It’s handy to have a warming liniment in winter time. You can soothe aches and pains, use as a chest rub if you have a cough or cold and use it on stiff necks that we talked about in yesterday’s post.
Today i’ll show you how easy it is to make your own liniment.
First you’ll need a base cream, and secondly your essential oils to make the warming active ingredients.
Once common ingredient used is MENTHOL. Menthol is like a very strong mint – feeling cool when first applied to the skin but then creates an intense burning heat feeling. You don’t need alot of menthol in your rubs, but if you want to create that super strong deep heat feeling then menthol is an ingredient you will want to add.
Menthol crystalises at cooler temperatures..most of Australian indoors it is fine, unless you are making your rub at below ten degrees you should be fine pouring the menthol right from the bottle.
With all of your active ingredients (essential oils) you dont want to use them neat – that is in 100% solution. You need to dilute them – either in cream or oil base.
I would start with 3% active ingredients or less in your mix…you can always add more drops of essential oil or add more base cream/ base oil if needed.
Base oils can be any oil you find in the kitchen – pure ones like Soyabean oil, grapeseed oil, ricebran oil or olive oil are all ok… not “vegetable oil”, but nicer and more expensive oils like Jojoba feel very refined on the skin and it dosen’t have a big oil residue.
The other alternative to your base is a cream.
you could try using a bit of your body moisturiser.
My preference is aqueous cream (a water-cream base you can buy from the chemist). Aqueous cream is much better than sorbiline but you can also use Sorboline cream if you have nothing else.
Next you want to choose some active ingredients.
DONT use all of these at once. 2 or 3 can usually be combined nicely. Remember, essential oils can react with your skin or cause a mild chemical burn if used too much…so start with one or two, try a little on a patch of skin like your forearm for skin sensitivity
Possible Essential oils you can use in a warming liniment:
- wintergreen
- eucalyptus
- tea tree
- dragon’s blood
- lavender
- camphor
When your ready with your mix start with a small container – preferable with a lid. You could save an old face cream container, or lip balm pot to re-use.
With essential oils, 20 drops is roughly 1 ml.
If you have 20g of cream or oil base (20ml) you want about 2-3 ml of essential oils in there. Mix in 1ml at a time, apply a little to the outside of your hand and see how warm it feels.
be careful not to rub your eyes, genitals or areas of open skin with your home made heating balm. After you’ve made your balm you should wash your hand to avoid accidentally toughing your eyes with the essential oils.
Have fun making your own warming balms.
NOTICE: this information is provided in public interest of keeping people healthy as possible. Common sense should always be applied. Too much of anything can be hazardous to health. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or diagnosis by a health practitioner. If you have a health condition, you should check with your health care practitioner before using foods as medicine treatments, if you are in any way unsure about the suitability of the food agents, herbs or recipies for your body. In an medical emergency always contact emergency services, call 000 in Australia.
This article is written by Marie Hopkinson, the Chinese Herbalist & Acupuncturist at Metro Health and Medicine in North Perth. Marie is available for consultation by calling 1300 132 830 or email [email protected]