Making Infused Herbal Oils

To infuse the herbs into the oil you will need a stainless steel or enamel pot, make sure that the enamel pot has no chips in the pan. You do not want rust to contaminate your oils. You can use 1/4 to 3/4 cup of whole herbs for 16 oz. of oil, this again is really according to how strong you want the herbs to be in the soap, ointment or cream. You can use more if you like.

I have used 3 different methods of making oil infusions. Double Boiler, Direct Heat and Crock Pot. I have found that the Double Boiler works very well because the temp of the mixture is much easier to control and if I have lots to do and want that infusion strong, I can leave it to warm gently and not worry about the herbs burning. And because of this I am getting a much better infusion therefore making my ointments and lotions that I make with them much more healing and wonderful for dry skin, rashes, etc. Because the heat is kept low, the herbs do not fry or over heat which destroys the healing properties on the herbs. The oils come out with a wonderful herbal aroma instead of the cooked burnt herb smell that will happen when using high temperatures. Direct Heat and the Crock Pot also works, but just has to be monitored as the temperature can very greatly. Someone asked if they do not have a Double Boiler, how could they make a double boiler type system. Just take a boiler that is the size you need to hold the herbs and oils and find one that is a bit larger and place water in the bottom boiler and place the smaller one on top. I have 1 pot that I used that way when making Icings and candies and it worked very well until I purchased a Double Boiler.

Place your herbs in the top boiler and cover with the oil. Heat slowly, not going over 130° or so, so as not to fry the herbs or destroy the properties in the herbs. If using Direct Heat or Crock Pot and you don't have a long time to stay with it, heat for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, then set it aside and let it cool to room temp. When you can, reheat for about the same amount of time, allow to steep again. For the Double Boiler method, let the herbs heat on low for a few hours to several hours, do not allow the herbs to fry, but to heat slowly, then allow them to cool a bit and strain them out. Another infusion can be done with any of these methods, using the same herbs or by adding more of the same herbs and replacing the oil that was lost in the first infusion.

To strain them, warm the herbed oil just a bit, just till they are a little warmer then room temp. Then put your gloves on and place the herbs in 3 or 4 layers of cheese cloth or a couple of layers of Muslin Fabric that is cut big enough to gather up around the herbs and squeezing as much oil out of the herb as possible. Add enough oil to make 16 oz. again and add more dried herbs to make a stronger infusion if you wish and do the process again. This will give you a colored oil, light or dark, according to how much herb you use and what herbs are used.

Before adding this to your other fats for the soap, weigh the oil and add back in what was left in the herbs. You can even add a bit of the type of dried herbs that you infused into the oils, in powdered form, into the oils or at trace if you like. Whole herbs or just pulverized herbs, can cause scratching of the skin, so will not be loving to the skin at all. I do prefer to use the powdered herbs by adding them into the warming oils as that gives them a chance to infuse into the oils before I process the whole thing into soap. Yes the powdered herbs are left in.

Source: http://candleandsoap.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=candleandsoap&cdn=homegarden&tm=12&gps=50_42_1020_609&f=00&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=29&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.tlcsoaps.com/oilsused.htm