Solo [Isolation Lab] Making A Pain Relief Cream

[Kavala]

Kavala padded down to the isolation lab, still in her nightshirt and with thick wool socks on her feet. Her hair was unbound and there was a fussy toddler sleeping on one hip. Tasival had promised to watch his little sister so that left Ralac to be wakeful and fretful all by himself. I’adel of course slept through the night almost immediately as an infant and still did well into her toddler years. A couple of the Imperial Watchers were asleep in the room with Tasi and I’a…. so Kavaka knew at least one of the dogs would fetch either herself or one of the kelvic twins if there were problems.

So the toddler snoozing on her hip was deposited on a long low couch in the lab, well away from the chemicals, where Kavala could keep an eye on him. She was doing two things today in the lab. First and foremost she was solving Ralac’s problem which was growing pains literally. He was getting so big so fast that she was unable to do much about his particular medical problem. And that problem was his bones were growing faster than his muscles were. Stretching was helping, but not nearly enough because when he went to bed he was fussy, restless, and when asked he’d explain his legs hurt. Looking at them with auristics, she could see why.

The Konti turned around and studied her son. No pain would go untreated, not with a healer of her caliber around. No child should suffer. So in order to help, she had to do two things. First her solution had to involve making something that treated pain. That was easy enough. The second thing was that it had to do something in its treatment that would speed along healing. Massage was a good follow up to help stretch the muscles and cease their pain. So in that line of thinking, she could make a natural philter in the form of a lotion or cream to massage into his skin. But at the same time she could also infuse it via philtering with her gnosis for solving aches and pains and that should be a lethal combination designed to kill his pain.

Kavala smiled. It was a perfect plan. Quickly she took out her notebook of recipes, turned to a blank page further in the back, and got out her pen and ink. She wrote “Ralac’s Muscle Relief Cream” on it. Then she quickly worked out a recipe, selecting from essential oils she had on hand and materials she had ready access too at The Sanctuary.

Ralac’s Muscle Relief Cream

Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup Coconut Oil
• 2 teaspoons Beeswax
• 5 drops Camphor oil
• 5 drops Peppermint oil
• 5 drops Eucalyptus oil
• 5 drops Clove Oil
Melt the coconut oil and beeswax together in a small cauldron over a small burner and stir until melted. Concentrate on tapping ones gnosis for pain relief and bruising/muscle aches and infuse the mixture with that power. Let the mixture cool a few minutes then add the essential oil drops.
Put in a container (or series of containers) and allow to cool completely. When it is completely cooled it will be a solid rather than liquid. If mixed properly the minute it hits warm skin…it will liquefy again due to the coconut oil. Thus making it perfect for massaging onto sore muscles and joints.

Kavala smiled at the finished recipe, noting that all her planning was done. It was exactly what she needed for Ralac and indeed was something she could sell to clients for their animals who had similar problems. It was time to take out the rest of her equipment and get going on the manufacture.

[Kavala]

The Konti stoked the fire on the potbellied stove in the room and fed it until it belched heat. She set a cauldron on the hanger that suspended it over the flat surface of the stove. She much preferred cauldrons for even heat instead of flat bottomed pans that tended to get to hot. She already had a container of beeswax set on top of the stove further back, softening it up. Being a Beekeeper Kavala always had use for wax.

Then she carefully got down her coconut oil, measured out half a cup and added it to the cauldron. It would become the base for the cream and give it a lovely consistency. Then, taking out measuring spoons, she scooped two teaspoons of beeswax out of the melted beeswax, added it to the coconut oil and nodded. The beeswax had a very simple job. It hardened the mixture and made it able to solidify. She took a small pipette from the lab and stirred the mixture gently. Kavala hummed as she worked, knowing this was a critical moment and that she needed to relax to do the infusion work properly.

Blending a gnosis via philtering with a recipe wasn’t easy. It took intense concentration and a bit of ‘fooling’ the senses to get the philter to infuse with the divine power. Kavala stood over the still hot mixture while it cooled and cleared her mind. It took a moment involving a few deep breaths and letting her worries slide away. Then she pictured Ralac’s particular pain, the muscles screaming in agony being stretched beyond their normal function as the bone laid on new growth beneath. She felt the muscles bruise and cramp, twisting against their anchors in his skin and the feel of it caused goose bumps to rise on her skin.

She tapped her gnosis with this picture firmly in her mind and reached down and touched the solution that was now only just slightly warmer than her body temperature. Power filled the simple mixture and with her free hand she stirred it into the pot, willing the power of the divine gnosis to bond with the mixture.

It wasn’t easy. The gnosis could easily dissipate, but she had to gently coax it to bond with the oils with the promise of its purpose exploding into being the moment the oils touched a patient’s body. She kept infusing her will into it, reiterating how much it was going to help in the future by lingering in the cream.

