How to extract juice and soap recipe found on eHow.com -- Extracting jewelweed sap -- Difficulty: Moderately Easy Instructions Things You'll Need Large pot Water Blender or juicer Strainer/cheesecloth Crushing 1 Pick a handful of leaves and stems off the jewelweed plant. 2 Crush the leaves between your fingers until a small amount of juice results. 3 Spread the juice over your skin and rub in. Repeat. Boiling 1 Place water in a large pot -- roughly one part jewelweed and five or more parts water is needed. Base the potency of your product on the severity of the rash. 2 Place jewelweed leaves, flowers and stems in the pot and bring to a boil. 3 Let it boil/simmer for 15-30 minutes. 4 Strain the liquid into a container using a mesh filter or cheesecloth. Place in a refrigerator or freezer if not used immediately. Blending 1 Cut the jewelweed at its base and remove the entire plant from its roots in the ground. 2 Liquefy the jewelweed using a blender, food processor or juicer. 3 Strain it through a mesh filter or cheesecloth and apply to your skin or refrigerate immediately. Recipe for jewelweed soap -- Difficulty: Easy Instructions Things You'll Need Blooming jewelweed plants Glycerin soap base Orange soap coloring Orange essential oil Soap mold Cooking oil spray 1 Gather flowers, leaves and stems from blooming jewelweed plants. Coarsely chop 1 cup of the plant material and add to 1 cup of water in a small saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the water turns dark. 2 Strain the infusion through a coffee filter into a heat-proof jar or bowl. Reserve the liquid and add the plant material to your compost heap. 3 Melt 2 cups glycerin soap base in a double boiler. Remove the pan from the heat, and add � cup jewelweed infusion. Stir well to blend thoroughly. Allow the mixture to cool for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 4 Add two drops of orange soap coloring and seven drops of orange essential oil. Stir very well. 5 Coat your soap mold with a very light layer of cooking oil spray. Pour the liquid into the mold and cool it at room temperature. Remove your jewelweed soap from the mold and enjoy it. Here is a link that might be useful: jewelweed info

I've yet to meet any plant as good as a mudpack for poison oak or ivy after contact and in its early stages. Soothing emollients are nice for itchiness after a few days, but dessication is more important for shortening the course & severity of the skin outbreak, imo. I'm not saying there aren't botanical remedies, just that a good clay is better than all of them and that it's almost always wrong to counteract urushiol with any oil-based solution -- if you can't wash it off quickly, then you want to chemically isolate the ivy's urushiol and keep that toxin's free alkyl groups from bonding with your skin, causing dermatitis. Oils won't do that, but soap, water, clays and certain organic molecules will.

Ohhh yes, I have to jump in here! (thanks Joe, for that yard waste bags thread LOL) SPANK that itch! LOL Okay, I'm laughing, but I'm serious. Being the tactile creature that I am, I used to have the nasty habit of scratching itches (poison oak or ivy rash, skeeter bites, wounds healed to that almost completely healed point but scab not quite ready to come off itch-at-the-edges stage, simple dry skin, whatever... you get the idea) to the point - without conscious awareness, particularly bad on auto-pilot in my sleep - of scratching things into a laceration. I had to re-train myself to spank/slap itchies or to use a cotton, well-textured cloth. I've tried all of the OTC and no small amount of Rx stuff for PI/PO... and by far, in order of what I tried OTC through the years and all effective for me, these have been the best: bleach water solution (1 part bleach, 9-10 parts H2O - same principle as what follows below) Rubbing Alcohol - used gleefully on a terrycloth washcloth that was otherwise clean/dry, rubbing it on - be sure to wash with an oil-"attacking" detergent such as Dawn with hot water and not re-use without washing. 7% Iodine Solution - Oh yes yes yes yes! Be careful though, you can usually get this some place that sells vet/livestock supplies like the co-op BUT, you will know the difference with this compared to OTC people-pharmacy iodine, you open the bottle and the fumes can make your eyes burn/water... stout/potent, but very effective. Ethyl Alcohol - oh yea baby... move over regular rubbing alcohol, this was so much better. Germ-X - and this one is more recent and sheer fluke. I canNOT stand how my hands feel when I have been in public anywhere, especially after touching things that who knows how many other people and things have come into contact with, my hands just feel NASTY - but keeping soap and water in my vehicle became a PITA because bottles got left not sealed/closed tightly, water leaked out, etc. so I tried this stuff and "fell in love" - main ingredient: ethyl alcohol, with a carrier, moisturizer, - and fragrance if you like. The primary factors with my preferred "products" are that they have some impact on drying the PI/PO oils along with one's own body oils and subsequently removing it from the area, and with "victimized"/irritated skin/tissue, these things "burn" and that sates the general urge to scratch. I've had PI/PO on my face and near my eyes before, the only one of those that I will NOT use on my face/near my eyes is the Iodine. My son that has become so sensitive, he has had really good results with a mixture of essential oils that "Grandma" mixed up for him because he keeps getting into the stuff (climbing trees, out in the woods, being a boy, ya know?) If anyone else is "into" essential oils for treatment, let me know and I'll send or post the exact EOs to mix/use and at what ratio and "dosage" (topical) Iva/y-rest, etc. have never been of any use/relief for me personally. I have also not had any noteworthy relief or countering from steroids, taken internally or applied topically. Cortisone creams help for bug bites for me but rarely PI/PO irritation. Aside from 1) attempting to avoid the stuff 2) secondary offense being washing with soap and water if there is/was a chance I was exposed [this usually happens too late for me for bad outbreaks because I'm out working, sweating, and sweat just passes the oils right along and unthought of and usually spread hours before I quit work for the day and get to the shower] and 3) the above list of OTC stuff when #1 and #2 have not prevented an "outbreak". The bleach water solution I *personally* mix stronger than that but that above is how the "recipe" was given to me. I have used straight bleach on the stuff before. But YMMV and everyone has different skin types and sensitivities. The bleach water solution, at the 1:9 and 1:10 ratio though is pretty effective for skeeter bites. All of you who are sensitive to PI/PO - you have my empathy!!!!

Hey gang, The best thing I have found for poison ivy is a good old fashoned home remedy. Find yourself a patch of JEWELWEED. Rub the juice from the stem and leaves on your rash or exposed area for fast relief. Check this website WWW.wildmanstevebrill.com . just click on the link for Foraging/ wild plants and look up jewelweed. he has excellent photos. At the end of the page is a letter I sent him with my experiences. My folks used to insist we scrub with fels Naptha soap if we got in contact with PI. OH YEAH! dON'T MAKE MY MISTAKE! I use this plant so much that I decided to gather seeds and put them in a corner of my yard. I only brought home about 10 seeds. That was 2 years ago and I have just finished clearing about 300 of the plants form the yard. Luckily they have very shallow roots. They are very invasive!