Easy Skyrim Alchemy Potions

This is a guide to easy potion recipes that covers a broad spectrum of needs, including developing gold income from potion making. It is not intended to be a resource table of ingredients and attributes, or a comprehensive list of possible combinations.

The potions listed here can be made from common ingredients, most of which can be grown in Hearthfire manors' Greenhouse or Fishery (Winstad Manor only) once those are built, and commonly available in Alchemy shops to get your crops started. A few recipes containing rarer ingredients are listed because of the value of the recipe, and it is worth questing to gain those ingredients, or simply making them when the ingredients are found.

While it may annoy some people, I am going to include some things for Frostbrook Farm as well, since it adds a bunch of new Mob Drops (ingredients) to the game, and has a fairly extensive growing area for plants and massive crafting capability... so it is really a good mod for playing an Alchemist/Crafter.

Legend

* = can be grown or obtained in Greenhouse or Fishery
[ ] = Mob Drop, or cannot be grown, but still easily found ingredient
italic = less common or difficult ingredient

DB = Dragonborn DLC (Solstheim, new ingredients)
(Immersive College of Winterhold MOD has greenhouse areas where Solstheim ingredients can be collected periodically, without having to travel to Solstheim.)
FF = Frostbrook Farm (Steam Workshop MOD, also on Nexus) listed separately at the end

1. Useful Poisons

Most Poisons can also be made and sold for a fair amount of gold. These are utilitarian POISONS, good for combat, and do not contain random "good" effects. Not listed by cash value.

Paralysis + Lingering Damage Health (my personal favorite)
*Imp Stool, *Mora Tapinella, *Canis Root

Slow + Weakness to Poison + Damage Health
*Deathbell, *River Betty, *Giant Lichen

Slow + Damage Health + Ravage Stamina
*Deathbell, *River Betty, [Scathecraw DB]

Damage Stamina + Damage Stamina Regen + Ravage Health
*Cyrodilic Spadetail, [Skeever Tail], Giant Toe

Damage Magicka Regen + Lingering Damage Stamina + Damage Health
*Nightshade, [Chicken Egg], Small Antlers

2. Cash Potions & Power Leveling

Potions that have multiple (even conflicting) effects have a greater cash value depending on the total number and degree of effects. If you are making potions for money, it is not a good idea to take the Master Perk that purifies your potions. Some effects also have more value than others. While there are other more valuable combinations, these are intended to be very easy to find and make.

If you are power leveling, and you need to make potions from random ingredients that you have on hand: the value of the effects varies greatly, with the most valuable (Paralysis) being around 85 times the value of the least valuable (Damage Health). The following Top Ten list will help you put together random potions that are more cost effective.

Starting with the most valuable effect:
1. Paralysis
2. Damage Magicka Regen
3. Invisibility
4. Slow
5. Fortify Carry Weight
6. Regenerate Health, Magicka, or Stamina (all same value)
7. Fortify Block, Marksman, One-Handed, Two-Handed, Restoration, Sneak, Resist Poison
8. Waterbreathing
9. Fear
10. Resist Fire, Frost, Shock

Paralysis is 3.3x more valuable than Resist Fire/Frost/Shock. You can combine other attributes of the first two ingredients with a third ingredient in order to bump up the value accordingly. This is how I came up with the following quick list of cash potions.

One of the most valuable potions that is easy to find and make at the beginning of the game is Blue Butterfly Wing+Blue Mountain Flower+Wheat (Lvl 3 Hero, 15 Alchemy, No Perks, has a value of 314 gold). As you increase in level & perks, the value of potions will quickly rise in value. E.g. having put 1 of your 2 perks into alchemy, the value of this potion would have been 376 gold, and subsequent faster leveling. At this rate, just going around catching butterflies and picking flowers (wheat is cheap in most alchemy shops, if you run out of farms), you can buy Frostbrook Farm or Hearthfire home fairly quickly. I recommend buying out the ingredients at the shops whenever you go, and then buy your money back with the potions you make. This will get you a bunch of random ingredients that you can use to make even more useful potions.

Potions can only be sold to Alchemists and General Stores until you unlock the Merchant perk in Speechcraft.