Kavala kept stirring, kept concentrating, and slowly the glow of Rak’keli’s power that had trickled down the palm of her hand dispersed and infused the coconut oil and beeswax mixture causing it to take on a glow of its own. The glow remained even after Kavala cut off the flow of divine djed and reached for the essential oils. Continuing to stir, she carefully unscrewed first one bottle then the next until she had five drops of each oil carefully added to the mixture. She then continued stirring, glancing around the lab until she found her small stack of jars she normally used for finished creams. She released the glass stir rod and walked over to select a jar. Setting it on the counter, she tilted the small cauldron upwards with a hook in its rim and gently poured the mixture into the jar. Patiently she waited until every last bit of the mixture was out of the cauldron and set the jar aside, capping it carefully. Then she wrote out its contents including ingredients on its tag and affixed the tag with a piece of string to the jar.

She set it aside to cool completely and then went back to reshelf her essential oils.

The clove was low and she knew she did not have a spare. The Konti grumbled, but what was she supposed to do? She might need clove oil in a hurry and if she did not have any, she’d be in a bad situation. She knew she had cloves though. That wasn’t an issue, so that meant it was time to set up the still.

[Kavala]

So she let the recipe dry on Ralac’s pain relief cream and took down her distiller notes. She moved over to the still and set the small oil burner up, filled the condenser full of distilled water, and then attached it to the upper level condenser which she’d fill with a mixture of ground dried cloves and distilled water. Kavala checked her old notes and read carefully up on what she’d used before. She had a choice… but powdering the gloves was easier. She could use 10 grams of powdered cloves/150 mL of water or 5 grams of whole cloves/40 mL of water. The first worked better so she dragged out a mortar and pestal, leveled her scale and added a 5 gram weight to one side and zero’d out a small ceramic dish that would hold her clove powder on the other. She carefully began grinding the clove until it was in a fine powder and added it to the ceramic dish until it equaled ten grams. This took a good fifteen minutes because cloves were tough ground and ten grams was a lot of powder.

The Konti set her grinding gear aside, and took a good look at the distiller. It was not an ideal setup plus the glass joints needed to be regreased where they connected. She carefully took the distiller apart and started with an o-ring clamp and stand, placing an oil burner beneath where the first flask would set. She then set a 500mL flask up, tossing in a set of ceramic boiling stones, and clamped it tightly to the stand. Into this flask went all of her clove powder and the 150mL of distilled water. Then she added a claisen adaptor which was a glass piece that rose out of the flask and had a reverse h joint that allowed her to set up a separatory funnel – which looked like a glass bubble with a glass valve in it that allowed more water to be added to the boiling flask full of clove and water below. She then added a grease pencil mark on the side of the boiling flask so she knew where the water level should be at even at a boil.

Next she attached a condenser to the claisen adaptor which shot off to one side and needed to be secured lofted in the air by another stand and clamp setup. Instead of a thermometer at the top of the condenser, she added a glass stopper and greased that as well. Then, she placed a 125mL flask beneath the condenser and lit her burner.

Kavala started the whole thing heating, watching big bubbles form in the powdered clove mixture as she began distilling. They foamed, so she backed off the heat and let it heat more slowly to avoid a build up in pressure in the glass flask and hence the risk of an explosion. She kept the boil slow until she was distilling at a rate of about 1 drop every two to three seconds. And she watched the water level by adding more distilled water from the funnel to keep the boil at the marked level. It was a really interesting process, watching the dark brown water in the flask slowly turn clear as the clove was distilled out and transferred up and through the condenser to drip into the catch flask.

[Kavala]

Kavala's mixture wasn’t by far pure clove oil at that point, but Kavala did distill until she had no oily layer apparent in the original flask and there was at least 100mL of distillate in the collection flask. Then, when she was done, she transferred the whole thing into a clean separatory funnel and added 10 mL of saturated salt in liquid concentration to the mixture. She then swirled the separator funnel to mix the two liquids and then shook it vigorously. Replacing it back on its stand, she placed a flask beneath it.

Like magic the essential volatile oil separated out from the water leaving the separatory flask showing two distinct layers. The oil was heavier than the water so it floated on top of the flask while the water was beneath. There was a drain in the bottom of the flask – part of a glass valve system – and Kavala turned the valve, and carefully drained the watery layer out drop by drop until she had pure oil left. She then used that to fill her almost empty container of essential clove oil.

Then, like the wise woman she was, Kavala returned the watery mixture to the separatory funnel and added more salt solution. She shook it hard, let it separate, and got another layer of oil out of it. She did this twice more until she was sure she got all the oil, and then discarded the leftover water.

Then she cleaned out the equipment carefully, replacing the clove oil on the shelf with her other essential oils and filling the big sink with the dirty equipment. She then took a bucket of water from the pump, heated it over the stove, and got ready to clean. Once the water was hot enough, she added the still equipment to it, added soap, and scrubbed until there was not a spot of dirt anywhere. Then, carefully, she rinsed and dried the equipment and set up the still again so she could use it next time with it freshly cleaned.

