan on doing with it next.  And then you will have an herbal infused oilve oil!

The class by William Ismead at Fall Coronation 2011 taught me a simple process to make lip balms. I will be sharing his notes along with my experiment experience with the Barony in a class on Dec 13, so I have practiced said experiment in order to determine the right amount of content per container.

I created some balms last night and here's how it went!

First, you melt the beeswax.

 Next, you pour in the oil and let the mixture warm up, stirring.
 Add in the desired amount of essential oil for scent + flavoring.
*The best oils to use are citrus (lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, grapefruit), peppermint, and we'll see how Clove works out. Not too much or it will numb the lips! ;D

Now, you pour the mixture into the containers. Don't dilly dally around or it will start to cool off and harden in your container! Just re-heat if this occurs.

And that's it! The balms are all done.