Medicine chest 4(c) - the infused oil that isn't an oil after all (comfrey root)

Okay, well this could be embarrassing - if I embarrassed easily. Which I don't, so we're cool, right? Right.

My plan when I sat down to write section 4 of the medicine chest series was to cover the infused oils in one post and slip the real deal about comfrey in at the end. We all know how that turned out, thanks to my extreme wordiness. And I don't even have a whole lot to say about comfrey root infused oil except ..



 Don't bother.

Of all the oils that will go slimy and gross on you, comfrey is example #1. Leaves are tricky enough (right Linda?). An infused oil from comfrey root is just damned impossible. And considering how much work it is to dig & clean comfrey, let alone how long it takes to get your plants to a decent enough size that the roots are worth digging (years), losing your comfrey oil is frustrating as hell. Tears well up. Sobs are stifled. Deep sighing happens. For days.

I tried, for years, to get comfrey root into an oil because man, comfrey is good stuff. I'd managed to perfect the leaf oil and it's such sweet relief to dry scaly skin (like winter feet) and so useful for sprains, I just knew the root oil would be da bomb. Alas, I experienced nothing but abject failures.

Then one day I was down some rabbit hole in the depths of Susun Weed's website, and there it was.

"Don't bother making an infused oil with the roots .." she said. "it always goes spectacularly wrong."

I nodded at the screen, "yep, it sure does".

"Make a tincture and use it as an oil" she said.

"What??" (I talk to my screen a lot. Don't you?)

 "It's a tincture, but we call it comfrey oil" she continued "because once the tincture is ready, it feels just like an oil."

"Huh." says I. "You could have told me that in your books, old woman."

I have what, 3?(at least?) of Susun Weed's books and never does she mention that comfrey root oil is not an oil, but a tincture.

As usual, the old woman is right. Comfrey root tincture feels and behaves like an oil. Better, even, because it's not as heavy. It's gorgeous.

(Susun Weed is almost invariably right. I don't talk about the old grande dame of herbalism here on the blog a whole lot because, well, there's a lot of "love her or hate her" stuff surrounding her reputation. And the "Wise Woman" website (run by her daughter) just sucks. Man, it's awful. Talk about a personality cult, and oh my, the paywalls! ... But it has to be said, if it wasn't for her books I would never have got through menopause without drugs. Or my possible fibromyalgia stage. Her books are chock full of excellent and useful information, it's just that her writing style can be a little off-putting at times, being so woman-centric.)

Now as it turns out, I'd already written a comfrey root post a couple of years ago, so you may as well go read that because it's not too bad and it has pictures and everything. Cool pictures relating to the Doctrine of Signatures that are going to impress the hell out of you. It's right here.