Pine Resin has a long history of use by man for everything from medicine to construction. Here we show you how to make soothing pine resin salve for the skin. Pine resin salve has a lovely fragrance and makes a fab addition to a first aid kit for use on sore and irritated skin.
What is pine resin?
Pine resin is the sticky substance secreted by pine trees when they get damaged. This natural response to injury protects the tree in several ways.
Firstly the resin has antiseptic, astringent, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. These properties both prevent the tree from becoming infected by bacteria and fungus and encourage healing.
Secondly, the stickiness allows the resin to act as a natural adhesive staying put on the wound site.
Finally, tree resin serves as a sealant preventing both moisture loss and damage from burrowing insects.
Pine resin has been used for well over 2000 years to aid wound healing and other skin complaints. And it is still harvested commercially in many parts of the world. There are many different evergreen trees that you can collect resin from, with Pines, Spruce and Firs all being good candidates.
As with all foraging, it is essential to ensure that you correctly identify the tree before collecting. Please note that some of our native evergreen trees in the UK are toxic – Yew, for example.
A note on foraging.
- Only collect and eat wild foods that you are 100% sure you have identified correctly.
- Common sense says that if you entirely strip an area of wild food, you will damage that habitat, so only collect where food is bountiful and take reasonable amounts.
- Be aware of what happens in the area you are harvesting in. Plants near busy roads may be absorbing emissions from vehicles. If nearby fields are sprayed with pesticides, chances are some will also make their way onto wild plants. And if watercourses are polluted, your native plants will drink that water.
How to collect pine resin
Pine trees secrete resin to respond to injury, so commercial producers deliberately wound pine trees to collect their resin. It is, however, easy enough to find enough tree resin for a DIY project such as this pine resin salve without causing further damage to a tree just by keeping your eyes open when out for a walk.
Collecting pine resin is a sticky process. I would advise wearing old clothes and using a container that you keep for the purpose. Pine resin is oil rather than water-soluble, so rubbing some oil into your hands before washing should help with removal.
How to Make Pine Resin Salve
Add an equal amount of oil to the resin you have collected. We used Almond, but Olive Oil works just as well. We ended up with roughly half a cup each of resin and oil.
Pine resin is highly flammable, so it should be melted into the oil gently using a double boiler.
Our double boiler consisted of a glass bowl and saucepan containing barely simmering water.
Please note the glass bowl should sit above the water and be heated by the resulting steam, not touch the water itself.
Simmer very gently until the resin melts. Ours took a good hour to dissolve.
Strain through a fine-mesh strainer or piece of muslin and return to the double boiler.
For every cup of resin/oil mixture, add 1/4 cup of grated beeswax. Gently heat while stirring until the wax has melted, then pour the melted balm into small containers and allow to cool.
Although I have titled this as pine resin salve, we collected our resin from many trees and used a mix of pine and fir.
Pine resin salve uses.
Our resulting ointment has a lovely fragrance and makes a fab addition to our first aid kit for use on sore and irritated skin.
Try applying pine resin salve to cuts and scrapes to take advantage of its antimicrobial properties, or use it as a warming rub for sore muscles and painful joints.
Pine resin salve can also be used as a soothing chest rub if you are feeling congested.
As a bonus, pine resin salve makes a fab fire starter smeared onto cotton wool. It can also be used as an emergency candle with a makeshift wick due to its combustible properties.
1 comment
This was so interesting to read! It’s amazing how much nature does for us, that we don’t use it know about. Thank you so much for your post!