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Creating remedies is just like cooking. In fact, it can often be much easier – there are no tricky risottos, white sauces or soufflés, for a start.

There are only two basic methods of extracting the essential ingredients of plants at home: by steeping them in a cold liquid (oil, vinegar, alcohol, glycerine, honey); or by heating them in a warm liquid (water or syrup – a mixture of water and sugar). These plant extracts can be applied to the body externally in the form of salves, rubs, bath and body scrubs, mouthwashes, face masks and moisturizing creams, or internally as drinks, soups, cough syrups, lozenges, lovely oldfashioned tonics, jellies and lollies, and even apéritifs and cocktails.

Some methods are more suitable than others for preparing certain herbs – it depends on the nature of the active ingredients they contain. All the methods in these recipes are specially designed to deliver the active ingredients in the optimum way.

Before you start, read this simple introduction to the best ways of extracting plant ingredients, plus a couple of basic remedy-making skills you’ll find useful. Then you can get cracking…