SORTED BY VALUE

Invisibility + Regenerate Health + Fortify Light Armor + Cure Disease
[Luna Moth Wing], [Vampire Dust], [Hawk Feathers]

Invisibility + Regenerate Health + Damage Magicka
[Luna Moth Wing], [Vampire Dust], [Chaurus Eggs]

Slow + Damage Health + Weakness to Poison
*Deathbell, *River Betty, *Giant Lichen

Slow + Fortify Carry Weight
*Creep Cluster or *Scaly Pholiota (either one), *Deathbell, [Trama Root DB]

Damage Magicka Regen + Fortify Health + Fortify Conjuration + Restore Health
*Blue Butterfly Wing, *Blue Mountain Flower, *Wheat

Fortify Carry Weight + Regen Stamina
*Fly Amanita, *River Betty, *Scaly Pholiota

Fortify Carry Weight + Damage Stamina Regen + Weakness to Magic
*Creep Cluster, *Scaly Pholiota, *Juniper Berries

Paralysis + Lingering Damage Health
*Imp Stool, *Canis Root, *Mora Tapinella

Fortify Carry Weight + Damage Stamina Regen
*Creep Cluster, *Wheat, Giant Toe

Invisibility + Damage Magicka
[Luna Moth Wing], [Chaurus Eggs]

Regen Stamina + Restore Stamina + Resist Fire
*Bee, *Fly Amanita, [Mudcrab Chitin]

Resist Fire + Resist Frost + Resist Shock + Fortify Enchanting
*Snowberries, Hawk Beak (hunt using Lightning Bolt), [Spawn Ash DB]

Resist Fire + Resist Poison + Restore Stamina + Cure Disease
[Mudcrab Chitin], [Charred Skeever Hide], *Fly Amanita

3. Utility Potions

Fortify Carry Weight
*Creep Cluster, *Scaly Pholiota, *River Betty, [Trama Root DB]
Use any two, but Creep Cluster + Scaly Pholiota will also have Weakness to Magic

Invisibility
[Chaurus Eggs], [Vampire Dust], [Nirnroot], [Luna Moth Wing]
Use any two, but avoid Luna Moth Wing + Chaurus Egg for personal use (good for sale)
Vampire Dust + Luna Moth Wing gives added Regenerate Health (also good for sale)

Waterbreathing
*Histcarp, [Chicken Egg], [Nordic Barnacle]
Use any two

4. Resistance Potions

Resist Magic
*Tundra Cotton, *Lavender

Resist Frost + Resist Fire + Resist Shock
*Snowberries, *Fly Amanita, [Hawk Beak] (hunt with Lightning Bolt in Solitude)

Resist Poison
*Grass Pod, *Thistle Branch

Cure Disease
[Mudcrab Chitin], [Vampire Dust], [Charred Skeever Hide]
Use any two, or visit a shrine :)

5. Restoration Potions

Regenerate Magicka + Restore Magicka + Fortify Magicka
*Red Mountain Flower, *Jasbay Grapes, Moon Sugar (purchase from Khajit or in-house merchant)

Restore Health + Fortify Health
*Blue Mountain Flower, *Wheat

Regenerate Stamina + Restore Stamina
*Purple Mountain Flower, *Fly Amanita, *Bee

6. Physical Skill Potions

Fortify Barter
*Dragon's Tongue, *Butterfly Wing, *Tundra Cotton
(any two)

Fortify Smithing
*Blisterwort, *Glowing Mushroom

Fortify Heavy Armor
*Thistle Branch, *White Cap

Fortify Light Armor
[Luna Moth Wing], [Skeever Tail]

Fortify Block
*Bleeding Crown, *Tundra Cotton

Fortify One-Handed
*Canis Root, [Hanging Moss]

Fortify Two-Handed
*DragonsTongue, *Fly Amanita

Fortify Marksman
*Canis Root, *Juniper Berries

Fortify Sneak
*Purple Mountain Flower, *Abecean Longfin

7. Magic Skill Potions

Fortify Alteration
*Grass Pod, *River Betty

Fortify Conjuration
*Blue Mountain Flower, *Lavender

Fortify Destruction
*Glowing Mushroom, *Nightshade

Fortify Enchanting
*Blue Butterfly Wing, *Snowberries

Fortify Illusion
*Dragon's Tongue, *Mora Topinella, *Scaly Pholiota
Use any two of these

Fortify Restoration
*Abecean Longfin, *Cyrodilic Spadetail, [Salt Pile]
Use any two

Fortify Alchemy
I have recently learned that this may have been added by a MOD (most likely the Frostbrook Farm mod) and so I am listing it last. The normal game with DLC does not allow a Fortify Alchemy potion.

