In this article we’ll be exploring the benefits of willow bark in herbal medicine as a natural pain reliever and learn how to make natural aspirin at home. We’ll also explore why it works, the phytochemistry and active ingredient, and whether or not it works better than aspirin. Finally, you’ll find out how to make a white willow bark tincture and extract.

You’ll also find out how to identify, harvest, and prepare willow for your home medicine chest. I’ve got a few different herbal products and medicine options here for you because not everyone likes an alcohol tincture. And, we’ll be discussing how much to take (which is a much lower dose in general compared to aspirin) as well!

Learning about herbal medicine and how to work safely and effectively with herbs is an important skillset to learn. Especially if you’re into being more independent from Big Pharma and you want greater self-reliance and empowerment with your medical health and wellness choices, herbalism is vital to your strategies.

Many people wonder, “Is white willow bark the same as aspirin?”

The short answer is: no, but there’s more to the story.

Willow bark has been used for thousands of years as a pain reliever, and it grows nearly everywhere where there’s water. It contains a chemical called salicin, which is a precursor to the acetylsalicylic acid that causes the pain relieving response in our bodies, including from aspirin. It’s much safer than aspirin, which originates with acetyl salicylate, a chemical that causes a great deal of gastric distress.

In our family, we’ve been using willow bark almost exclusively for pain relief for nearly ten years now, with excellent results. We have not used any over-the-counter or Rx in this same period of time because we’ve discovered natural plants are much safer and work amazingly well if you know what you’re doing or have an herbal guide.

How Does White Willow Bark Work as a Pain Reliever?

The salicin in the willow bark is metabolized in our bodies and converted to salicylic acid. Acetyl-salicylate, found in aspirin, shares a similar metabolic path as salicin, only with fewer processes, and this is why willow bark works, in a simple explanation.

Basically, the pharmacological active ingredient in aspirin and the phytochemical (salicin) found in willow bark are both converted to the same pain relieving chemical (acetylsalicylic acid) when metabolized in our bodies.

The special thing about making your own natural aspirin with willow bark or other plants high in salicin is that by using the whole plant, the synergies of chemicals in the plant are much easier for our bodies to absorb and metabolize and also don’t have the dangerous side effects of NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, or common OTC pain relievers), including aspirin.

This is why taking willow bark tincture or tea simply won’t have the negative side effects of possible nausea, stomach bleeding, or stomach upset that aspirin has.

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Will All Willows Work to Make Natural Aspirin?

I get asked often if weeping willow (Salix babylonica) can be used for making natural pain relief, like the commonly used species, Salix alba (white willow).

There are around 400 species of willow trees (Salix species). These are found in the family Salicaceae, which indicates the presence of the salicin in these trees. All willows contain salicin to one degree or another. From the beautiful and stately weeping willow (Salix babylonica) to the species most revered by herbalists for medicine, white willow (Salix alba), all can be used as medicine.

Just be aware that your tinctures and teas may have to be used differently depending on the specific species. If you’re working with a willow species that doesn’t have as much salicin, you may need to increase your dosing amount to find relief. In this article, in terms of dosing and general information, I’ll be referring to white willow (Salix alba), which has a much lower dosing amount than other species.

Willows may be tall trees or rather rangy, scraggly shrubs, depending on the species. They’re most easily identifiable by the catkins that blossom in the spring, and most will have long, thin leaves with very small, fine toothed margins.

White willow, my favorite choice for making natural aspirin, can often be identified in the early spring by the orange, red, or bright yellow colors of the younger stems. The leaves are an olive gray green color, and when mature may appear similar to the weeping willow….only the white willow’s stems don’t droop gracefully like the weeping willow’s. (Source)

Willows are deciduous plants, so you can expect them to drop their leaves during winter dormancy. They love water, and in the wild are often found growing near or right in water areas, including creek beds.

Willows have a tendency to hybridize with other willows growing in the same area. (Source)

The leaves of willow species are lance-shaped, with finely toothed edges. Although the plant can be either a tree or a shrub depending on the species, the leaves are fairly similar.

Benefits and Uses of Willow Bark Tea or Tincture

Willow bark can be used for all the same purposes as aspirin, and without the side effects on the digestive system or clotting mechanisms based on clinical studies.

One study showed that standardized willow bark to 240 mg per dose was as effective as the synthetic NSAID counterpart commonly used, and again, when we know that willow bark extract doesn’t have the potentially deleterious side effects as aspirin, it’s easy to choose the more natural option.

Willow bark is helpful for:

Back and joint pain
Headache
Menstrual cramps
Lower back pain
Relief of minor joint pain
Gout
Other inflammatory responses causing pain
Arthritis
Blood thinning potential
May be an anaphrodisiac, to an extent, causing a reduction in libido for some
Great news! Willow extract is fast becoming an additive in anti-aging formulas for beauty, too.

