Make pine salve from local trees. It is a traditional drawing salve, that draws infections, slivers, and inflammation out of the body. Pine salve reduces pain and swelling, helping the body heal itself.
Pine (Pinus sp.) is an incredible gift.ย It is rich in woodsy essential oils and resins. Sometimes in North America, we look to the traditional healing remedies from Europe and the Middle East and ignore the ones that God gave us here.ย Myrrh and frankincense are lovely and expensive.ย Pine is free and just as beneficial for us as these more exotic plants.
You might find pine salve also called pine tar, pine tar salve, pine pitch salve, pine resin salve. Itโs all the same product. This salve is dark and wonderfully aromatic. It can be used safely on humans as well as animals.
Pine trees produce sticky pine resin as a protective response to injury, insect assault, and fungal or bacterial stress.ย Look for the sticky pitch where there are broken branches or pine beetle assault.ย You may find beetle larvae encased in the pine pitch.
Collecting Pine Pitch to Render Oleoresin
Gather the raw resin from pine trees anytime from early spring until fall. You’ll find that spring resin is soft and sticky. It will harden as the season wears on. Soft resin is stickier to the touch but it renders more quickly.ย If you get sticky resin where you donโt want it, you can remove it with oil and soap. The harder, seasoned resin is drier to the touch and will take a little longer to render. Gather about 2 or 3 cups of resin to make 1 cup of rendered oleoresin.
The jars you use to render pine resin should be reserved for your yearly process of rendering pine resin. I use heavy glass jars with lids for this, but do not waste my best canning jars. The jars will be pretty sticky when you are done. I use empty glass peanut butter jars to render mine. Choose a glass jar with a lid and donโt use plastic. Even a tin will do if it has a lid.
When you are out collecting, fill the glass jars with pine resin and place the lid on to hold in the terpinene vapours. You want the medicinal benefits of the terpinenes in your oleoresin. This is not the same as the turpentine that you buy at the paint store, which is a simulated product created from petroleum.
When you collect the oleoresin, use a knife to make it easier to get the resin in.ย ย I never take all the resin from any one spot on the tree, just the outer part of the resin, leaving the inner resin to suffocate the bugs or heal the breach in the integrity of the treeโs bark.
Once the pine resin is enclosed in the jar, you can use your slow cooker or double boiler to render the pine resin without fear of making a sticky mess on your other cookware.
Removing Pine Pitch from Unwanted Places
When you get home you can clean your hands and your knife with vegetable oil or tallow to get the sticky resin off. If you get sticky resin where you donโt want it, you can remove it with oil and soap. Rub with liquid oil till you feel the resin dissolve and then follow up with a squirt of soap or dish detergent.ย It will all wash away.
Alcohol will remove the resin from your clothes with a little scrubbing.ย The follow up with a squirt of detergent.ย It takes a bit more work to get pine resin off of clothes than off of hands.
If you get your fingers sticky with the resin while in the field, the powdery yeast on the bark of aspen trees will help remove the tackiness from your fingers.
How to Make Pine Salve
Pine salve is a traditional drawing salve, that draws infections, slivers, and inflammation out of the body.ย It reduces pain and swelling, helping the body heal itself.ย One way it works is by increasing peripheral circulation by counter-irritation.ย While you could make pure pine salve with just pine oleoresin, beeswax, and oil, this recipe uses infused oils to work synergistically reducing pain and inflammation.
Pine is broadly antimicrobial. It is warming, stimulating, and increases blood flow.ย It is valuable as a chest rub for chest congestion. It can help with localized pain, inflammation, and infection. Itโs also beneficial for old injuries and chronic inflammation.ย It is safe to take internally for sore throat and congestion.
How to Make Pine Pitch Salve
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 12 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours + 12 hours
- Yield: 14 ounces 1x
Description
Pine salve is a traditional drawing salve, that draws infections, slivers, and inflammation out of the body.ย It reduces pain and swelling, helping the body heal itself.
