How would you know this poster was an 80 year old man????? From the profile? Not me. If someone formulates a formula they are under no obligation to share it unless they want to. Now if it was me I would not have posted anything if I didn't want to share, but just saying the guilt trick didn't work on me.
Right. I understand not sharing recipes to some degree (I believe everyone should share basic recipes as it was shared with us when we began) but I don't understand announcing yes, I have a recipe but I'm not giving it to you.
I make my own muscle balm and it did take me a very long time to come up with my recipe. I use infused oils that I make with beeswax to make a salve as the base for the oil. I've seen others say you can use petroleum jelly as the basis. I would warn that when testing this, it takes about 20 minutes for the cooling to kick in and it's hard to really gauge the correct amount of menthol chips and/or essential oils. So start out lightly and add as time goes on.
Anyway, the active ingredients in any muscle balms are usually menthol chips and then a combination of essential oils. For my mild muscle balm I melt a tsp of menthol chips into a half cup of salve. I then add a few drops of cajeput essential oil and clovebud essential oil and that seems to be fine. If I want it stronger I will add cassia (cinnamon) eo, wintergreen e.o., peppermint e.o., eucalyptus eo. The cassia is the ingredient that makes RED Tiger Balm versus regular Tiger Balm. It takes a long time to figure out how each ingredient affects the product as a whole.
What I suggest...and this is from months of trying recipes and having different strengths at different times:
1. Come up with the best medium as a base. If you don't want to make your own, you can use petroleum jelly. You can also use some shea butter as a base to melt menthol chips. I use my own herbal infused oils and beeswax to make a salve. Depending on the strength I need I will use comfrey-infused oil, arnica infused oil or calendula infused oil. But you can use an ounce of beeswax in a cup of any oil (olive oil, sweet almond etc) without it being infused first.
2. I melt some menthol chips (starting with a teaspoon per half cup base) into the base and mix well.
3. This alone would make an okay muscle balm. To make it stronger, add a few drops of cajeput essential oil and clovebud essential oil.
4. You don't need anything else but you can add any kind of mints (peppermints, wintergreen etc) or eucalyptus and even lavender.
5. For extra heat add a drop or two of cassia (or cinnamon). This can be very irritating but effective for muscle aches so make sure you use very little and mix well.
My experience is that I needed a lot of trial and error to get it right. All you really need is petroleum jelly and some menthol chips but a well-rounded balm will include clovebud and cajeput and maybe a wintergreen or peppermint.
I had a list at one point of the different combinations and how it effected me. WARNING: most of these balms take a few minutes to "kick in" so don't go overboard at first. Leave it on at least 20 minutes before you decide to add more menthol or EOs. It took me a long, long time to figure out how each ingredient would affect the end product.
