Detailed below are several guides on making a DIY version of Tiger Balm, a popular pain relief salve, using natural ingredients like essential oils and items you may already have at home, like petroleum jelly or beeswax. This DIY pain relief salve will help soothe sore muscles after a long day of working on your homestead.

What is Tiger Balm, and how does it work?

Tiger Balm is a brand of store-bought topical pain medication. When applied on bare skin, the salve provides both a warming and cooling sensation.

Tiger Balm is made of different ingredients like essential oils, petroleum jelly and paraffin. Essential oils give Tiger Balm its distinctive smell and are also responsible for the product's medicinal properties.

Unlike ibuprofen, Tylenol, or aspirin, essential oils are counter-irritants that overload your nerve endings with hot and cold sensations that override pain signals.

There are different Tiger Balm formulas made using a combination of these five ingredients:

Cajeput oil (seven percent) – Cajeput has a heating effect on the skin. It's a traditional remedy against rheumatism, and it also has stimulating and invigorating effects.

Camphor oil (11-25 percent) – Camphor is one of the two active ingredients in Tiger Balm. It has both cooling and warming effects on your skin and also increases blood circulation.