Make a natural first aid kit with simple items
Act Fast
I always have a first aid kit on hand, even if it's just the one in the house, in the bathroom closet.
Make a custom 1st aid kit with essential oils and Instant Liquid Soap. It's easy.
Keep one in your car, have an extra with your camping gear. Keep one at work.
If you have outbuildings far away from your house, put one there also. Make a mini one for your purse.
You can't plan for when you will need to use first aid. It's a random accident, and you must act fast. With the right items you can prevent long term effects.
By long term effects, I mean, a simple burn you got while making dinner, could hurt for a week or more. Or, it could be reduced to be an ugly mark you don't really feel that takes a few weeks to several months to disappear.
Photo: I brushed a hot baking pan while moving another pot. Being calm and taking good deep breaths, I ran cold water over the burn for about 1 minute. Then, put an ice pack on it for another minute. Dried it carefully and put LiXTiK Lip Balm Lavender on it.
The key is to act fast, be calm, and have the right things available.
you might already have most items
Collect what you have
My first aid kit contains:
- a bar of soap-I prefer Unscented, but any of our scents will do
- Instant Liquid Soap Again, I prefer Unscented, but any scent will do. Dilute to full strength and to Go Soap. Click below for directions.
- a few LiXTiK Lip Balms: Lavender, Peppermint, and Clove Spice
- adhesive wound strips (which you now have to be conscious of the adhesive...another article)
- cotton swabs
- cotton gauze bandage
- maybe a non stick bandage also, but this could be teflon...
- tweezers
- a tourniquet - it's like a giant rubber band and I've never used one.
- small flashlight
- an ace bandage
- a small glass jar of plain clean water
- Lavender Essential Oil and Tea Tree Essential Oil
- Small bottle of hydrogen peroxide
- Small jar of raw honey (put on cuts and burns, under adhesive strips)
Replace the pharmaceuticals
Natural Remedies
Good Old fashioned remedies do the trick, when you have minor accidents. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, splinters, and any kind of tiny puncture wound.
Andy skinned his knuckle, while fixing the tractor. He sprayed Go Soap (Waterless Hand soap), made from the Instant Liquid Soap, on it right away to keep out germs and bacteria, so he could keep on working.
This photo is of my burn 36 hours later, after it had honey on it overnight.
When he came in the house, he washed the scrape with bar soap and water, then sprayed some more Go Soap on it. It closed right up, with no issues. This is how to avoid minor scrapes becoming infected and becoming infected. Even a small infection in a minor cut will take much longer to heal and be a sore point.
The Lavender Lip Balm is a very versatile 1st aid kit addition. Great for sunburn and mosquito repellant.
Lavender Essential Oil and Water is an excellent burn remedy. Click the link below to read about it.
From veteran nurses I know: Hydrogen Peroxide-to keep tetanus away. If you or someone in your party accidentally comes in contact with a rusty nail, immediately clean the wound and squirt a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide into it.
learn the function of your kit's conponents
How to use your kit
How to use your first aid kit made with Instant Liquid Soap and essential oils will become intuitive once you learn how soap and essentials function.
While on a camping trip in the West Everglades, I slipped on a shell in the ocean and sliced my thumb open.
We rented a canoe and a key (small island) as the camping spot. While canoeing out, 4 dolphins joined us. It was a magical experience. They swam and played with us for many miles through the mangroves. They would sit up on their tails, look you right in the eye and laugh. Then flip up and swim under the canoe.
After the 4-5 hour trip with many detours through the mangroves, we arrived on our key. The first thing I did was remove my life jacket and walk around our tiny coast. Within minutes, I slipped on a shell and broke my fall with my hand. I landed on a shell which sliced the inside of my thumb on the knuckle joint. It was a bloody mess and about a 1/2 inch long slice.
The 10,000 keys are an interesting place. The water is fresh water, and relatively shallow for quite a ways from the coast. Then suddenly it changes. It drops to I don't know how deep, and turns to sort of salt water. You are out at sea. It's amazing and daunting in a canoe.
