Update March 2025 – I no longer use alcohol in any of my formulas. Why? Simple oil infusion is already quite potent for our purposes!

Hi! Sunny here with an answer to an often asked question: “Why is there alcohol in some of your formulas?” Relief, Remove, and Renew, to be exact. To answer that question, let’s take you behind the scenes here at Helianthus Botanicals and share some of the details about our process.

A little history first

Like most herbalists, I began my journey making salves in a simple traditional way which basically means I infused my carrier oils with freshly dried herbs for a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks. That is still a legitimate way to achieve a very effective product.

Another way is to gently heat the herb/oil infusion for several days. The heat simply would speed up the extraction from many weeks to a few days. The problem with most “heaters” is that they were typically a crock pot or similar appliance and they were hard to control heat levels. The higher the heat over, say, 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the more likely it would destroy some of the more delicate volatile oils and active constituents in the herb. This, to my way of thinking, nullifies the point of infusing herbs in oil.

But there is yet another way…

Let’s meet Michael Moore, a legend in the herbalist community. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him personally but I have learned from some of his students. One of his students, Kami McBride, shared his process for making extraordinarily potent herb infused oils. His process is to add a relatively small amount of 95% ethyl alcohol to the dried herb and allowing it to rest. What the alcohol does is to more completely release the herbal properties into the oil. That is followed by adding the oil and “blending the heck out of it,” to quote Kami.

Our process

I have employed Michael’s alcohol intermediary step in the first stage of my process. After powdering the herbs, I wet them with the alcohol and let them rest for a time. I then spread the moist herbs onto parchment and gently heat them to allow alcohol to dissipate.

These now alcohol-free herbs are blended with the carrier oil and the remainder of the process continues.

The result is I can produce a fabulously vibrant, more potent herbal oil and, by association, herbal balms, in a matter of days instead of many weeks.

Alcohol is only used in Relief, Remove, and Renew as these are the most active balms for supporting your body as it heals.