[Kavala]

Kavala reviewed her notes on Clove oil, adding in her observations on this particular batch and noting how much she’d made and the date. She decided today was a good day to fill out all the information she knew about clove oil, so she sat down and just started writing. The notes poured out of her and she looked on quite satisfied as she finished the last word and wiped her pen clean and recapped her ink. Then she scanned the document and nodded to herself.

• Skin care: Clove oil is great for skin care, especially for acne and skin irritation. The oil is best applied pure in alight coat across the skin. This pure form of the oil can result in counteracting effects of aging, like wrinkles, sagging skin, acting to rejuvenate the circulation in the skin around the eyes making users seem younger.
• Stress/Exhaustion: Clove oil is an aphrodisiac and serves as an excellent stress reliever. It has a stimulating effect on the mind and removes mental exhaustion and fatigue. When ingested in small amounts, it can act to refresh the mind and stimulates brain function.
• Sleep: Clove oil induces sleep and is helpful to people suffering from insomnia.
• Headache/Neck Pain/Muscle Aches/Pain: Clove oil gives a cooling effect and helps in getting relief from headaches when applied to the forehead. Clove oil is used as a pain reliever on other parts of the body, like joints and muscles, to provide some relief from painful inflammation or swelling.
• Respiratory problems: Clove oil has a cooling anti-inflammatory effect which makes it ideal for creams to apply to the chest for congested people. It can be also used to frequently clear the nasal passage by applying a cream beneath the nose. Clove oil is a useful treatment for various respiratory disorders including coughs, colds, and chest or lung infections of all kinds. Chewing a clove paste, gum, or bud is traditionally recommended to soothe sore throats.
• Sty: Clove and clove oil are very effective for treating inflammation on the eyelash and can be a very irritating and painful condition. Clove oil can prevent of other eye infections due to its antibacterial qualities.
• Ear ache: A mixture of warm clove oil and sesame oil added to the ear soothes aches.
• Indigestion: Clove oil can be used for hiccups, motion sickness, flatulence and indigestion. One can add it to food which causes these sorts of symptoms to negate them. Ie. Beans.
• Nausea: Clove oil is helpful in greatly reducing nausea and calming vomiting. This is often adapted to be used for pregnancy-related morning sickness and discomfort.
• Blood circulation: Clove oil increases a body’s metabolism by increasing blood circulation and reducing body temperature. This assists in head ache relief and all sorts of swelling and pain due to bad circulation.
• Insect Repellent: When mixed with citronella and added to beeswax, this oil makes an incredible insect repellent. It is also commonly used on sheets by adding a few drops to keep bed bugs at bay.
• Cosmetics: In small doses, this oil is great for cleaning (antiseptic properties) products on the body, as well as massage oils.
• Flavoring Agent: Safe for adding to foods, particularly meats like hams to add incredible depth of flavor.
• Soap: This is one of my favorite uses of clove. The scent is powerful and soothing, coupled with its antiseptic properties, the use of Clove Oil is a must in most soaps.
• Perfumes: Works very well for cologne for men and a more musky scent for women.
• Aromatherapy: Clove oil blends well lemon, nutmeg, orange, peppermint, grapefruit, rose, cinnamon, basil, lavender and several other essential oils. It is very relaxing and can be a huge asset in aromatherapy.
• Misc: It is also useful for treating brain disorders such as memory loss, depression and anxiety.
• Risks? Use clove oil with care, because it is very potent even in small quantities and must be always be diluted before application or ingestion. Test patches might be necessary because allergies can be found commonly to it. It can upset the intestines and in large doses can interfere with kidney and liver functions – even causing death.

When she was done, Kavala replaced her book filled with her hand-written notes on her essential oils back on its place on the shelf and took a last look at her lab making sure everything was in its place. Tasival was still asleep on the couch so she picked up the jar of cream and slipped it into her jacket pocket before she went to retrieve her son and take him back upstairs. It was time for him to wake up so a bath and some breakfast were not out of order. She could return to the lab later. Something was nagging her anyhow. With her gnosis infused cream safely in her lab coat pocket, the Konti suddenly wondered what else she could infuse a product with.

She wondered, thoughtfully as she climbed the stairs, if she could infuse the new power that seemed to follow her around into potions as well so that when she wasn’t present people could still hear animals talk and know exactly what they were thinking.

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[Gillar]

Beekeeping 1 Cooking 2 Philtering 4 Herbalism 1 Lore: Herbalism: The many uses of Clove Oil Lore: Philtering: Infusing gnosis into a philter Lore: Philtering: creating therapeutic balm Also a plethora of notes related to Clove Oil and the creation of painkilling, therapeutic balm.