I rinsed my wound out with the everglades water. I then cleaned it with the best camping soap, fresh drinking water, and bandaged it. I washed the cut with bar soap and Everglades water and changed the bandage 3-4 times a day. It healed nicely and I had a great trip. I have a small barely noticeable raised scar.
attend to minor accidents immediately
Avoid an abscess
How to avoid an abscess is easy. Be aware that minor splinters, pricks from bushes, or tiny skin punctures from your life adventures should be cleaned with soap and water immediately.
Abscesses are a less than pleasant occurrence. Abscesses usually occur with a very small puncture wound that heals over quickly before the wound is properly cleaned.
A splinter, pricker from any kind of plant or tiny minor abrasion that is not properly cleaned can cause one.
A microscopic piece of dirt or any kind of debris with the smallest bacteria can get trapped under a few layers of skin and remain unnoticed until the bacteria multiplies and becomes infected. The infection turns into a sore bump and can quickly fill with blood and a white sticky or smelly liquid. This is an abscess.
One of my roosters got an abscess on the bottom of his foot, aka bumble foot. He neglected to tell me he got a tiny pin prick or splinter.
We soaked his feet every night at bedtime for 10 minutes. The water was luke warm, with about a 1/2 teaspoon of Unscented Instant Liquid Soap. While he got his foot bath, we gave him some cracked corn to divert his attention. This is easy if your rooster loves you.
Every day, the infection was slightly better. After 4 weeks, the giant abscess fell out in the bath, leaving a gaping hole in the bottom of his foot. The baths continued.
His foot slowly grew all of the skin back, filling in the hole and restoring his normal foot pad. He is fine today.
Take a short cut cleaning an abscess in people
How to clean an abscess
How to clean an abscess is simple. Here is your tool list:
- A clean washcloth
- A clean dry towel
- Clean hot water
- A clean, non rusty sewing needle
- Matches
- Instant Liquid Soap in some sort of squirt bottle if you have one. If not, a pump bottle or spray bottle will work fine.
- Clean cotton swabs
- Clean gauze bandages and bandage tape
- Instant Liquid Soap, diluted to full strength
Soap and water is best
Wash Your Hands First
If you or anyone you know (other than a rooster) develops an abscess, here are simple instructions to clean it out, so the road to wellness is a fast one.
Wash your hands with soap and water thoroughly, getting your fingernails, nail beds and fingertips before you get started.
By the time an abscess is noticed, it could hot and very tender to the touch, but angry and tough. Act quickly, and soak it with a hot compress, which is a clean washcloth dipped in hot water and wrung out just enough to remain very moist, yet not dripping. This will hold heat. Gently press the washcloth on the abscess, until it becomes softer. Wring out and warm it up with the hot water a few times if necessary and repeat the compress method until the abscess becomes less angry and a bit softer.
Get the sewing needle, light a match and put the sewing needle in the flame for a few seconds to sterilize it. Then wash the needle with soap and water.
Take the sterile sewing needle and gently puncture the top point of the abscess, by slipping the needle into the skin less than 1/8th of an inch. Remove the needle quickly. If you need to re-puncture, wash and flame the needle again. This should open a gateway for the infected white liquid and blood to escape. If possible, squeeze the abscess to get as much liquid out as possible. (I chose not to do this to my rooster.)
Take the bottle of liquid soap in a squirt or spray bottle and douse the opened and draining abscess. This should sting quite a bit. Rinse with clean warm water and again squirt Instant Liquid Soap right in the open wound.
With the clean cotton swabs, gently clean up around the wound. Take another clean cotton swab and wet one end with more liquid soap to drip inside the popped abscess and around the edges.
Bandage with a few layers of gauze bandage and tape all around the edges. Repeat all of the cleaning steps and changes the bandage 3-5 times a day until the abscess is healed.
It's much better to avoid an abscess and take extra time to clean a minor wound right away.