8-26-2025

This is one of my favorite herbal “experiments” to date. Pine is the best most smoothing smell to me. It smells like Christmas, though I love it all year long. This salve ended up being silky perfection. I collected the sap in the Sandia mountains over the past year. I would find trees with wounds and only collect sap from beneath the wound so that I wouldn’t interfere with the healing of the tree.

I put the sap, which had been refrigerated, on top of a cheese cloth covering the top of a small glass container. I put the container in boiling water. It was a challenge getting the sap hot enough to melt through the cheese cloth. I added a lid.

Once the debris had been filtered and the sap was melted, I added an equal amount of olive oil. It wasn’t thickening. To get it to thicken up a bit better, add a smidge of melted beeswax. The beeswax needs a higher temperature to melt, so it has to be pre-melted separately before adding it in.

Recipe:

1 part sap

1 part olive oil

1/8 parts beeswax