Herbal First Aid kits can vary greatly in contents depending on the situation you're trying to prepare for. In the video below, I dig through a couple different first aid kits to give you an idea of what you could pack in yours.
Herbal First Aid Kit For Your Car
For my car, I got a cute little red box stuffed with plenty of first aid goodies from a drug store for like $12. It came with a cold compress pack, which is awesome. And then I just yanked out the stuff that I don't use and put in the stuff that I do.
A couple things to note:
Scrapes and stings salve: This is something we make in our Herbal Apprentice Program all the time. It's kind of the green goop for everyday cuts, scrapes, stings, you name it, bites, and everything else. And if you want to learn how to make it, there's actually a recipe in our recent blog post about Plantain.
Fennel tincture: Fennel is what I take with me traveling all the time whenever I have an upset tummy on the road from something I ate, some weird gas station food or whatever it is. Fennel is my go-to for all the sorts of tummy aches I might have.
Yarrow: Yarrow is great for stopping bleeding. It's a styptic. It also is really fantastic as an antiseptic herb for wound washes, for bringing down inflammation, and for colds and flus internally. So I bring it with me everywhere.
I keep my car kit like super simple. I've bagged my salve so that nothing spills. And then I still have the wipes and the little spatulas that are great for dipping out your salves without infecting it with bacteria.
I love to keep my car kit at all times and just make sure that it's good to go.
Extensive Herbal First Aid Kit
You might want to have a more extensive first aid kit to keep at home or use as a “go bag” for camping.
Some of the contents in mine include:
A big bottle of Fennel: I used it in a recent trip and wanted to make sure I had a lot.
"Sunburn soother" salve
Extra set of contacts
Some tooth powder
A facial scrub
An inhaler
Some regular medicines
"Pain in the neck” tincture because the last time I went traveling, I was experiencing neck pain
Fire cider. That's my preventative for all sorts of colds, flus, any sort of sore throat, so many things. If I'm traveling and I'm worried about potentially catching something, I'll just start taking fire cider as a "just in case" remedy.
Echinacea: Echinacea is great for snake bites and for boosting the immune system.
Yarrow again. That's in just about every kit here.
“Everything's gonna be okay” tincture because last time I was on a road trip, I knew that there might be some social stress going on with the bigger crew we'd be hanging out with.
Sagebrush liniment. Sagebrush is great for bringing down aches and pains. I think I was experiencing some sort of knee issues at the time or somebody else was, that's why I put it in there.
Sweet tincture, so this is a “good night, sweetheart” tincture. This is my sleep mixture that I made for the month.
Some random teas. Mint is great for tummy aches. It's great for cooling down. I can throw some ice in it at a hotel and make some iced tea.
So this is my car camping kit that completely changes depending on what's going on. And I'm always putting stuff in and pulling stuff out. No matter what, this is sealed away from my clothes and everything else because it's in a waterproof bag. So I can take this with me, just throw it in wherever I'm going and it's good to go.
Herbal Backpacking Kit
As you can see in the video, this kit is just a plastic bag, no fancy bag or container here. And I have a lot of things double bagged just because I don't want things spilling when I'm backpacking.
Some of the things inside are:
I've got an inhaler post-COVID. I started having breathing issues again, so that's just like with me everywhere.
I've got a whole bunch of different powders that I've used for backpacking: Echinacea, Plantain, charcoal, some clay, Oregon Grape Root. These are for, like, infections, you know, some sort of water contamination, Giardia issues. You name it.
Gloves
Usually a Q tip
Some sterile wipes
Chamomile tea for any sort of inflammation or eye pain
Mint tea for digestive issues
Echinacea and Oregon Grape Root capsules
Some regular medicines. I always bring a little bit of Aleve with me just in case.
“Bug off” spray
Echinacea for rattlesnake bikes and immune system boosting
Yarrow for stopping bleeding
Altoids
Immodium capsules
Eye drops
Hand sanitizer
Benadryl
Gauze pads and the emergency trauma bleeding care, which I keep in its own bag
Herbal First Aid Class
As you can see, every single kit that I have serves its own purpose. And so I know that a lot of my students can get overwhelmed by all the options. At Artemisia Academy we like to simplify things and keep it really easy to figure out what's the kit for you, what you want to keep with you, and what are the top four or five things that you need to make it work.
If you're interested in learning how to make your own personalized herbal kit to use for trips and everything else, check out our Herbal First Aid Workshop. This used to be a class we offered all the time in person, and now we're super excited to be offering it virtually so that more people can access it.
