Summer is simultaneously the season when the skin gets the most use and the most abuse: sun exposure, heat, insect bites, swimming in chlorinated water, and the general combination of outdoor activity and environmental stress that the season delivers. The medicinal garden provides exactly the herbs most useful for the summer skin story, and many of them can be made into preparations in the weeks before the season reaches its peak.
Calendula: The Summer Skin Herb
Calendula-infused oil is the single most versatile skin preparation in the summer apothecary. Anti-inflammatory, vulnerary (wound-healing), gently antimicrobial: it is appropriate for minor burns (including sunburn in its minor forms), insect bites, skin inflammation, minor cuts and abrasions, and the general skin irritation that comes from being outdoors in warm weather. Make it now, in June, from fresh dried calendula flowers, so it is ready in six weeks when the summer skin challenges begin in earnest.
Aloe Vera (Aloe barbadensis)
Aloe is the classic summer first-aid plant: the gel from the leaf has proven anti-inflammatory and wound-healing activity that makes it the appropriate immediate response to sunburn, minor thermal burns, and inflamed insect bites. Growing an aloe plant on a sunny windowsill or in a protected outdoor space through the warm months gives you immediate access to one of the most practically useful plant preparations available. Break a leaf, apply the fresh gel directly to affected skin.
Lavender Essential Oil
The one essential oil that is widely considered safe for undiluted application to the skin in small amounts, lavender oil is the appropriate first response to minor burns and stings when nothing else is immediately available. A drop applied directly to an insect sting, a wasp sting, or a minor thermal burn cools, reduces inflammation, and is antimicrobial in the wound.
Plantain Poultice
Fresh plantain leaf (broadleaf or narrow-leaf, both work) made into a poultice (chewed, or mashed in a mortar) and applied to insect stings and bites is one of the most immediate and effective field remedies available: anti-inflammatory and drawing, it relieves pain and reduces swelling with surprising speed. It grows in every lawn and most gardens.
The Herbalist Codex app has profiles on all these summer skin herbs with their preparation methods and the specific applications for which each is most appropriate.