Ingredients
- ยฝ cup Pine oleoresin, rendered
- ยผ cup Beeswax, melted
- ยผ cup Calendula infused oil
- 2 tbsp. St. Johnโs Wort infused oil
- 2 tbsp. comfrey leaf infused oil
- ยฝ cup of a mixture of Yarrow, self-heal, chickweed, and plantain in an infused oil
- 20 drops tea tree essential oil
- 20 drops frankincense essential oil
Instructions
- Render the pine oleoresin by placing the jars you collected in your slow cooker. Fill halfway with water and turn it on medium heat. Simmer the water in the slow cooker, leaving the jars to render overnight or as long as necessary to turn the pine resin to liquid. Any crud and bugs in the resin will sink to the bottom of the jar. The clean pine oleoresin will be on top.
- Pour the clean oleoresin into another strong glass jar, being careful to only transfer the clean oleoresin. Leave any crud in the original collecting jar and set it aside. You can render more raw pine resin in that same jar.
- In the new jar that has the cleaned and rendered oleoresin, add the beeswax and infused oils. Place the jar back in the slow cooker or another double boiler, and simmer on low heat until the beeswax melts. Stir everything well so that the consistency of the salve is uniform. Remove from the heat.
- Add the essential oils, stirring until you can no longer see it. Pour the pine pitch salve into tins or glass jars with a wide mouth opening. Label and date.
Pine Pitch Salve
Yield: 14 ounces in total.ย You’ll get 3 x 4-ounce tins, plus one 2 ounce tin for travel.
Ingredients:
- ยฝ cup Pine oleoresin, rendered
- ยผ cup Beeswax, melted
- ยผ cup Calendula infused oil
- 2 tbsp. St. Johnโs Wort infused oil
- 2 tbsp. Comfrey Leaf infused oil
- ยฝ cup of a mixture of Yarrow, self-heal, chickweed, and plantain in an infused oil
- 20 drops tea tree essential oil
- 20 drops frankincense essential oil
Method:
- Render the pine oleoresin by placing the jars you collected in your slow cooker. Fill halfway with water and turn it on medium heat. Simmer the water in the slow cooker, leaving the jars to render overnight or as long as necessary to turn the pine resin to liquid. Any crud and bugs in the resin will sink to the bottom of the jar. The clean pine oleoresin will be on top.
- Pour the clean oleoresin into another strong glass jar, being careful to only transfer the clean oleoresin. Leave any crud in the original collecting jar and set it aside. You can render more raw pine resin in that same jar.
- In the new jar that has the cleaned and rendered oleoresin, add the beeswax and infused oils. Place the jar back in the slow cooker or another double boiler, and simmer on low heat until the beeswax melts. Stir everything well so that the consistency of the salve is uniform. Remove from the heat.
- Add the essential oils, stirring until you can no longer see it. Pour the pine pitch salve into tins or glass jars with a wide mouth opening. Label and date.
How to Use Pine Salve
The aroma of this salve is wonderful even without the essential oils. You can leave them out without harming the beneficial effects of the salve.
Use pine pitch salve on painful joints, cuts, abrasions, or swollen injuries. You can use it as a chest rub or an inhalant for chest congestion. Some folks even use it as a lip balm.
Itโs a little sticky going on but it is quickly absorbed by the skin and the stickiness goes away in just a few minutes.
Other Gifts of the Pine Tree from Joybilee Farm
Harvesting Pine Tree for Medicinals
How to Make Pine Needle Tea for Vitamin C and Wellness
What If I Told You Your Christmas Tree Was More than Just a Decoration?
DIY Pine Forest Lotion Bar Recipe
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Hey, great recipe, got my first batch simmering away. Would just like to state that contrary to the first part of the article, pine pitch, pine resin, pine sap & pine tar are all totally differen products.
Pine tar & pitch are the most processed and refined. Tar is made by heating up pine to high temperatures without burning it (in an airtight metal container, for example) which causes it to release the gooey, medicinal goodness inside and renders the solids as charcoal. Tar is collected through holes poked in the bottom of the vessel. Pine pitch is a solid made by drawing all the moisture out of pine tar. Both are highly medicinal, the latter can also be used for making torches and other things.
