Potent Herbal Oils

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Gain the skills to make powerful healing, hand-crafted medicinal herbal oils and salves at home.

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Get inspired to learn a life skill and take your place in an ancestral practice that belongs to our collective human lineage.

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Embody a practice of intimacy with the natural world that is accessible, sustainable and empowering. 

What you put on your skin matters

Whether it’s topical first aid, healing bites, burns, easing aches and pains, or general skincare, what you apply to and absorb through your largest organ impacts your health. 

Our world is loud with the chaos of synthetic beauty trends, cosmetic intervention, hidden toxins, mystery ingredients lists and misleading marketing.

Making your own herbal oils as the basis for your home first aid, remedy and skin care toolkit can remove the guesswork about what you’re absorbing through your skin.

This can provide a great source of comfort, peace of mind as well as empowerment. 

Whether you are a complete novice, near the beginning of your herbal journey, or are already making herbal infused oils, this workshop can help you create herbal infused oils and salves of exceptional potency, shelf-stability and utility. 

What’s a herbal extracted oil?

A herbal extracted oil uses the medicinal properties within whole-plants for healing to and through the skin.

This is not the same thing as essential oils. Essential oils require expensive distilling equipment and large amounts of raw plant material to separate out the volatile oil compounds of plants.

Whole-plant oils utilise sustainable practices using everyday kitchen tools to maximise the extraction of medicinal properties contained within herbs. These oils can be used as is and/or transformed into salves and balms for:

  • First aid and healing for burns, cuts, wounds, bites, breaks, sprains and bruises

  • General skin care and targeted skin care and healing such as acne, scars, eczema and cold sores

  • Sore muscles, joints and nerve pain

  • Hair and scalp oiling

  • Massage, self-massage, foot oiling and Abhyanga 

  • Ear infections

  • Nasal oiling and sinus tapping

  • Circulation and cycle support

  • Insect repellent

  • Immune support (the skin is an immunological organ!)

  • Breast care and connection

  • Nervous system care, tension headaches and relaxation

  • Oil bath / foot bath

  • Lip balm

  • Moving the lymph/ detoxifying

  • Oil pulling

  • Ritual and ceremony

  • Compress

What you’ll learn

I’m going to teach you the principles and techniques to make high quality herbal oils using simple kitchen equipment. In this workshop we will cover:

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    Dry herb extraction in the folk method, rehydration method, and blender method.

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    How to choose and source the correct carrier oil and plant material for the desired outcome.

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    Turning your herbal oil into a salve.

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    Methods for improving shelf-stability. No more mouldy surprises, rancidity or degrading potency!

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    Techniques on how to use your herbal oils to support overall health and vitality.

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    How to apply the workshop principles to extracting resins such as pine pitch, frankincense, cottonwood and myrrh.

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    How to utilise what you already have so that you can start NOW.

What’s included

The Potent Herbal Oils Workshop

90 minute workshop covering the dry herb folk, rehydration and blender methods of extraction; how to apply the principles of these methods to resins such as pine pitch, frankincense, myrrh and cottonwood; plus transforming herbal oils into a salve. Live workshop is 22 September at 10am aest. Replay is available for those who can’t make it to the live workshop.

Utility & Accessibility

Downloadable guides, charts and cheat sheets covering everything from the step-by-step process’, carrier oil and herb sourcing and selection, salve consistency metrics, application and formula suggestions, and more.

Easeful desktop and mobile access - no need to keep track of emails and attachments. Video replay and written materials will be available in your portal to access any time that suits you. Go at your own pace!

Follow-up Support

A couple of weeks following the workshop when you’ve had time to get your feet wet (or oily), I’ll be contacting all students to collect any questions and issues that have come up as you test out your new skills. I’ll respond to the entire cohort so we can all learn from the collective experience.

Practitioner facilitated
bonus workshops

I want to inspire you to use your herbal oils beyond first aid and injury as a powerful and proactive health and self care tool. You will have access to two separate workshops facilitated by: Ayurvedic practitioner Carmela King who will introduce us to Ayurvedic massage (Abhyanga) and Womb Hara self-massage; and Jemma Balczun who will guide us through techniques for detoxifying and radiance boosting rituals at home, such as how to open up lymphatic pathways and increase circulation so your skin cells can take up fresh nutrients and oxygen.

Why join Potent Herbal Oils?

  • You’ve made herbal oils before and:

    • have low confidence because of a bad experience with your oil getting mouldy, smelling strange, or something just seems not quite right.

    • your herbal oils lack depth of colour/potency.

    • you want to broaden your knowledge to take your herbal oil practice to the next level.