Gildergreen Sap FF, Red Canis Root FF (rare ingredients):

• These ingredients may not appear until you reach level 40-50. I first noticed them (and started looking for them) at around level 55.
  
  
• Gildergreen Sap can be harvested once every 2-3 days from the Gildergreen in Whiterun (using Stealth) after the Gildergreen has been healed using Eldergleam Sap (quest). It may or may not be available if the Sapling quest option is chosen (I haven't tried). It also may only show up in shops after the Gildergreen is healed, which means it may not be available in shops either if you choose to plant the sapling instead. I waited until over level 50 to do the quest, and chose to harvest the Eldergleam and heal the tree (for a change), and only noticed the Gildergreen sap in the shop sometime after that. It is easiest to harvest it yourself, as it is rare in the shops.
  
  
• Red Canis Root may be available somewhere on the map in Solstheim (DLC), but I haven't found it anywhere except Alchemy Shops (rare). Check the alchemy shop in every city, every time you visit, to see if they have one on that day. I used the teleporter at Frostbrook Farm (mod) to visit every shop, every day for a week (it still takes all day to visit them all), and managed to get a few.
  
  
• Wait until you can create the best possible crafting gear from normal enchantments and enchanting potions (when you are 100 Alchemy and 100 Enchanting skill) before making your first Fortify Alchemy potion. Because of the rarity of ingredients and tedium of the process, you don't want to waste them and don't want to make anything less than the strongest possible enhancement for each upgrade.
  
  
• 5x upgrading was enough for me, but can be infinitely improved for Godlike gear.

Previously, the only way to get the God-gear was by using a glitch, which I believe was fixed at some point, relating to (I think) Fortify Restoration potion having an effect on bonuses from enchanted gear. I have never done it, so I'm not sure about the mechanics. This may still be possible using the Console game, but on the PC you would need to use a mod to add Fortify Alchemy ingredients into the game. This is the only way that I know of to change the horizontal asymptote (max value) for enchanting to an increasing curve (god-gear), without editing or modding the values directly.

8. Crafting Gear

Most people probably know what to put on their crafting gear, but for anyone who doesn't, here is what I put on mine (and why).

Use normal clothing for your crafting gear, so that you can easily carry it with you and change into it when needed, without a lot of added encumbrance. Pick an outfit that you like the look of. I choose the chef's apron (clean look w/ Apron), fur hat or circlet, gloves, plain gold/silver amulet, plain gold/silver ring. Boots are whatever Armor/boots I am using. You can add a normal pair of boots for 2 lbs and enchant with Fortify Carry Weight or Resistance if you want a full outfit. There is no crafting enchantment for Boots. Your early gear will be replaced frequently, so you really just need to put together an outfit for your final desired attire and save it in your wardrobe until you are ready to actually make it. The intermediate gear will be sold off as you level up, so I don't put a lot of effort into what it looks like.

Always use Grand Soul Gems when making personal gear, no matter the level. It is easy to trade for filled grand soul gems if you have good Bartering skills. Use other soul gems for making items for sale, or to recharge enchanted weapons. Use your potions and crafted items to pay for them when you go shopping, and remember to use your bartering setup to get the best prices. A high level Bartering Amulet will max out your purchase/sell values, so no other gear is really required above 100%. This Amulet can easily be made when you max out your Alchemy skill.

I usually go through about 4 different sets of crafting gear getting to 100 skill, and then when you start doing the Alchemy/Enchantment cycle to boost your bonus, you will go through probably 4-5 more sets leveling them up... old ones are basically sold for scrap as soon as they are replaced. When going through this process, you do not need to do double enchantments on your gear. Fortify Smithing will not affect the cycle of Alchemy/Enchantment, so you don't need to make your final double-enchantment crafting gear until you are ready to stop the cycle. Then on your last go-around you can make your final crafting attire. Some people may want to make God-gear, which may take dozens of iterations. 5x was plenty for me (a full set of fur/leather armor has over 1000 armor value). Potions that will paralyze opponents for game years (instead of minutes) are possible, for example, with high enough alchemy bonuses. Someone else wrote that this is a good way to permanently neutralize essential characters, without actually killing them.

