Why I Built 6 Herbs Around Lomatium | The Story of MunityBoost
More than 20 years ago, I was trying to solve a problem.
I loved Lomatium. I knew the plant, I knew its history, and I certainly knew how much my dad, Max Barlow, believed in it. His pure Lomatium tincture, LDM-100, was probably the product he became best known for.
But I also knew about the rash.
If you've used Lomatium or been around it for very long, you may know exactly what I'm talking about. Some people experience a distinctive, one-time detox-type rash when they first begin using the herb.
It got me thinking.
Could I build something around Lomatium that would help the body process, move, and clear more efficiently?
I wasn't trying to improve Dad's LDM-100 or replace it. Pure Lomatium had, and still has, its place. I was asking a different question.
If Lomatium was going to be the centerpiece, what could I put around it to support the liver, encourage lymphatic movement, help clear mucus and congestion, and support the body's pathways of elimination?
That question eventually became MunityBoost.
I started with Dandelion Root because the liver was one of the first places my mind went. Dandelion is one of herbalism's classic bitter liver and digestive herbs, traditionally used to support healthy digestion, bile flow, and liver function.
I wasn't interested in simply piling more "immune herbs" on top of Lomatium. I wanted to think about what happens after the body mounts a response.
Where does everything go?
How does the body move it?
How does it clear it?
That's where Red Root became important. Traditional Western herbalists have long valued Red Root for the lymphatic system, especially where there is congestion or stagnation. When you're thinking about immune activity, mucus, and drainage, the lymphatic system deserves a seat at the table.
Then I added Blue Vervain, another bitter herb but one with wonderful traditional nervine and relaxing qualities as well. I think of Blue Vervain as helping when the body is tight, tense, sluggish, or simply needs a little encouragement to let go.
Sarsaparilla brought its long tradition as an alterative, one of those wonderful old herbal terms for plants used to support the body's cleansing and elimination processes and gradually improve the internal terrain. That especially interested me because one of my original goals was to help reduce the likelihood of that Lomatium-associated rash.
Older herbalists didn't necessarily look at a skin eruption as only a skin problem. They often looked deeper, to the liver, lymph, digestion, and elimination, and asked whether the body needed better avenues for clearing.
That philosophy made a lot of sense to me.
Black Walnut Hull added another layer of broad cleansing and antimicrobial support. It's another plant with deep roots in Barlow Herbal; Dad used it in Clarkia-100 and Vermicyde, and I liked what it brought to the overall terrain of MunityBoost.
Finally, I added St. John’s Wort. Most people today immediately associate St. John’s Wort with mood, but traditional herbalists knew a much broader plant, with a long history of use for the nervous system, tissues, and inflammatory irritation. It makes up just 4% of MunityBoost, but it’s an important little part of the formula. One word of caution: if you take a prescription antidepressant, or other prescription medications, be sure to check for potential interactions with St. John’s Wort before using MunityBoost.
When I finally stepped back and looked at the finished formula, I realized I had created something quite different from straight Lomatium.
LDM-100 gives you Lomatium.
MunityBoost gives Lomatium a supporting cast.
The liver gets support. The lymph gets attention. Mucus and congestion are part of the picture. Elimination matters. The nervous system and tissues aren't forgotten.
The simplest way I can describe what I was trying to accomplish is:
Move. Process. Clear.
And then, as so often happens with herbs, the people using the formula began teaching me something.
MunityBoost naturally found a following for cold and flu season. That wasn't terribly surprising. Many people began choosing it instead of pure LDM-100 when they wanted Lomatium along with broader herbal support.
But then we started hearing something else.
"I use it for my seasonal allergies."
And we kept hearing it.
Year after year.
Some of the people who discovered MunityBoost that way have now been using it during allergy season for a couple of decades.
Once I looked at the formula through that lens, it actually made a lot of sense.
Think about what allergy season can look like: mucus, stuffiness, congestion, irritated tissues, an active immune response, and a lymphatic system dealing with everything that's happening.
And here was this formula I'd built around movement, drainage, liver support, mucus, and elimination.
I hadn't originally set out to create an allergy formula.
I had created a formula to help keep things moving, and our customers discovered another time when that mattered.
That's one of my favorite things about working with herbs. You can study them for years, formulate very intentionally, and still have the people using them show you something you hadn't originally considered.
There's another reason MunityBoost is special to me.
It was one of the first formulas I created after restarting Barlow Herbal.
Dad had already taught me to appreciate Lomatium. I didn't need to reinvent that plant.
Instead, I began asking: What can I build around it?
MunityBoost was one of my early answers.
More than 20 years later, it's still one of our treasured formulas. Some people reach for it when cold and flu season arrives. Some prefer it to pure LDM-100. And others wouldn't dream of going into allergy season without a bottle nearby.
I created it because I wanted to give Lomatium some help doing what I believe the body often needs most:
Respond, but also move, process, and clear.
And after more than two decades of watching people use MunityBoost, I appreciate this formula today even more than I did when I first put those seven herbs together.
Stay grounded and growing!
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Posted on August 27 2026