Last night my daughter developed a bad case of hives and it prompted me to whip up a batch of anti-itch lotion to go along with her stinging nettle tea. The tea acts as a natural antihistamine to help calm the reaction that triggers hives. This lotion is made from a versatile base that can be adjusted to accommodate different herbal blends to treat different symptoms.
While she sipped the tea I made the lotion. It doesn’t require a lot of ingredients but some of them might be non-staple items in your household; I do recommend having beeswax, coconut oil and vitamin E oil on hand if DIY household products are something you want to make regularly.
The lotion recipe:
For step 1, the idea is to extract some of those anti-itch properties from the oatmeal while cooking off some of the pungency of the vinegar.
On step 2, you’ll be adding the vitamin E to act as an antioxidant (and also just because it’s great for the skin). The essential oils are antibacterial to preserve the lotion. The coconut oil will act as the carrier of the oatmeal-infused apple cider vinegar to make it easier to apply to the skin. The beeswax will emulsify the lotion, keeping it stable.
Step 3 is the process of returning the hot, liquified mixture back to room-temperature and facilitating a smooth transition into a solid state. Without frequent whipping, the oils would seperate and you would have more of a lumpy salve. You want to continually mix air into it as it cools and stiffens. You could do this without the fridge but it would be a much longer process. It’ll look something like this before the first mix:
By the second or third mix, it should start stiffening up and looking more like this:
And once it has completely cooled, it should be a silky smooth and lovely coconut-smelling lotion!
This batch doesn’t look so pretty because I just stuck it in a tupperware bowl I had handy.
The vitamin E really helps to keep the lotion stable for a long period of time. Here’s some calming rose and chickweed lotion (hence the green tinge).I made this last summer for cooling sun-bathed skin. It’s about 9 months old now and is still good as fresh:
I hope you enjoy!
Happy Homesteading Xx
