How To Make A Black Drawing Salve At Home

by Justin K

The truth is that when disaster strikes having enough food is one of the easier problems to solve. It is simply a matter of storage. But staying alive involves more than just having enough food. Inevitably, even if your belly is full, you are going to get sick or have an accident and injure yourself.

While we normally just head over to a doctor or the local pharmacy for care and medicine, if SHTF you will probably not have access to either. Depending on your disposition you may, or may not, be inclined to believe in herbal remedies but again when SHTF, you are going to have to be flexible.

Remember even the most modern pharmaceuticals originally came from ingredients you can find in nature. The line between herbal remedies and modern drugs is not clear cut and many of the latter owe a lot to the former.

Medical Issues

If you are planning for survival, one of the most common medical issues you should keep in mind is infections. They can appear in a variety of different wounds from boils, to cuts, to even tick bites.

Infections are caused by micro-organisms entering our body, usually through openings in the surface of our skin. Most infections can be prevented by good hygiene.

Simply cleaning cuts and covering them quickly normally allows your body to heal itself without complications. However, if the implement that cuts you is dirty itself or if you don’t keep the wound clean afterwards then you are likely to be vulnerable to infection.

This can be a big problem not only because it will prevent the wound from healing but also because the infection can spread throughout your body causing fevers and other problems that eventually could kill you if left untreated. What started out as a small cut can end in disaster.

Normally infections can be dealt with using topical antibiotic creams available at a pharmacy or by using antibiotics prescribed by a doctor that you ingest either orally or through an IV.

However, when SHTF you will be very lucky if you have access to either of these and simply stockpiling medicines is not as easy as you think. Many of them have surprisingly short shelf lives and are vulnerable to spoilage if not stored properly.

The Black Drawing Salve

Being able to store, and assemble a variety of different medicines from base ingredients is, therefore, an advantage. One of the best creams, or salves, as they are sometimes called, to fight infections in wounds, is the “Black Drawing Salve.”

It’s called black because of the charcoal used in it and the word “drawing” refers to its job, i.e. to “draw out” the infection from wounds it is applied to.

The Black Drawing Salve can be used to neutralize toxins and ease out splinters and other foreign objects that find their way under your skin. This salve can also help you survive by reducing inflammation from cactus spines, embedded glass shards, bee stings, tick bites, spider bites, thorns, and even ingrown hairs.

Find the ingredients and the recipe below. Most of these ingredients also have multiple other uses for survivalists and preppers which I mention briefly.

Charcoal

Charcoal is an amazing product, useful for so many things from cooking, to toothpaste, to filtering water, and yes to making salves. For a salve the role of the charcoal is to act as a “drawing agent” i.e. it absorbs harmful bacteria from your wound.

Herbal Infused Oil

This is where you can customize your salve. Different herbs serve different purposes. For this one, used to aid the healing of a cut, I prefer St. John;s Wort. It is easy to come by and also helps with pain alleviation. You can use other herbal oils as well such as comfrey infused oil.

Medicines aren’t cheap at all, and they’re not getting any cheaper. In fact, prices have only gone up. Think about how much you spent last time you visited a pharmacy with a health issue!
And that is just for alleviating the symptoms, not curing the health problem. By contrast, a natural approach often costs next to nothing.
I want this book to empower regular people to take their health into their own hands and save some of that money, effort, and pain… at an affordable price. Get your physical copy of The Holistic Guide to Wellness: Herbal Protocols for Common Ailments HERE

Castor Oil

Castor Oil is another one of those multi-use items that every prepper medicine cabinet should have. It is made from pressing castor beans and if ingested is great for constipation. In the black salve, the castor oil has antimicrobial properties when applied topically.

Beeswax

Beeswax has antimicrobial properties and acts as a binder for this salve, helping all of the other ingredients to mix together well. Of course for preppers and survivalists beeswax has tons of other uses, you can make candles from it, preserve wood with it and even use it to seal up food.

Bentonite Clay

Bentonite Clay comes from the weathering of volcanic rock usually by seawater. It works with the charcoal in the salve to draw out bacteria. It is also one of those many-use items and has, amongst other things, been eaten for hundreds of years as a digestive.

For survivalists, bentonite clay is full of essential minerals that your body needs to function properly, such as iron, zinc, and calcium.

Essential Oils

If you want to add other essential oils to the salve you can do so. Lavender oil or clove oil can give it a pleasant smell. Not essential but why not smell good while you are healing?

Ingredient Ratios

So depending on how much you are making you will use different amounts of each ingredient of course. The key is the ratios.

Below are the amounts of each ingredient I use to make a little over half a cup of salve. If you want to make more or less you can just make sure you keep the ratios the same.

• 1/3 cup herbal infused oil (Again I use St. John’s Wort)
• 1 tablespoon Castor oil
• 1 tablespoon activated charcoal
• one tablespoon bentonite clay
• 3 teaspoons of beeswax
• 10-20 drops of your choice of essential oil

How To Combine The Ingredients into The Salve

Step 1

Put your herbal infused oil, castor oil, and beeswax into a double boiler. Any double boiler system will work.

The goal is to melt the beeswax into the oils. Once that is done, take it off the heat.

Step 2

Next add the charcoal and clay and mix thoroughly.

Step 3

Add your drops of essential oil and again mix thoroughly.

Step 4

Pour the salve mixture into a glass jar. Allow it to set.

It will harden up naturally on its own as the beeswax cools and the oils are absorbed by the charcoal and clay.

This salve has a good shelf life if stored in a cool dry location but it is probably best not to make too much of it at any one time.

Think about how accident-prone you, and those depending on you, are and make enough to last for six months. 

If a crisis does hit, as it has a few times in history, and our modern medical system goes off-line, this book can help you take care of your own health at home when doctors and medicines may not be available anymore. 

Hopefully, you won’t need too much but it’s always best to be prepared!