Sensitive to poison ivy, oak or sumac?  Let me share our method of clearing it up in a snap! Jewelweed! I believe this plant is our Father’s gift to those who have sensitivities to those plants. And it is simple to make a Jewelweed Tincture! So gather your things and let’s get started!

You’ll need a cutting board and knife, glass jar with lid, glass or stainless steel funnel with wide opening, 100 proof vodka and, of course, some Jewelweed!

Although I gathered this just an hour or two before taking these pictures – you can see how quickly Jewelweed wilts.  I always wait an hour or two because any little critters that made those stems their home will have crawled away from the plant!

Be sure to look at the stems of Jewelweed closely – remove any vining plants or pieces of plants that may have grown in the Jewelweed! Sometimes poison ivy grows in the same areas and we don’t want that in our tincture! You can see a vine wrapped around this stem of Jewelweed.  Also remove any dead or yellowed leaves!

Once you’ve removed all vines and dead leaves, rough chop your Jewelweed.

And drop it into a glass jar.

Fill the jar to the shoulder with your Jewelweed, but don’t pack it in tightly!

Now you will pour 100 proof vodka over it until the plant material is completely covered!

Cap it and label it!

Always put the date on your label.  You will let this sit for 30 days so you need to know when you started! Put the name of the plant in the jar because you won’t recognize it in 30 days!  I also like to put where I gathered it from…especially if it didn’t come from our farm.  That way, I would know where to go again to harvest in the future!

That’s it – that is how simple it is to make a tincture.  This is called a Simpler’s Tincture – there are other ways to tincture but for beginners this is the best!

In 30 days you will strain this off, saving all of the liquid. It should be a dark reddish brown.  Put that into a glass (never plastic!) spray bottle. When someone breaks out with poison something or other (ivy, oak, sumac) just spray it every couple of hours and let it air dry!  You will be surprised at how quickly it clears things up!

Even better, if you think you have come into contact with those plants, spray yourself with this and “wash” off with it. You may never break out!  We use old pieces of cotton sheets for that. Jewelweed has the ability to break the urushiol oil bond with our skin.

We’ve been using this solution for decades with great success!

Happy tincturing!

Cheri