Making Vicks With Vicente and Dominga

Today I learned from Vicente and Dominga how to make Vicks Vapor Rub ("beaks bay poor roob"). Our home made version (remedio casero) consists of eucalyptus leaves, cypress branches, the resin-laden heart of the white pine, and vaseline.

After removing the eucalyptus leaves and de-stemming the cypress, we boiled them together with vaseline for about 5 minutes. The actual recipe is three fistfulls of each plant plus two tubs of vaseline. Then you add one fistfull of pine. The concoction is then strained and poured into empty Norvasc bottles (I imagine that other empty bottles will do).

Vicks is a very popular remedy here for nasal congestion and colds. Our version is sold by the health promoters at 1Q each, about 10 cents. The store-bought version is about 75 cents. We made 42 bottles and spend 30Q so that's a $1.20 profit for the half day of work. Par for the course.