LH 168: Make Healing Herbal Infusions

LH 168: How To Make Simple Infusions for Medicine and Skin Care

In this episode, we explore extracting the best healing properties from some of the common plants and culinary herbs we are likely growing in our own backyards using infusion.

Don’t fret that this is some complicated process, or you don’t have time for it.

Herbal infusions are incredibly easy to make – all you do is infuse fresh or dried herbs in a liquid to draw out the healing properties. And these infusions can be used on their own or as a base for other things such as moisturizing creams or salves.

I brought on author Colleen Codekas to chat about all the different ways we can make infusions and what to do with them after we create them. There’s a recipe for her Flower-Whipped Body Butter you can make at home below. Be sure you don’t miss it!

You will learn:

• The different liquids we can use as our base
• Which liquid base includes extra beneficial bacteria
• What we can create from oil infusions
• Some of the safety considerations when make our own herbal medications
• What is a patch test and why do we do it
• How to make our own flower-whipped body butter
• And SO much more…

Colleen Codekas:

Colleen lives with her husband Joel and their son Sawyer in the beautiful Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon, where they have created a mini permaculture paradise.

Due to her desire to live in the most natural way possible, she began studying herbs and herbal medicine nearly 20 years ago.

Living and working in Yosemite National Park for 10 years, many of those spent in the high elevation paradise of Tuolumne Meadows, solidified a yearning for being surrounded by nature on a daily basis. Learning to correctly identify wild plants, particularly those that were edible and medicinal, became a new hobby while living in the wilderness, and has carried over into her more “traditional” life now.

In recent years, Colleen has completed several herbalism courses through the Herbal Academy and continues to teach people what she knows through her blog Grow Forage Cook Ferment. When she isn’t busy writing for her blog or making things for her Etsy shop, Coco’s Herbals, she likes to go foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants and mushrooms.

She also enjoys hiking, cooking delicious food, drinking wine, making mead, growing a ridiculous amount of herbs and flowers, and making all kinds of herbal goodness in jars.

Flower-Whipped Body Butter Recipe:

Colleen shared her Flower-Whipped Body Butter recipe with us! I know you’ll love it.

To download click the button below.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

Grow, Forage, Cook, Ferment – Colleen’s Website

Healing Herbal Infusions* – Colleen’s New Book

Coco’s Herbals – Colleen’s Etsy Shop

Mountain Rose Herbs – For dried herbs and containers

Filmore Containers – For jars and cosmetic containers

Related Episodes:

Using Fresh Herbs For Flavor & Fragrance

Transcript:

Click here for the full transcript for Episode #168

*denotes an affiliate link