Whidbey Boo Boo salve

Ah life! The sunshine, the hard work, the gardening, the playing, the falling down, the fighting for what's right! This salve is for the minor scrapes, cuts, and abrasions that are part of living, and working, and playing, and protesting injustice: part of well-lived lives. Made with local, well-listened-to and loved plants. We make this for ourselves and friends out of plants we listen to and gather—plants that are trusted friends. And, we are all adults here, so please check with a trusted medical professional--and your trusted parental others--before using this with young children. We do have friends with kids who use this with kids of all ages, but best to be cautious with kiddos! 

Improved for 2024: yarrow to the formulation

Ingredients: Abundant, local (gathered and grown by us) calendula (Calendula officinalis), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), dandelion flowers (Taraxacum officinale), purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum), chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla, also called Matricaria recutita or Chamomilla recutita), and windfall black cottonwood buds (Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa) infused into an organic/trusted non-organic olive oil blend, plus local beeswax. The calendula, chamomile, and purple dead nettle were grown here at Ritual Mischief on Whidbey. Some of the dandelion flowers and yarrow were grown here at Ritual Mischief and some were ethically wild gathered on Whidbey in fields where they thrive, well away from roads and poison spraying. The cottonwood buds came from windfall branches after winter windstorms gathered here on Whidbey, from along the East Skagit river on friends' trusted lands, and from Arlington, WA (at our friends' wonderful Mountain Tree Farm). We use local beeswax from Hive Harvest on the Olympic Peninsula, Maya Farm on Whidbey (currently closed), and a tiny bit from Brambleberry in Bellingham, WA.   

Size/container: Food safe, reusable (or recyclable), 2-ounce, metal screw-top tin. If you'd like a larger tin of this, let me know. I can do a 4-ounce tin. See the Packaging page of this website for more details. 

To use: Use a clean, well-washed fingertip to apply a bit of salve to well-cleaned minor cuts, scrapes, and abrasions. One to three times a day, as needed. Cover with a clean bandage when that's helpful. Consult your trusted medical professional (doctor, nurse practitioner, naturopathic physician, clinical herbalist, or medic, for example) for more serious cuts/scrapes/abrasions, or if your skin doesn't heal as expected, and also before using this salve with young children. As with all our products, if your body or their body doesn't like this salve, stop using it. 

What our relationships with local plants bring us! Your experience of the flowers, plants, and tree buds in this salve may be remarkably different from ours: that's the nature of relationships with the living. See medical disclaimer below. And. Here is what our relationships with the local land, plants, and trees (interconnected with our relationships with local wise women and ancestors and global herbalists) in this salve bring to us:

• Calendula - Infused into olive oil, calendula just seems to adore human skin! We lean on this skin healing and tissue and cell repair champ for scrapes, cuts, abrasions, chapped lips, and sometimes mildly sunburned skin. Has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, aka Boo Boo Superpowers. The plant flowers here from June through November, and we also lean on the sun-infused flowers to help us get through gray winter days in our Sunshine oil.
• Dandelion flower - We find the dandelion flower-infused oil that we make to be both calming and mildly pain relieving, similar to lavender in some respects. And there's just something about the sunny disposition of the flowers, their abundance in the face of powerful people/systems trying to get rid of them, and the bright yellow infused oil that is also uplifting to the spirit. Uplifted spirits are useful when you have a boo boo. 
• Yarrow. Yarrow has a long history of helping humans on battlefields. We've leaned on it as ancestors did--to stop bleeding and heal skin wounds and to help with anxiety. We've also used it because the scent keeps many insects away and used the plant to help soothe bug bites and skin conditions such as eczema. Personally, I use it for courage. If I'm about to have a difficult, life-altering conversation, there is usually some yarrow in my pocket, in my hand, or in my tea. I've witnessed a new herbalist accidentally slice her hand open with a sharp knife, deep in the woods with the first aid kit nowhere in sight, and a quick-thinking elder throw yarrow tincture into it and wrap it with a bandana. The hand healed quickly and well. More recently, I've been using yarrow internally via tea to help temper fever and menopause hot flashes and night sweats--but that's not why it's in this salve.
• Purple dead nettle - Another lovely, just-outside-our-doorstep friend that too many overlook as "just a weed." Here we use it for its astringent (skin contracting) and styptic (stop bleeding) properties. It has antimicrobial (anti-bacteria and anti-fungal) properties, too. Thank you, humble and quiet beauty.
• Cottonwood buds - Oh this beautiful powerhouse! Here, after just five seasons of working with them, we can verify what so many other herbalists say (most recently I was reading Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants by Scott Kloos, such a lovely book). Namely, that they reduce swelling, help prevent infection, and promote rapid skin regeneration, which is how they ended up in this salve. In listening to a dozen other herbalists, I'm also convinced that cottonwood bud oil will likely extend the life/shelf life of this salve well out beyond our other salves, but I haven't been making it long enough to know for sure. Here we also use our cottonwood bud-infused oil in blends for joint and muscle pain and carpal tunnel pain and inflammation in other offerings. The scent is unique--sweet, resin-y and amber are the best words I have for it. We’re so blown away by it that we added it to most of our body oil blends as well, and because so many people love it for its scent alone, we make a soap now, too. 
• Chamomile - In this salve, we use chamomile-infused olive oil (not essential oil) because it's gentle (on the plants themselves and on us), and we believe its antimicrobial properties can help reduce the chance of infection. It also contributes a lovely scent to the balm and is calming. Pulled from the garden and infused into olive oil, it is a gentle, trusted, life-long friend. That said, if you're allergic to flowers in the Asteraceae family (chamomile's family), move more cautiously. There is not a lot of chamomile in the balm, but this also may not be the boo boo salve for you. 

Medical Disclaimer: You should probably avoid this salve if you have a known allergy to the Asteraceae family (where chamomile flowers live). And as with all our products, if your body doesn't like the plant, listen to your body. To make well-informed decisions for yourself, seek the guidance of your qualified health provider, such as your medical doctor, nurse practitioner, naturopathic physician, and/or clinical herbalist with questions regarding your medical conditions, dosage information, and possible ingredient interactions with prescription drugs. This is especially important if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking prescription drugs, have a chronic disease or any chronic health concern, if you have allergies, or if you have never touched, worked with, or used products with these plants in them before. The information on this page is for general reference for further exploration and study. It is not intended as a replacement for professional medical advice. See the Medical Disclaimer page of this website for more details.