These Herbs Have Been Around Longer Than Any Beauty Brand.
I still remember when I first started making salves in our Jerusalem kitchen, I wasn't thinking about SEO or marketing. I was thinking about myrrh.
Specifically, I was thinking about the fact that myrrh appears in the Torah, in the Talmud, in the Psalms of David, and in the story of Queen Esther's legendary beauty preparations — and yet here it was, sitting in a small glass bottle in my hands, smelling like the earth itself.
That stopped me.
If people three thousand years ago knew about the healing herbs of the Bible — if they were using biblical herbs for healing, for purification, for skincare — then maybe we'd walked away from something worth returning to.
That's really what Salves of Jerusalem is about. Not reinventing anything. Just remembering.
What Are Biblical Herbs, Exactly?
When I talk about biblical herbs, I mean the plants that appear in ancient texts and were woven into daily life in the Land of Israel — used for medicine, ritual, cooking, and beauty.
Some of the most significant godly herbs mentioned in scripture include:
Myrrh — one of the most ancient of all bible healing herbs, used for anointing, purifying, and caring for the skin. It appears throughout the Torah and was among the gifts brought to newborns considered royalty.
Frankincense — burned in the Temple in Jerusalem, used in sacred rituals, and prized across the ancient world for its grounding, calming aroma and skin-supporting properties.
Hyssop — one of the most referenced healing herbs of the Bible, used in purification ceremonies and mentioned explicitly in Psalms.
Bay Laurel, Rose, and Rosemary — aromatic plants that grew wild across the hills of Israel and were part of everyday wellness in the ancient world.
These weren't exotic or imported luxuries. They were the medicine cabinet of the ancient world. And they still work.
Why These Herbs Still Matter for Your Skin
Here's something I think about a lot: modern skincare often solves a problem by introducing something that didn't exist in nature. Synthetic preservatives. Chemical emulsifiers. Water-diluted "active" ingredients that need a paragraph of disclaimers.
Biblical herbs and remedies were the opposite. They were concentrated, whole, and oil-based — which is exactly why they penetrated the skin so effectively. Ancient peoples weren't using water-based lotions. They were using olive oil, beeswax, and herbal infusions. Rich, dense, deeply nourishing.
When we talk about bible herbs for healing in the context of skincare today, we're really talking about:
- Frankincense and myrrh, which are deeply hydrating and help the skin look radiant and refreshed
- Herbal infusions slow-steeped in organic olive oil, which carry the plant's nourishing properties deep into the skin
- Beeswax, which creates a natural protective layer without blocking the skin's ability to breathe
None of this is new. It's just been largely forgotten — which is a shame, because it works beautifully.
How We Use Biblical Botanicals at Salves of Jerusalem
We make our salves and serums from organic Suri olive oil — the same variety grown in this land for millennia — along with wildcrafted beeswax from the Galilee and medicinal-grade essential oils including frankincense, myrrh, bay laurel, and rose.
Our Biblical Fountain of Youth Face Serum is probably our most direct tribute to this tradition. It combines organic frankincense and myrrh in a rich, oil-based serum designed to nourish and soften the skin. People tell us it softens fine lines and helps skin look more toned and refreshed.
Our Herbal Family Salve is a daily-use body and skin salve built around the same ancient philosophy: a blend of lavender, frankincense, geranium, and myrrh, carefully formulated to nourish skin from head to toe.
Every product we make uses slow herbal infusions — not extracts, not isolates, not synthetic copies. The whole plant, steeped the slow way, the way it's been done for centuries.
What Did Queen Esther Know That We've Forgotten?
The book of Esther describes a twelve-month beauty preparation — six months with myrrh oil, six months with other aromatic herbs and spices. Whatever you make of the story, the skin wisdom embedded in it is real.
Myrrh is deeply moisturizing and protective. Long-term, consistent, oil-based skincare is exactly what dermatologists today are rediscovering as optimal for the skin barrier.
Esther's skin care wasn't magic. It was attentive, consistent, and rooted in the most nourishing botanicals available. And those botanicals — frankincense, myrrh, and the healing herbs of the Bible — are still available to us today.
A Note on "Biblical Skincare" vs. the Wellness Industry
I want to be careful here, because the phrase biblical skincare can get murky fast.
There are plenty of products that use the word "biblical" as a marketing label without much substance behind it. What we try to do is different: we actually source the botanicals mentioned in ancient texts, use the same oil-based formulation methods that would have been used historically, and make everything by hand in Jerusalem — where these herbs actually grew.
It's a privilege to work with ingredients from across Israel: beeswax from the Galilee, olive oil from Beit Shemesh, and botanical essential oils from the same land where these plants were first documented thousands of years ago.
That's what makes this feel real to us — and we hope it feels real to you too.
How to Bring Biblical Herbs Into Your Skincare Routine
You don't need a complicated routine. You just need a few good things.
- For face: A few drops of our Biblical Fountain of Youth Serum morning and evening. Frankincense and myrrh in a light, absorbent oil base.
- For body: Our Herbal Family Salve — a small amount goes a long way. Elbows, hands, dry patches, scars, stretch marks. Anywhere that needs nourishing.
- For sore muscles: Magic Muscle Balm — a warming blend with eucalyptus, camphor, peppermint, and wintergreen. Ancient herbs meet modern muscle relief.
All of it made in our kitchen. All of it infused with love and blessings.
The Bottom Line
Biblical herbs aren't a trend. They're a tradition. One that survived because it works.
When you choose skincare rooted in these herbs in the Bible — frankincense, myrrh, hyssop, bay laurel, rose — you're not just choosing better ingredients. You're choosing a connection to thousands of years of natural wisdom.
That's what we make. That's what we send out from Jerusalem, with every order.
With love from Jerusalem,
Simcha, Rachel, and our 3 boys:)
