There's a lot of hand washing going on these days. And rightly so! But
if, like me, you've got fairly dry skin even at the best of times, then
chances are that your chapped hands are demanding a lot of moisturizing
right now. I find good hand cream both hard to come by and expensive, so
I started casting around for ideas of how to make my own. I didn't have
to look very far - dandelion salve! Why, yes please.
After spending a morning gathering my dandelion flower heads (don't go too early or they won't have opened - d'oh!!), I spread them out on a clean towel and left them to dry for about 36 hours. They then got covered in two parts olive oil and one part coconut oil. This excellent recipe recommends the additional use of almond oil, which sounds delicious, but alas I didn't have any of that kicking about.
After leaving the oil to infuse for a week and a half, I strained off the dandelion heads, heated the oil in a DIY bain-marie and added beeswax pellets, shea butter and sweet orange essential oil. I followed the recipe pretty closely because I didn't want to take any chances on the consistency... and it came out beautifully! A note on the beeswax - it takes ages to dissolve. Just as I thought I'd done it all wrong and this was never gonna work, the pellets did finally yield to the forces of chemistry. Or was it physics?? Either way, be prepared to stand your ground for a bit.
I'm delighted with my little pots of salve and look forward to pushing them onto unsuspecting friends and relatives. There's a medicinal point to all this, too: dandelion flowers are said to be anti-inflammatory and pain relieving, so apart from making a gorgeous hand moisturizer, this salve should also do the trick for sore muscles and joints. What's not to like!
After leaving the oil to infuse for a week and a half, I strained off the dandelion heads, heated the oil in a DIY bain-marie and added beeswax pellets, shea butter and sweet orange essential oil. I followed the recipe pretty closely because I didn't want to take any chances on the consistency... and it came out beautifully! A note on the beeswax - it takes ages to dissolve. Just as I thought I'd done it all wrong and this was never gonna work, the pellets did finally yield to the forces of chemistry. Or was it physics?? Either way, be prepared to stand your ground for a bit.
I'm delighted with my little pots of salve and look forward to pushing them onto unsuspecting friends and relatives. There's a medicinal point to all this, too: dandelion flowers are said to be anti-inflammatory and pain relieving, so apart from making a gorgeous hand moisturizer, this salve should also do the trick for sore muscles and joints. What's not to like!
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