Pine sap is the fresh sticky goodness secreted from living pine wood. Resin is sap that’s hardened. Pitch and resin are often used interchangeably.
I’m definitely gonna try this, or some variations on it, at least.
One question: is cleaned resin really the same as pine tar? I was under the impression that pine tar was a different product, extracted by pyrolysis from fatwood and used often as a waterproofing and preservative, among other things (medicinal included).
Yep, pine tar is different than pine resin.
Thank you so much for the thorough information and inspiration!
(1) Is there a good way to filter out the debris from the pine resin?
I melted the pine pitch using the double boiler method with a glass jar. It was so thick with debris still intertwine in the melted pine resin that I could not separate the pine resin from the debris. I tried using cotton fabric to filter the resin and it was very messy and I lost some resin in the process. I end up adding olive oil in attempt to make the thin the resin in hoping to make it easier to filter. It was too difficult.
(2) Do we lose some of the essential oil if heating the resin for a long time?
I had to heat the resin for a long time for it to melt and also when adding the bees wax.
Thank you again for the inspiration!
Wouldn’t adding the comfrey prevent you from using this on open wounds? All of the other ingredients lend themselves to a good first aid salve, but the comfrey kind if limits the uses, doesn’t it?
This is a valid concern and something I should have put more thought into when I was making mine. I was super busy and had an alarm ringing in the back of my head telling me not to use comfrey oil but I couldn’t quite remember why.
The risk you’re referring to is comfrey causing deeper wounds to heal from the outside first, trapping the infection inside, right? I suppose it would vary on a case to case basis. Ideally the drawing action would be powerful enough to expose the infection for bacteriocide before the wound was healed over, but that might not always happen.
Hi there, I made a balm from the pine needles (i took small branches) cooked in the olive oil, I put also rosemary and a bit of thymus. I cooked it for two hours and got nice green liquid balm. But when I put it in the jar and it cooled off.. what I got is balm uper half, and brown liquid lower half. Does somebody knows what is this brown liquid? I can send a picture or video on mail if needed.. Thanks
Thanks Joybileefram thatโs great now I can make a full batch it was also very hard just to get the small clear layer on top separated as chilling mixed them again then rendering again made more or less all of it clear
Itโs just that you said 3 cups of pine resin makes one cup of pine olseresin
Thanks again
Hi just made some pine Oleoresin and I see that there is a lot of white sap stuff left in ThE bottom of the jar about a 3rd what can I use this for? soaps etc? Or natural pesticides? And would it be called gum terpentine and gum rosin
Thanks great recipe
It is pine sap. All of it should dissolve in olive oil except the debris.
So any pine sap that smells good can be used? In new england i cant wait to try. Sounds like
It will take a while to get 2 cups worth though? Thanks for the recipe
I asked a lady selling holistic medicine what I could do about my athletes foot. She gave me some pine salve and said to rub it all over all affected areas of my feet.
In two days my toes were clear of all fungus in between toes and in a week my feet were cured. It’s funny. My feet feel great and they smell like a pine cone. Who knew you could make the right medics you need by just taking a walk and scraping sap into a jar?
I am working on a combination of this with your Frankincense & Myhhr salve. One jar with Frankincense, Myhhr and Barberry root has been sitting for about 24 hours. The other has pine resin, both are using rice bran oil. The first jar seems good, but the pine is not completely melting and mixing into the oil. It is definitely melting some and i’m not sure if I should let it go on low longer or take the other jar out and then crank the heat up on the crockpot. I’m worried about the mason jar cracking, but I see you mention turning to medium. My crockpot has low and high. Using my IF thermometer on the jar / water the temp is showing between 170 / 180. I believe jumping from low to high will go up to the 250-300 range, is this ok for a glass jar or will it eventually melt in on low? Does it all really need to melt in? It is definitely less than what you are describing, but I opened it once and really can smell the difference, plus if I turn the jar upside down I can see it start to slowly fall to the bottom and form some sort of pine hot icicle.