  • You want to stop spending money on expensive, gimmicky or harmful skincare and skin/hair remedy products.

  • You’re trying to reduce your toxic load, suffer with sensitive skin, asthma, or endocrine disruption (all commonly aggravated by common skincare products).

  • You’re motivated to take the care of yourself and family into your own hands in a way the honours and respects nature and her powerful gifts.

  • You’re overwhelmed with choice and craving clarity around where to start.

  • You want to learn from someone who has made all the mistakes already!

  • You crave more than just an information dump - you want to be inspired into ACTION and actually get started.

  • You want to get the fundamentals right before investing in more expensive oils and formulations. 

  • You want to reclaim this powerful home herbal practice and embody the wisdom of our human ancestry. 

✺ FAQ’s  ✺

  • No. This is a life skill that can benefit you and your family in a very practical way. Be warned though - Learning the practice of herbal oil extraction is often a gateway into herbalism (it was for me!)

  • Yes! While I'm focusing on this being accessible to anyone, and therefore basing it out of my kitchen using basic kitchen tools, the principles and techniques can be utilised and scaled for the most potent and shelf stable oils and salves.

  • The dry plant and rehydration methods are perfect for nailing down the fundamentals. It's "easier" to break down the cell walls of dry plant material to extract its medicinal properties. Also, using dry plant material can help you to promote shelf-stability and avoid rancidity and mould in your final product. We will cover all these aspects and more in the workshop.

  • Yes. Carrier oil selection and sourcing will be covered in the workshop itself as well as covered in a printable reference guide.

  • No. To keep this workshop accessible and to allow us to hone in on the core tenants of this powerful extraction method, I'm focusing on infusing dry plant material into stable carrier oils that remain liquid at both cold and warm temperatures.

  • Yes. Sourcing and herb selection will be addressed in the workshop and in your printed resources.

  • There are both live and pre-prepared elements to this offering. You will be notified in advance of all elements of this offering becoming available.

    The Potent Herbal Oils Workshop is scheduled for Sunday 22nd September at 10am AEST.

    The two bonus practitioner facilitated workshops will occur in late October and early November.

Why learn from me?

Hi, I’m Lou - a folk herbalist living on the mid-north coast of Australia on with my young daughter. I believe in the transformative power of whole-plant medicine in the hands of the community. It's my mission to return herbalism to its birthplace - the home. There was a time when home and community herbalism was the norm. I want to be part of a cultural change to make that so again.

Folk herbalism is a living art that can be learnt by anyone. It doesn’t have to be daunting or overly serious. In fact, I think a key element in what can catalyse our culture towards home remedy making is the fun and playful elements where curiosity and discovery takes place. That’s what I want to create for you.

I’ve been selling my herbal oils and salves long enough to prove to my community that once you experience the healing powers of a potent, whole-plant extracted oil, there really is no comparison.

There are plenty of places to get an information dump about all aspects of herbalism and herbal oil crafting. I aim to deliver the information I believe is most useful in a way where you feel supported and inspired to begin or elevate your practice at home now.

This is a life skill that can serve you, your family and your community. It's as empowering as it is practical and economical. There is such freedom and comfort in knowing how to mend and tend our bodies through this craft.

I know for a fact you can learn how to make amazing herbal oils, because I did. I started with zero base knowledge. I was a complete beginner. And now making herbal oils and salves is as normal in my home as doing the laundry. It’s a skill and a practice that will serve me the rest of my life. 

What my oils and salves customers say

  • Tidal oil - 100% magic ... I can't stop smelling it. And it seems to make all cramps immediately disappear. It's been amazing.

    Sara

  • Lou's Scarab Salve is an absolute game changer for bites! I've had two spider bites recently and it's helped the swelling and itching massively.

    Georgina

  • Tonight my husband hurt his finger catching a ball and it was throbbing, bruising and swelled up immediately. I asked him what he needed to help and the first thing he said was "knitbone" referring to your Scarab Slave. My heart was glowing when he said this. Incredible that through sharing plant medicine with hum, that is now his default, instead of Panadol or something similar.

    Simona

  • The Calendula salve is so calming for the rosacea on my cheeks.

    Chloe

  • Your Breather Balm was a life saver for me last night with my unsettled toddler. I had nothing to turn to in the night and it worked a charm.

    Amy

Potent Herbal Oils:

  • Live workshop - 22nd September, 10am aest

  • Lifetime access to workshop replay and all supporting written materials

  • Follow-up support

  • Bonus Ayurvedic and Facial Massage practitioner workshops included.

$110 AUD