Making your own herbal tinctures is one way to really connect to herbs, make exactly what you want, and save money. If you want to make extracts without using alcohol for example, you can use apple cider vinegar or vegetable glycerine instead. You can blend several different herbs together in the tincture, or just extract one herb at a time. In the video below I just use St. John’s Wort in alcohol for the demo. For more information about natural anti-depressants and anti-anxiety herbs, check out this previous post on nervines. Be sure to label your jars with as much information as possible and maybe even write in a notebook or on a calendar what you did and when you need to do the next part. There are different schools of thought about how long a tincture needs to cure, but most medicine-makers agree that a moon cycle is an appropriate amount of time, so about 4 weeks. (That is why I have the moon information on my label.) The next step will be straining the herbs out of the liquid into dark glass dropper bottles at which point the tincture will be ready to be used. That will be in part 2, in about in a month from now, so stay tuned, and while you are at it, why not make an herbal oil as well…
Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.