How to Formulate Natural Herb Remedies

As you delve into herbal medicine and get to know medicinal plants, it’s not long before you want to move beyond repeating other herbalists’ blends and start to formulate your own natural herb remedies. Although some formulas are crafted for the individual’s needs in the moment and others become your tried and tested go-to blends, it helps to have some basic concepts and a framework or two behind you to help you create natural herb remedies that are robust and effective. On our intensive herbalism course, we develop our students’ formulation skills over three years, becoming more nuanced and complex as we go. Here’s how we start building formulation skills in the first year.

Towards the end of our spring/summer sessions spending twelve weeks getting to know our twelve herbs for the year, we have a session where we look at a few common scenarios that would benefit from herbal support. These are often things like a dry, hacking cough with a fever, a bee sting or a muscle soreness. At this stage, we’re not choosing which herbs to include in natural herb remedies. Rather, we’re starting to work the muscles of our brains with everything we’ve explored about the herbs thus far, so we can see the fundamental logic behind a formula. Yes, there is also intuition that plays a role and sometimes a herb will pop straight into your mind in a particular scenario. That’s brilliant! Write it down for consideration.

But when budding herbalists first want to formulate, one of three things tends to happen: 1 - freeze and go blank on everything they know, 2 - start going round in circles with everything in their head or 3 - want to put EVERYTHING in the blend.

So the first time we start pulling things together, we do an initial brain dump of all the herbal actions we think would be supportive for the scenario. What do we need our natural herb remedies to ‘do’? We get all that logic down on the page. Then we consider the qualities we need to bring balance, as herbal medicine works on the principle of opposites. Do we need the formula to be warming or cooling? Drying or moistening? Tightening or relaxing? Then we move on to tastes - the sense gateway that tells our bodies everything it needs to start ‘doing’ when we work with a herb - and we put down which tastes we might want to include in the blend. Finally, we write down all of the herbs out of our twelve that fit the brief.

This is one of my favourite moments in the first year, as it’s the point at which students realise how much they’ve already learned, how well they know our twelve herbs (and how versatile they are) and just how much they’re already capable of. It’s a real point of empowerment on the journey.

One of the keys to a successful herbal formula is working with the herbs in the forms that most suit them. I often say to my students, ‘Which types of remedies will make this herb sing?’. This is central to our in-person summer gatherings, as not only do students learn how to make a wide range of herbal remedies, getting hands-on with the techniques and base recipes, but they also delve into the nuances. One of the most important nuances is understanding which herbs can be made into which types of remedies, because not every herb works in all forms. This saves a lot of time, money, effort and frustration making something that isn’t going to be effective. Again, we do this through the avenue of taste, understanding which herbal tastes are best extracted in each remedy form. Yes, there are chemical compounds (constituents) behind each taste, but on our intensive herbalism course, we like to keep things a bit more tangible and closer to home (a lot of herbalism takes place in the kitchen, after all!) than petri dish and white coat.

In the autumn, our first-year students begin formulating natural herb remedies. We focus on three-herb formulas, as they form the core of a more complex formula. They are also easier to adjust as needed because it’s easier to identify which herb needs tweaking. They require us to focus our intentions for the formula, as well as draw on our deep knowledge of the plants to cover everything we need the remedy to ‘do’. There is no room for pigeon-holing a herb to a single use when you’ve got a maximum of three to include! Three-herb formulas also ensure the remedy is delivering a meaningful amount of each herb, whether in the form of a tea, a herb-infused oil, a tincture, etc. When choosing our herbs, we take our initial brain dump process and add to it the dynamics of the person, working with the Ayurvedic constitutions. This helps us further narrow down which herbs will be the most supportive to include. As we turn inwards and tune into our bodies and how they work during the autumn/winter sessions, students put their three-herb formulas to work, trying, testing, adjusting, figuring out core blends that are effective.

More nuance is introduced with each progressive year, increasing to five-herb formulas in year two and seven-herb formulas (a classic number included in clinical herbal prescriptions) in year three. Each step of the way, medicine-making skills are refined, knowledge of herbs is deepened through experience and combining herbs effectively becomes quicker and easier. Creating natural herb remedies gets infused into students’ heads, hearts and hands.

So when it comes to creating formulas for natural herb remedies, work through a process. Organise both your logic and intuition. Distil and refine the herbs you include. Know which herbs sing loudest in which types of remedies. Practice, practice, practice. This is a skill that will develop with time, experience and reliable guidance.

If you’re here in the UK, you’re very welcome to take the next step on your journey building your knowledge, skills and confidence as a home herbalist with us on our intensive herbalism course - Awaken Herbal Wisdom - which spans all four seasons and gets herbalism both deep into your bones and your daily life. Although it is intense, it’s suitable for a wide range of herbalists, including beginners! You can learn more about our herbal medicine course here. Be sure to put your name on the waiting list to see what the current cohorts are up to and get first access to enrolment before it opens.

Whatever your next step is making natural herb remedies, I hope you enjoy the journey!

At Rhodes Roots & Remedies School of Herbal Medicine, our practice of herbalism is rooted in the belief that we must remember, reclaim and relearn our knowledge of our bodies, our autonomy and how to work with plant medicine in order to bring control of our own health back into our families and homes for a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet. Through our intensive herbalism course, we facilitate the development of confident, empowered herbalists, attuned to the messages of their bodies and the natural world. Living the deep wisdom of herbal medicine within themselves, their homes and their communities, they uplift themselves and others, creating a stronger society organically. We do hope you'll join us on your journey!