Thanks Amy!
Great questions. Those are things I have been experimenting with myself a bit this year.
What I have done so far in my experiments is melt the resin down in glass jars which I placed in a slow cooker (half filled with water) until I could separate the liquid from the solids, after which I stored some pure resin in the freezer and then mixed some in other experiments where I made variations of this topical salve ( gavinmounsey.substack.c… ) that incorporated up to 1/5 pine resin (instead of part of the Coconut / Cacao oil ratio) and excluded some of the less shelf stable ingredients (like aloe gel) to make a more solid salve for carrying in my trail / bug out bag natural first aid kit.
I store both in the freezer in air tight containers simply because I know colder temps and lax of light/oxygenation will preserve the medicinally active compounds at a higher potency for longer, but I imagine the pure pine resin would be fine and retain good medicinal properties for years if stored in an airtight container in a cool/dry/dark place.
I added several more links to other people's posts pertaining to "purifying" pine resin via various melting and combining with other oils in the Pine Resin section of the article above for other people's perspectives.
This post ( apothecarysgarden.com/b… ) with a recipe that includes pine resin as an ingredient for a "Winter Chest Rub" salve the author states:
"if your oil is fresh and the product is stored in a cool dark place, you can expect a shelf life of at least 2 years".
and in this post ( redheadedherbalist.com/… ) on "Processing Pine Pitch for Use in Personal Care & Health Products" the author states "cover your jar with an airtight lid and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight. Properly stored, a jar of this valuable stuff (purified pine resin or "tar" as she calls it) should last virtually forever."
For some scientific studies that provide additional context, I found the following:
"Effect of Temperature on Various Rosins and Pine Gum" :
"Effect of heat treatment at mild temperatures on the composition and physico-chemical properties of Scots pine resin" :
"Quality aspects during pine resin storage: Appearance deterioration, turpentine chemical components change" :
"A study of the physico-chemical properties of dried pine resin" :
Thanks very much for the kind comment, glad you appreciate and value the content.
