Just today, I had to research and remind myself of the compound in St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) flowers that turns the oil red when I’m infusing them. In my case, I used organic Sunflower oil with about a Tablespoon of organic EVOO. The compound, which is also responsible for its anti-depressant affects, is called hypericin. It has been difficult for me to accomplish, what I believe is, this fun science experiment that I haven’t always had luck with. Since it requires using fresh flowers, but I normally dry my herbs before infusing them in oil, the first year I was hesitant to use fresh, so I dried them a bit, and I realized that it will not work with dried. Then I got brave enough to use the fresh ones and once, a few years back, I accomplished the deep red oil!

Then, this season, I started my oil (pictured above) about 4 weeks ago, and I’ve had to add more and more flowers to even start seeing a color change. Last year the oil turned a deep golden yellow but never red. I actually added more flowers today and continue to shake the jar and keep setting it in the sunny window. I also learned that it’s the sunlight that pulls the hypericin out of the plant. I plan to use this oil, once it has turned deeper red, as a salve. I decided that the best way to preserve it, since there will be more moisture in it than my other oils, is by heating it and making it into a powerful, concentrated, salve with just this strained oil, beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil. This is the best way to give it the longest shelf life and be a wonderful healing & pain reducing salve!

The best part is that when I heated it, actually right before, I realized that this is how I’m going to achieve that deep red, beautiful and hypericin dense oil; the extra simmering! I even decided that I would add a few more fresh flowers as I was gently heating the oil. Then I just let the oil sit afterwards and continue to release some of the moisture as it cooled off.

This then gets strained and stored for when I craft some salves with it. This has been a longer process of figuring out exactly how to get this oil to be concentrated and extracted properly, but it was well worth it!

I appreciate you visiting and I’m sending lots of love, light and positive energy!!

Anne