Homemade pain salve

vickeym

Finally got around to making my arnica oil salve. Have has it infusing for over 2 months now. Melted down my beeswax (Thank you to my cousin and his bees for providing me with plenty,) mixed with my oil and poured about half of it into small pots. Have been wanting to try a stick style for ease of application. Just happened to work out I had an empty deodorant tube, so I washed it good with soap and very warm water. Made sure I got all the remaining bits of deodorant out and got it good and clean.

Had not realized the base had holes in it. Took some of the cooled oil and wax mixture and coated the base with it. Turned it down into the tube and used a spatula to scoop more into it then finally poured some of the cooler mix into the tube. Doesn't appear to be leaking out into the bottom. I hope anyway.

Was wopndering if anyone had any experience using this style of twist tube and how you fill it without having the melted liquid leak out all over.

Tave

Nice! I might get some arnica and try that. The way you did it is how I do it. I let the mixture cool until it's the texture of pudding or a thick cake batter, then I spoon it into the tube. After that, it goes in the refrigerator so it doesn't melt in the heat. That also gives the added benefit of being cool if applying it to inflammation.

Torey

@vickeym This is a link to the company I get my tubes from. It is Canadian but they have US and International shipping. I use the jumbo lip balm tubes on this page (part way down). They work well for travel size. They have other larger deodorant tubes that probably don't have the holes in the bottom. https://voyageursoapandcandleusa.com/collections/cosmetic-packaging?filter=lip-balm-tubes

Even if you decide to find another US company, this will give you an idea of the sizes of containers available. Check out the whole site. They have a huge assortment of products including soap & candling making supplies, cosmetic kits and aromatherapy supplies.

Ferg

Here in the US, I really like sks-bottle.com for my push up tubes. They have good prices compared to some of the other vendors out there.

vickeym

Thank you all for the information. I will definitely look into these companies. As I get deeper into herbal remedies and learning as well as trying more things this will help a lot.

ltwickey

Great ideas! Thank you all. I have not tried making a tube of salve. I use tins and dip my fingers in to spread on affected area.

tomandcara

@vickeym When my wife made lip balm using the twist tube, she just poured the hot liquid mixture in and the tubes we had did not leak. This was a number of years ago and I cannot tell you where we got the tubes,

KimMullen

Great information! I will have to try this.

karenjanicki

I think that's a great idea! Thank you for sharing that. I'd like to give that a try with dandelion salve.

dipat2005

This is a great conversation about salves. I have never made any but I am interested.

annbeck62

@torey @Ferg thanks for the container source suggestions. Post covid my go-to source no longer sells small orders so I've been needing a new source. Will check both websites out.

monica197

Sounds like that would be very easy to apply - once you got your process down, I could see how extending the scope to include lip balms and cuticle creams could also be equally easy to apply. Let us know what you find out and when you did! Thank you for sharing.