How I prepare fresh ginger for making herbal skincare

Ginger’s key active ingredients responsible for its warming, restorative actions —are mostly oil-soluble.

Which makes ginger root especially good for infusing into oil.

When you make infused oil from scratch, starting with fresh ginger root —it creates such an aromatic, potent oil that you can feel working when you apply it onto your skin.

Ginger-infused oil can be used directly on the skin as a body oil, added to baths/foot baths, and used to make balms & salves, body scrubs, and any skincare recipe that calls oil.

My favorite way to use ginger-infused oil is to make a night-time balm, especially when it’s cold… to rub all over my legs and feet. Put socks on top, and the ginger feels so warming, moves blood and lymph, and keeps you feeling cozy!

  • Note: Ginger’s key actives are also soluble in alcohol and glycerine. Personally, I haven’t prepared ginger in this way for making skincare. If you do, you won’t need to dry it first, you can use fresh ginger to infuse it into alcohol/and or glycerine.

    Here is an example of ginger root extract made for cosmetic use —which is simply ginger root infused into glycerine. It’s interesting to see how it’s used, at what usage rate etc…

Process

To infuse ginger into oil, you want to dehydrate it first to remove its water content. Once dried, you can also powder it to make ginger powder which I have used for making bath bombs and bath salts. (and of course for cooking!!)

  1. You don’t need to peel ginger. In fact, this study found that unpeeled ginger contained higher amounts of gingerol (the key active ingredient) than peeled ginger. Read Study
  2. Give it a good scrub with a veggie brush.
  3. Slice the ginger root as thinly and consistently as you can, so that all the pieces dehydrate evenly. I’ve seed people recommend grating it, but I find that it looses a lot of its juice this way, and comes out too fibrous.
  4. Lay the pieces flat in your dehydrator and set to 120° F for about 2-4 hours (depends on how thin you sliced it)
    • Note: The earlier study, found that drying ginger at 120° F was the second best method for preserving the active ingredient, gingerol. The first best being freeze-drying.

      Another study revealed that a higher heat (150° F) transforms gingerol into shogaol, a compound with a spicier taste and stronger circulatory-stimulating effects. If you want a more potent, more active ingredient -you might try drying it at a higher temperature.

      Ultimately I am a home herbalist, not a lab chemist… my goal isn’t specific measures (I can’t really know) but I like to know I’m using techniques to produce higher quality ingredients.
  5. Store dried ginger pieces in a mason jar, it should keep for 1 year if stored properly, away from light, and moisture. Powdered ginger keeps for 6 months. You can also store it in a freezer bag —the freezer is a great place to store dehydrated/dry goods!

Do I need a dehydrator? Drying fresh ingredients at a low temperature (95° – 150° F) will produce a higher quality ingredient. Ovens can’t go this low, and so I don’t recommend it.

With a dehydrator, you’ll get brighter, more aromatic, more potent ingredients for your herbal skincare recipes.

If you’re looking to purchase one —I recommend a box dehydrator, because you can remove the trays to fit larger items inside, like a jar, and use it to make oil infusions as well!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *