When our third child was a toddler, we found that he always got a croupy cough when he had a cold. Croupy coughs are very scary sounding!
Sometime during those years, my sister gave me a set of herbal remedy books by Rachel Weaver. One of those, Be Your Own Doctor, had a recipe for garlic salve to help with croup! It has become one of our go-to recipes for coughs in our home!
Garlic is antibacterial, antiseptic, and antimicrobial, according to Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide and Current Research in Pharmaceutical Studies.
When someone starts coughing, and especially when it sounds croupy, we slather this on their chest, back, and soles of their feet! The skin on the soles of your feet is very absorbent–we learned this years ago from a nurse when Stephen was going through cancer treatments. She told us that if you put Vicks on your feet (and then layer with socks) at night when you have a chest cold, it will stop you from coughing! And we have found that to work also!
While the essential oils in Vicks do work to help you get better, we have found the garlic salve to be an even better remedy. Plus, you can use garlic salve on children (and adults) of any age–Vicks cannot be used on children under 2 because the essential oils are actually dangerous to the lungs of a child that young. That’s why they make a special lavender blend for babies.
Besides smelling like a delicious leg of lamb, garlic salve is wonderful! You can add in lavender essential oil if you want to mitigate that smell a bit, though I often skip that part!
Here’s the recipe!
Garlic Salve
Ingredients
- 8 cloves Garlic
- 1/3 cup Coconut Oil
- 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- Optional: 5 drops Lavender Essential Oil
Directions
- Peel garlic and blend them in a food processer, blender, or mortar and pestle.
- Add Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, and optional Lavender Essential OIl and blend until smooth.
- You can push this through a fine mesh sieve if you have someone with sensitive skin, though I usually skip that step.
- Store in a container with a lid. You can keep it in the fridge, but we have kept in a drawer in the bathroom for months and still found it to work well!
- Slather on chest, back, and feet of the person with a cough. Put more on every few hours until better!
I hope you find this recipe helpful for your family! If you’re interested in learning more from Rachel Weaver, check out her books here.
If you’re interested in learning more and joining our Veggie CSA or Herbal Home Remedy CSA Add-On, join our email list below!
Related Blog:
Killer Cure Tea Recipe
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