Harvesting Willow Bark to Make Natural Aspirin

The inner bark, or cambium layer, is the part you’ll want to harvest for your willow bark aspirin. You can harvest from the trunk, although I do NOT recommend this as a practice. It’s easy to kill a tree by over harvesting this layer. You never want to “ring” a trunk, but instead cut in vertical strips in small amounts.

I like to use the branches of first and second year growth. It’s a little harder to strip off the outer layer, as these are thinner, however, it’s ok if some of the outer bark bits end up in your harvest. If you have a nice fallen limb that’s not dead, you can use this, too.

Remove the outer bark, then cut strips of the inner bark. Cut these to the size desired. You can use these fresh or dried, as mentioned below in the directions for the tea and tincture.

Although I’ve harvested willow bark in the past, I don’t prefer to mess with my trees. This is an emergency measure. Instead, I usually purchase my willow bark from trusted herbal sources.

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Dosing of Willow Bark for Replacing Aspirin

Here’s where things get a little tricky when using natural herbal supplements made at home and that aren’t standardized in a lab. There’s really no way to measure how much of the active constituents you’re getting in your tea or tincture.

Generally, experienced herbalists are very good at determining, based on an individuals’ needs, how much to use, and a good herbalist will titrate the dosing, if not quite sure. As an herbalist who has made hundreds of tinctures over the years, I can tell you that it’s pretty easy at this point to sense the strength of the tincture or tea.

However, for those who need the peace of mind of a standardized and lab-tested choice, natural willow bark tincture might just be a “just in case” scenario, instead of what is exclusively and commonly used, as in my case and others I know.

Purchased willow bark extract comes in various strengths. Clinical studies have used standardized doses of 240 mg per day to help improve certain chronic conditions. (Source) This is a measure of the methyl salicylate. You’ll want to follow the directions on the bottle if you purchase it in standardized form.

A well-made tincture for adults consists of three full standard droppers (about 1/2 teaspoon) every three to four hours as needed. Of course, like other herbs and medications, the effectiveness will also be determined by the individual’s constitution and size, and the dose should be adjusted accordingly. Find out more about dosing herbs here.

Safety and Contraindications:

The same precautions that are stated for aspirin should also be applied to willow bark extracts. In other words, don’t use with children who are experiencing flu-like symptoms or fever, due to the rare potential for Reye’s Syndrome. (Source) If you’re on blood-thinning medications, be sure to discuss use of both aspirin and willow bark with your physician.

Basically, since aspirin can cause serious stomach bleeding for some individuals (Source), and willow bark doesn’t seem to have this issue, I consider willow bark, with the whole herb used, as the best choice for my family.

How to Make Willow Bark Tincture

Fill a Mason jar, packed a bit, with freshly harvested strips of the inner bark of the first or second year growth of the tree. Fill the jar with your vodka (and 80 proof is fine in this case). Infuse and macerate for four to eight weeks. Longer won’t hurt. Strain off the liquid, bottle up, and store in a cool, dark place.

For the dried herb, which you can purchase at Starwest Botanicals, fill your jar just under halfway full, then pour your vodka to within an inch of the top. Let steep the same amount of time, and bottle it up the same way.

You can find out more about making herbal tinctures here.

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You can see how I make the willow bark tincture here on my YouTube channel:

How to Make Willow Bark Tea

An alternative to the tincture is to made a tea. Since the part used is the bark, a decoction of the fresh or dried plant is indicated. Simply simmer the fresh or dried bark in water for about 20 minutes. Strain off the liquid, and sip.

I suggest a tablespoon of dried cut and sifted bark to about two cups of water. If using fresh bark, you’ll need about a tablespoon of the chopped herb. For dried herb, about 1/2 tablespoon should do. This will yield about a cup of tea.

Other Willow Bark Extracts

There are other options besides water (tea) and alcohol (tincture) for working with willow bark. One is vinegar. You can make a beautiful acetum (vinegar extract) with willow bark. It won’t be as strong as the tincture, so you’ll probably have to increase the dosage amount. You can mix a vinegar extract with honey and make quite a tasty product called an oxymel.

Optionally, you can use vegetable glycerine in combination with distilled water for a sweet-tasting product. Glycerites like this are excellent for children.

You can find out more about the best solvents (liquids) to use to make your extracts in this article.

The Phytochemistry in Willow: How and Why It Works, Plus Safety Information

There’s a lot of chemistry behind why many plants work so well as medicine. I could make this very complex, but for the sake of not scaring you away, I’ll explain the phytotherapy (plant chemical actions) simply.

The important thing to know is that willow bark as an aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory substitute has minimal adverse effects, especially in comparison to over-the-counter and pharmaceutical options. (Source)

Willow and other poplar plant species like birch contain a chemical called salicin. It’s this chemical that’s the primary reason for willow’s exceptional ability to ease inflammation and help manage the pain response in our bodies.

