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Are you troubled by varicose veins? Forget about expensive preparations from the drugstore that don’t have much effect anyway. Instead, try entrusting yourself to the hands of Mother Nature. With just a few ingredients you can prepare a relaxing and healing cream that will relieve your problems. You will need:
- 100 ml olive oil
- 3 large stinging nettles
- 20 g beeswax
How to do it?
Use fresh nettle if possible. When picking it, wear gloves so you don’t get stung. You don’t need to worry that the cream will sting from the nettles — the olive oil removes this unpleasant effect. Prepare a water bath and let the water simmer. Then add the finely chopped nettle to the top pot with the wider rim. If you have an old poppy seed grinder at home, you can grind the nettle there.
Ideally use young, fresh shoots. You can find nettle outside almost year-round, but the ideal time to collect it is in spring, when the plants are still very young. Pick well-grown plants in a meadow or at the edges of the forest. Avoid places near roads — such nettles are polluted by passing cars.
Add wax as needed
Pour the olive oil over the nettle in the pot and heat it gently. The nettle must be submerged — you can use a wooden spoon to help. Leave it like that for at least one hour. The oil must not boil; it is enough to keep it moderately warm. When you obtain a dark green liquid, you have mostly finished and can proceed to the next step.
Take filter paper or a thin cheesecloth and filter the oil so there are no pieces of nettle left in it. Pour it back into the pot over the water bath. Add the beeswax and heat until it melts, then remove the mixture from the heat and whisk until it is only lukewarm. You can speed this up by placing the pot in a bowl of cold water. If the resulting cream is too runny after cooling, heat it again and add more beeswax. The cream does not need to be stored in the refrigerator, but if you have sensitive skin, a cooling ointment will benefit it.