Low-level Enchanted Gear (one slot per piece)

Alchemy Gear (2-3 lbs)
Alchemy Cap: Fortify Alchemy
Alchemy Gloves: Fortify Alchemy
Alchemy Amulet: Fortify Alchemy
Alchemy Ring: Fortify Alchemy

Smithing Gear (2-3 lbs)
(Not needed when Forging, but increases honing skills at Table and Grindstone)
Smithing Clothes: Fortify Smithing
Smithing Gloves: Fortify Smithing
Smithing Amulet: Fortify Smithing
Smithing Ring: Fortify Smithing
Fortify Smithing Potion

Once you get to 100 Alchemy and 100 Enchanting, you are ready to start making your final batch of gear. The process is fairly simple. Using your crafting (alchemy) gear, make a Fortify Alchemy Potion, then use that to make another Fortify Alchemy Potion and 4 Enchanting Potions. Use the Enchanting Potions to make your first set of Augmented Fortify Alchemy gear. (You do not need a second enchantment yet.)

Always SAVE before crafting. Use this new gear and the Fortify Alchemy potion to make another Fortify Alchemy potion. NEVER use your last Alchemy potion without making a new one. Do this 5 times, and on the fifth time make a Fortify Alchemy potion and another 4 Enchantment potions. Make a new set of Fortify Alchemy gear. (This will exponentially increase the strength of the next batch of potions.)

You can make a new set of gear each time, but that requires finding a lot of gloves and 4 grand soul gems for each new set. Enchanting each time would increase each step by an order of magnitude when making the next batch, so it would use fewer Sap and Root to reach your goal. If you plan ahead you can buy a lot of gloves in Solitude. If you make new Alchemy gear each time, you would spend more time going between enchanting and crafting potions. So, optionally, you could make an Alchemy Potion and 3-4 Enchanting potions each time, and re-do your alchemy gloves, ring, circlet, and amulet every time before making the next batch to get the highest possible results.

Repeat this process until you have Alchemy ability at the level you desire. God-like gear comes pretty quickly, but if you want truly insanely powerful gear, you will have to repeat the process quite a few times. Basically with 5x cycles, and you can level up your armor skills by letting giants and dragons munch on you. (Be sure to craft and enchant good armor, but Leather, which has half the smithing bonuses, can still give you over 1000 Armor Rating after 5 cycles. 7x cycles it is over 4000 AR.)

NOTE: As far as enhancing armor goes, there is a cap on armor rating (667, but each armor piece has a hidden 25 points of AR, so 4 pieces of armor reduces the cap to 567.) Once any armor set reaches that AR, the armor is maxed out (80% reduction), and will not improve even if it says the AR is 10000 or more. You CAN achieve maximum armor value with any armor without going through this alchemy process, simply by leveling up to the normal 100 skill and honing the armors on the armor table with normal level 100 smithing skill and normal level 100 alchemy/enchanting enhancements. The difference is, when you reset your legendary light or heavy armor skill to 15, you can still have 567 AR if the armor set has a base AR of 3780, and you can let dragons/giants munch on you to power level your armor skill back to 100. Enchant the armor with high health regeneration to make up for the other 20% damage. Heal faster than they can harm.

It may take a while to collect several dozens of the Gildergreen Sap and Red Canis Root. Your final crafting gear will be for both Alchemy and Smithing.

High-level (100) Enchanted Gear (two slots per piece)

Crafting Gear (3-4 lbs)
Crafting Cap/Circlet: Fortify Alchemy, Waterbreathing (good to have in an emergency and frees a slot on armor... and you don't have to carry around the heavy Dragon mask.)
Crafting Apron: Fortify Smithing, Fortify Health (in case I get attacked while crafting, before swapping gear -- also good would be Fortify Alteration for transmuting iron into silver or gold, and for doing Mage Armor spells while wearing no armor, if I want to RP the fight as a craftsman)
Crafting Gloves: Fortify Alchemy, Fortify Smithing
Crafting Amulet: Fortify Alchemy, Fortify Smithing
Crafting Ring: Fortify Alchemy, Fortify Smithing
Fortify Smithing Potion

Enchanting Gear

Aetherian Walker Circlet (Frostbrook Farm mod - In-House Merchant) +50 Enchanting (the description says +25, but it is +50)
(Note: It is NOT the Aetherium Crown, as I had mistaken it for previously.)
Fortify Enchanting Potion

Bartering Gear (for purchasing materials, soul gems, ingredients)

Amulet of Dibella or Zenithar: Fortify Speech/Barter
or Fortify Barter Necklace, when you can make one that is better than the amulets.
Thieves' Guild Cowl: Fortify Barter +10/+15/+20% (also available on one of the Dragon Priest masks +20% - check wiki for location NW of Dragon's Bridge.)
Fortify Barter Potion
Shrine of Zenithar: Fortify Barter
Gift of Charity (alms for the poor or gift to one of your children): Fortify Speechcraft

Eventually all you will need is the Bartering Amulet in order to max out your purchases and sales.

