The process below can be used for preparing any formula. It can provide good justification as to why it makes sense to have some guidance, through a herbalist or health practitioner, when making a botanical tincture.
- Confirm your working assessment (aka. make sure you have the right diagnosis)
- Choose specific botanical actions to match your assessment.
- Choose herbs with overlapping primary and secondary actions.
- Choose the desired delivery method (decoction, powder, tincture)
- Look up reference doses, cautions, contraindications, and side effects.
- Determine the desired daily dose for each herb, taking into account the reference dose and the desired representation of the actions in the final formula.
- Multiple by an approximate factor to generate proportions of each herb and adjust numbers to 100 based on desired representation of actions.
- Determine desired duration of prescription (how long the patient should take the formula).
A health practitioner or herbalist will be really helpful with herb selection and dosing, which are of extreme importance for safety and for effectiveness.
If you want some help with formulating, let us know.
Happy formulating!