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Starting Your Own Apothecary: The Best Herbs to Begin With

December 9, 2025

Building your own apothecary sounds ambitious, but it really just means keeping a small, organized collection of herbs and the few tools to turn them into teas, oils, and salves. You do not need a hundred jars or rare botanicals. You need a handful of versatile herbs you will actually use, a few basic tools, and a little know-how. Here is how to begin.

Start with versatile, beginner-friendly herbs

The best first herbs are forgiving to grow or easy to buy dried, gentle to use, and useful in more than one way. A solid starter shelf might be:

  • Chamomile — a calming evening tea and a gentle skin herb.
  • Calendula — the classic skin herb for salves and balms.
  • Peppermint — a bright, cooling after-meal digestive tea.
  • Lemon balm — a lemony, mood-lifting tea that pairs beautifully with chamomile.
  • Lavender — calming and fragrant, lovely in teas, baths, and balms.
  • Plantain — a free “weed” that makes a wonderful skin salve.
  • Thyme — a warming, aromatic kitchen herb with a soothing honey-syrup tradition.

Pick five or six you are drawn to rather than buying everything at once. You will learn far more from using a few herbs well than from a crowded shelf you never touch.

The simple tool kit

You almost certainly own most of this already:

  • Clean glass jars with tight lids (for storing herbs and making infusions)
  • A fine strainer and some cheesecloth
  • A small saucepan or double boiler
  • Amber dropper bottles and small tins (for tinctures and salves)
  • Labels and a marker (label everything with the herb and date)
  • A kitchen scale is helpful but not essential

Use glass, stainless steel, or enamel for making remedies, never aluminum.

How to store your herbs

Dried herbs keep their potency best in airtight jars, away from heat, light, and moisture. Whole leaves and flowers last longer than powders. Label each jar with the herb and the date you dried or bought it, and refresh your stock about once a year. A cool, dark cupboard is the ideal home for your apothecary. If you grow your own, our guide to drying herbs at home covers how to get a harvest jar-ready.

What to make first

Begin with the three preparations that cover most everyday needs:

  1. A simple infusion (tea) — pour just-boiled water over 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried herb, cover, and steep 10 minutes. Start with chamomile or peppermint.
  2. An infused oil — gently warm dried calendula or plantain in olive oil, then strain. This is the base for salves.
  3. A basic salve — thicken your infused oil with beeswax at about a 1-to-4 ratio. Our salve-making guide walks through it step by step.

From there you can branch into tinctures and syrups as you grow more comfortable.

Keep learning

A good reference makes all the difference when you are starting out. Our Field Guide to Common Medicinal Herbs organizes the most common medicinal herbs by climate and region, with traditional uses, preparation methods, and safety notes, so you can build a shelf suited to where you live.

And if you would rather start with something already made while you learn, our handcrafted salves, soaps, and teas are made in small batches with organic botanicals.

A note on safety

Start simple, identify every plant with certainty, and research any herb before using it, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, giving herbs to children, or taking medication. This article is educational and reflects traditional use; it is not medical advice.

Field Guide to Common Medicinal Herbs cover Go deeper with the guide Field Guide to Common Medicinal Herbs by Climate & Region

This article is for educational purposes and reflects traditional herbal use. It is not medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before using herbs, especially if pregnant, nursing, or taking medication.

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