This liniment works great for poison ivy, bug bites, tick bites and pimples. I have used this liniment for over 30 years because I spend a lot of time outside in the spring and I am highly allergic to black flies, a specialty bug in the Adirondacks. Apply to your bug bites as soon as possible.
I have since learned to combine the liniment with clay. I like to use a type of clay called French Green Clay to make a poultice that is easy to use. You can use any type of clay. Cover the clay/ liniment mixture with a band aid to keep it in place.
For poison ivy I sometimes combine the French Green Clay with oatmeal powder. (Just powder up oatmeal in a blender). It seems to add a soothing action to the poultice mixture.
It is of upmost importance to trick Tick Bugs as soon as possible and leave the linimnet / clay poultice on for several days. The plants and the alcohol and witch hazel extract will draw out the toxins out of the bite.
This summer I manage to get a weird very painful bug bite on one side of my arm and contacted poison ivy on the under side of my arm. I used a combination of a chewed up plantain poultice for the bug bite and used the liniment/clay poultice on the other side.
Take several leaves of plantain and chew them up. The plant is very astringent so you can feel that when you chew it. Your saliva helps hold it into place as you put it on your bites. I alternated the plantain poultice with the clay/ liniment poultice to treat my bite. I found that the plantain poultice worked for the bug bite and the pain and the clay/liniment poultice worked better with the poison ivy. I am all better now!
I once chewed up a lot of the leaves at the same to treat a person who had ran a lawn mower into a yellow jacket nest. She get bit several times and I did a lot of chewing. After a while I had no saliva in my mouth. (I was the only who did the chewing.) We treated her immediately and she was fine.
I hope people will feel comfortable about using plantain poultices because it works so fast and timing is important.
The Plants that draw out impurities:
Sweet Fern is a very common bush in the Adirondacks. I was told about sweet fern by a old logger gentleman who worked up in the Maine woods as a young man. He got poison ivy while logging and was cured by a native american fellow logger who picked sweet fern, stuck it into a tin can with water and put it on the campfire to boil for a while. He was told to put the sweet fern liquid all over his rash. It helped in record time.
Jewelweed grows along streams and in moist areas. It has a orange sap. Use it directly on your poison ivy rash or boil it up and save the juice by freezing in ice cube trays. The name comes from the jewel like look of the leaf if you hold in under water.
Comfrey has a long tradition of being used for all types of skin aliments. It grows very well in all gardens, in fact it grows too well. You use the leaves and the roots.
Plantain is one of the most important plants to know. It has rescued many people in my experience from scary bug bites, bee stings, a piece of hawthorn embedded in a foot, cactus thorns embedded in a hand and much more. It has immense drawing powers. It is usually found everywhere; on lawns and in fields. However it is not found in the deep woods of the Adirondacks where I have needed it on occasion. Thats why I carry this liniment in my first aid kit.
I use equal parts of isopropyl or ethyl alcohol and Witch Hazel extract for the liquid. I cut up the fresh plants and put them in a blender. Depending on the amount of the plants I add enough of the liquid so that it is several inches above the plant material
The liquid is several inches above the plants. I will let this sit for six weeks before I strain out the plant material and store in glass jars.
Recipe:
Tick/Bug Bite Be Gone/Poison Ivy Liniment
Equal Parts: Jewelweed, Plantain, Comfrey, Sweet Fern : Fresh plants.
Chop or blend plants in blender or food processor with 1 part alcohol and 1 part Witch Hazel Extract.
Let sit for 3-6 weeks. Strain out plant material and bottle for use. Label: FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY & the ingredients.