As the tincture enters our digestive tract and liver, the salicin goes through at least two metabolic pathways and ends up turning into salicylic acid (the chemical responsible for relieving inflammation and pain), most likely in the intestines and/or the liver.

Let’s compare this process to aspirin.

Aspirin contains a synthetic chemical (sometimes made with petrochemical waste) called acetyl salicylate. This chemical only goes through one metabolic process before entering our blood, generally through the stomach, before turning into salicylic acid. For this reason, it can cause stomach upset, ulcers with overuse, and other unpleasant side effects.

A pertinent piece of information that’s necessary to understand why willow bark tincture is actually safer than aspirin is what happens with COX-1 and COX-2 inhibitors. These directly affect the pain and inflammatory responses in our bodies. While the aspirin compound tends to deactivate these inhibitors completely and forever, willow bark’s chemical, salicin, only affects them temporarily.

Willow bark doesn’t seem to have the same blood thinning effect on the blood either, as it doesn’t effect the platelets like acetyl salicylate does.

Interestingly, salicin is present in low amounts in willow, and researchers aren’t really sure why it works as well as it does. But here’s the acknowledged thing about herbalism and using the whole plant: There’s a synergy between the thousands of chemicals in a plant that occurs, and it’s very difficult (ok, impossible) to simply pull out one chemical and give all the credit to it.

The reality is that it’s the chemicals working together in synergy that create the positive effects. Scientists are beginning to acknowledge this synergism among natural plant chemicals and that they are usually unable to understand the exact mechanisms for why they work.

And, here I must add my personal two cents opinion about plant medicine versus modern medicine. God made us. He made the plants. He made our world, and He did it all perfectly. He knew exactly what He was doing. We have plants all around us that He gave to us for our health and well-being.

When science comes along and takes out one compound, then synthesizes it in a lab, it’s a completely different process and thing. You’ve now lost the synergy between all the compounds in the plant and how that action was meant to take place.

I’m not saying science is bad at all. I rely heavily upon clinical studies in my research….

But what I am saying is that perhaps we need to start looking to the plants again for our wellness. At least in terms of common ailments. Science is a useful tool in helping us get a little glimmer of understanding. Therefore, it’s a good idea to combine both science as well as thousands of years of anecdotal use of medicinal plants to help us inform the decisions we make for our own and our family members’ health.

It’s a wondrous thing that science has developed to the point where we can reduce a plant to a bunch of chemicals….but still…we just can’t determine every single time why a plant works so well without having the knowledge of the synergy involved. But the important thing is that, at least for those of us who work directly with the plants, we know they work.

How Does Willow Bark Tincture or Tea Taste?

Honestly, I love the taste of willow bark tea and tincture. The tea is a little more bitter than the tincture (to me), but it’s not unpleasant. The tincture is very easy to take, and if the taste bothers you, many of my clients prefer to dilute it in some tea or water.

I happen to prefer the tincture over the tea because you can make quite a lot at a time, and it’s ready to go! The tea takes a few moments to prepare, and it only lasts a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Other alternatives are to use a vegetable glycerin method if you want to avoid the alcohol in a tincture. Another alternative to alcohol and water is to make an acetum, or vinegar extract. Once finished, and by adding honey, you have a nice oxymel. These are wonderful for overall health, too.

Final Thoughts on Using Willow Bark for Your Own Homemade Aspirin

When I first began using herbs for my family’s health and wellness instead of over-the-counter medications (which we haven’t used in about a decade now), willow bark tincture was one of the first experiments I tried. It was such a great success!

What a blessing it is to be able to know how to locate, harvest, and use the gifts God has given us for our health and the health of the community. I hope you’ll decide to delve into herbalism. I believe that every extended family needs an herbalist as an alternative choice to the drugstore.

You might also be interested in these related articles:

Four Cold and Flu Remedies to Be Ready for Fall (Plus How to Make an Elderberry Oxymel)

Foraging Chaparral and Its Benefits and Uses

An Herbal Protocol for Shingles and Cold Sores

Natural and Effective Mouthwash with Herbs

Best Essential Oils for the Cold and Flu

And please feel free to explore the website! There are over 500 articles for you there.

If you’re interested in videos, you can see how I make natural aspirin, as well as others that may interest you:

How to Make Natural Aspirin

How to Make a Lymph Moving Massage Oil Blend

Why I Became an Herbalist

Foraging Poplar Buds and How to Use Them for Pain Relief

Pain Relieving Cayenne Salve Recipe

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If you have questions, please leave a comment. I do my best to reply as soon as I can.

Hugs, Health, and Self-Reliance,

Heidi

P.S. Don’t forget to get your FREE Herbal Remedy Guide and Cheat Sheet that’s perfect for your kitchen or home apothecary. Just click the link right here.

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, and these statements are not meant or implied to treat, cure, diagnose or prevent any disease or illness. The information here is for education only. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA.

How to Make Natural Aspirin with Willow Bark (Salix alba)