9. Frostbrook Farm Ingredient List

Frostbrook Farm mod is very handy... not too expensive to start, but expensive to fully outfit.

I BELIEVE it is Frostbrook Farm that adds the Gildergreen Sap and Red Canis Root, as well as all of the new mob drops, including new ingredients for NEW potion effects.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=585431914

The living room has the teleporter that you can use to make daily visits to all of the alchemist shops. The enchanting room has a nice alchemy setup with satchels and a few planters nearby. The Chapel can be set to any shrine (Aedra or Daedra) at no additional cost (for me it is usually Dibella or Zenithar for merchant bonuses). The Land comes with the initial purchase of the Farm, so you can start growing right away.

The in-house merchant has the Aetherian Walker Clothing in stock. The Circlet is the only one I would use personally, but feel free to get them all. They are fairly expensive. The basement houses the Smithing equipment, and also has a Brewery, Tailor, Staff enchanting and Dragonforge (which acts like Skyforge for making things like KS Hair/Wigs Mod, and other mods that may use the Skyforge because of its unique ID).

Most of the animals will now drop their own pelts, and skeever pelts can be cooked in the oven (with Salt Pile) to make your own Charred Skeever Hide ingredient from source. I don't do a lot of cooking, but there are a few Frostbrook Farm recipes that are clearly new, as well as your own vintages from the Brewing station in the basement.

I will edit a new list for the Frostbrook Farm ingredients and effects. (In progress).

Ingredient	Effects
Clam Paste	Resist Frost Frenzy Restore Stamina Waterbreathing
Deer Heart	Damage Magicka Regen Regenerate Stamina Fortify Heavy Armor Aetherius Walking
Finely Chopped Herbs	Resist Fire Damage Stamina Regen Fortify Marksman Fortify Sneak
Gildergreen Sap	Fortify Enchanting Fortify Alchemy Enhanced Learning Speed Weakness to Shock
Oblivion Embers	Fortify Heavy Armor Fortify Destruction Resist Magic Enhanced Learning Speed
Pink Salmon	Restore Health Weakness to Poison Fortify Two-Handed Regenerate Stamina
Powdered Dragon Scales	Resist Fire Fortify Shouts Resist Frost Hunter's Mark
Red Canis Root	Damage Stamina Fortify Shouts Paralysis Fortify Alchemy
Troll's Third Eye	Fortify Marksman Aetherius Walking Fortify Illusion Fear
White Salmon	Restore Magicka Weakness to Magic Fortify One-Handed Fortify Marksman
Wolf Fang	Ravage Stamina Resist Magic Fortify Light Armor Hunter's Mark

NEW POTIONS

Aetherius Walking
(Etherealness?) Partial Invisibility for 60 seconds.
[Deer Heart FF], [Troll's Third Eye FF]

Enhanced Learning Speed
+X enhanced learning speed for .5X hours.
[Gildergreen Sap FF], Oblivion Embers FF

Fortify Alchemy
Potions are 2X/3 % stronger for 30 seconds.
[Gildergreen Sap FF], Red Canis Root FF

Hunter's Mark
Any visible targets will be marked and can be seen through walls for 300 seconds.
Powdered Dragon Scales FF, [Wolf's Fang FF]

I will end by saying that, even though the preface to Frostbrook Farm states that the MOD may be broken in Skyrim SSE (no guarantee), I think it is safe to say that the ingredients will still be added and available without problems. It is most likely the teleporter and pathing that will cause problems in SSE, if there are problems encountered. Since I only play Skyrim (Legendary Edition), I also will not guarantee that the Frostbrook Farm mod will not be buggy or broken for the House and its features, and I can only hope that the ingredients still work as intended. You do not need to actually use the Farm with the new ingredients if the Farm is indeed too buggy to use. The ingredients should work the same at any of the houses and crafting stations. It does not look like the author intends to do an updated version for SSE. Caveat emptor.

[dtt.scanner]

Thank you for your kind assessment. I use it myself every time I start a new game. I only have a few things memorized. LoL. Be sure to give a star rating so that eventually it will show up and more people will make use of it. :D I don't know how many ratings are required, so every one is important.

[denstat]

You have my everlasting gratitude for the Frostbrook Farm alchemy guide, and this entire guide is a thoughtfully written gem. Thank you.