Oils and Infusions

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Feywer96
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Oils and Infusions

Post#1 » Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:23 am

Oils and Infusions - 'Magicae Oleum Otium'
Monday, 14th March, 2016, 5:54 P.M. by Feywer Folevado

So I'm trying a hand at infusions and oils. Initially this all came from my garden I'm planning, because I'm growing some "witchy herbs", and also, of the interest in flying ointments. I want to teach myself about creating salves, balms, and other herbal preparations (the internet is a most useful resource); so this was a first experiment, in creation of an oil infusion. Which, I should say, doesn't sound too far off from infusing tea.

The day-of, I had rode my bike to a "secret" tree spot at a local park, and after relaxing and getting in tune with the place I started to harvest dandelion yellows. I was walking all throughout the field and singing to the flowers as I picked them, filling a decent-sized ziploc (and running out of breath!) before returning to my spot.

I went to another tree and found it was a sort/type of pine. I was interested in making balm of gilead, but misread 'poplar' as 'popular' and assumed it meant any variety of well-known tree bud, at first. Anyway, because the willow tree I went to firstly was already blooming and too late for it's dense sticky buds (winter time), I decided on making 'oil of pine', and harvested fresh pine-smelling buds from its branches.

I initially started working there, but left after the local winds became too troublesome, turbulent to work in. They even blew my bag to the ground and I lost all my buds! Plus having to run in the wind to catch the bag! I rode home on my bike with a bushel of pine branches fixed to my backpack, arousing glances from passing cars I noticed. At home, I kept on harvesting the buds.

I read online that a majority of time in herbal preparations is spent on chopping/harvesting/cutting/splitting -- plant stuff -- and it's true. I spent a buttload of time simply filling a bag with enough buds I needed in order to continue on with the prep.

Unknown species of Pine (you can see my egg-carton germination things in the bg hehe)
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When I had my buds (don't rinse), I put them in a small pot with olive oil (mine was dollar-store grade (yes, I'm poor), so it's really soybean/olive oil) and 'do on low heat' for at least two hours. The buds turned dark before an hour was up, but our stove apparently is still too hot even on it's lowest setting, so I was constantly checking. I sieved the buds and put the strained oil back into the pot and added more buds of 'lesser quality' (I already used all the best ones) and continued.

The smell was rather planty so I added a small amount of [dried] rosemary in attempt to compensate and make it smell more favourable. That too was done on low heat until it turned colour, and it also was sieved, and put again back into the pot. I added [dried] bay laurel leaves into the oil along with some better buds I managed to find and did once again as well on low, and sieving and also then through a paper towel (I don't have cheesecloth), letting it slow drip. I accumulated into a small measuring cup, and filled ~50ml with the infused oil.

I washed a jar and lid and made it nice and all clean and put the oil into the jar after it cooled fairly, with a label and measure on the side for mark.
I know the properties of balm of gilead is more of a 'general healing' in use; because I do not know what type of pine the buds were from, I cannot determine the properties of the pine within the oil. Bay laurel and rosemary act similarly (obviously not the same), and each generally have a calming, soothing effect. I plan to use this oil as a type of 'base' for more complex preparations.
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