I was planning to add in Shea butter, Lanolin & Ghee / Coconut oil mixture. I get “mechanics hands” from dermatomyositis and made another salve recently with those 3 ingredients and it has really been helping my skin. Do you think it would come out ok adding this in? I’m guessing I would need to add extra oil since this tends to thicken it a bit.
Great website, very helpful. Thanks.
Hi, Nick
If you are using Mason Jars/Canning Jars the jars should be fine if you are adding water to your slow cooker insert, then adding the jars so that the water comes halfway up the side of the jar. The pine resin might need to be stirred in with the oil to break it apart. It does need a higher temperature to melt. If you are worried about the temperature with the jars you could add a canning jar ring to the bottom of the slow cooker and then rest your jar on top of the ring, to add a space between the bottom of the jar and your heating element. I hope this helps.
Do you know if oleoresin, resin, and rosin can used interchangeably in this recipe? I’ve looked online but haven’t found anywhere that lists exactly which to use for what or what the differences .
The pitch from the trees contains both the resin and the essential oils. You need both in this recipe. Rosin is refined resin, with the essential oils removed.
I would like to know how you infused your oils. How long did you infuse them for and did you infuse them altogether?
How long does it take to collect the pitch? Would a spile work?
You don’t need a spile. The pitch will be sitting on the tree in a sticky glob. You just scrape it off with a stick or with a knife. The later it is in the growing season the less sticky it is, but the harder and drier it becomes — almost like violin resin.
This article mentions pine salve is safe to take internally, but this particular salve is made with comfrey. I believe the comfrey to be harmul to the liver when taken internally? Or is only harmful in plant form? Just thought I would mention..
It depends on the comfrey and the portion of the plant that you are taking. The one I have is Bocking 14 which is high in allantoin, but low in pyrrolizidine alkaloids. I use the leaves exclusively. But you can certainly make up your own mind.
When you render the pine resin do you add any olive oil before heating or is it just the pine resin?
I used a crock pot and just put the pine resin by itself in a jar, and then put the jar in water, and simmered in the crock pot. I left it overnight and it was liquid in the morning.
I just wanted to mention that I felt quite disappointed to see the frankincense added when you started the article off by saying we have our own medicinal wonders in North America.
I’ll try this, but I’ll leave the frankincense out.
It’s optional. I like the fragrance.
What a great recipe! Can’t wait to try it. Thank you so much for sharing.
Great recipe! Thanks for sharing! I have made a similar version, but not with infused oils. Except for the comfrey, is it a 1/2c each of the others?
No, that’s 1/2 cup in total of a mixture of herbs in one infused oil. I revised my copy to make it more clear. Thanks for your comment. It helps me be more exact in my writing.
Interesting that you use infused Comfrey oil in your recipe. I grow my own Comfrey and know very few people who use it. 3 to be exact. You make that four. Its an amazing herb used correctly. I will be using your recipe and I thank you for it.
Blessings
You’re welcome. I put most of my salves, for my family.
Would love to try this but am wondering about the infused oils. What is the base oil or does that matter?
What is the best way to collect the pitch? Cut a branch?
I just pick it up off the bottom of the trunk. Any wound in the tree will cause it to exude the pitch. Then the pitch falls to the lower part of the trunk. I take a scouts knife with me along with a can to carry the pitch home. And then just cut the pitch off the tree. It comes away in a clump.
I have mature pine trees on our property. I can’t wait to try this!
Which kind of pine should be used for this?
Anykind of pine will work for this. I used Logde Pole Pine (Jack Pine). In the midwest USA they often use Pinion Pine. I’ve heard of folks using Ponderosa Pine as well. Even Spruce and larch can be used if they have pitch.
Do you have to use the infused oils, or can they be left out?
You can use plain olive oil in place of the infused oils. The herbs used in the infusions add some benefits, so the salve will be fine without them but not quite the same benefits.