Hyssop infused oil & bath salts

Summer's end, the time of year when the garden is on her way out, the in-between time of summer's glory and the awaiting of fall, medicine making time. This week the girls and I infused three different oils, calendula, chamomile & hyssop. We made bath salts that we have already almost worked through, and we also made a new salve with the infused oils to last us through winter. 

Hyssop is a stunning herb for the flower garden with deliciously sweet anise flavored leaves the kids love to munch. Medicinally, hyssop is an antiseptic & antibacterial which helps heal wounds, sooth burns and skin inflammation while aromatically calming, encouraging relaxation. 

For infused oil, it can be tricky, but with a wee bit of reading I will hopefully help you avoid a few easy mistakes that can happen. 

There are dry herbs, like lavender, rosemary, yarrow. And there are wet herbs, like calendula, comfrey, chamomile, leafy greens. You can use the dry herbs for a fresh oil infusion without drying them and your oil will not go rancid, but with the more moist herbs you must dry them before combining with oil or the moisture from the herb will ruin the oil causing it to become rancid. For hyssop, the flower is dryer, but because I'm using the leaves, we dried them before infusing. 

Harvest your herbs after the sun has dried morning dew from the leaves and flowers.

For Hyssop, we used leaf and flower, dried and blended. I use a bullet to infuse the oil by placing both the herb and oil in the bullet and blending it for a few seconds every day for two days. 

Use 1oz dried herb to 7 oz of oil, so if I had 2 oz of herb I would do 14 oz of oil...

Measure and blend your dried herb and then pour the oil over. 

After two days decant over a jar with a funnel and fine woven muslin.

Now for the salts...

Place all the dried ingredients in a very large bowl, break up any lumps as you go. 

Blend up dried hyssop before adding.

If your sea salt or oatmeal is not finely ground, blend that up in the bullet as well before adding.

Then lastly pour the infused oil over the salts and incorporate it till it's all an even, lovely pale green color. I like the subtle scent of the infused oil and ground herb, but if you desire a stronger fragrance you can add essential oils. Store in a half gallon mason jar with lid or separate it into smaller jars as gifts. 

We use this on wet skin as a scrub and add a large scoop to the bath water.

Enjoy!

Store your leftover infused oil in a jar and in a cool dark place. Salve tutorial is coming up next so reserve a cup of oil for that! p.s. how delicious would a salad dressing be using this hyssop oil...or rosemary!

Resources:

I buy my olive oil, sea salt & epsom salt from Azure

Jars, cheese cloth