Oils and salves
Homemade Calendula Oil
If you only learn to make one thing in this workshop, let it be this. Calendula oil is what our great-grandmothers kept on the shelf, and it is still the one I reach for most often. It costs next to nothing, it takes twenty minutes to set going, and the sun and time do the rest for you.
Calendula grows willingly in any garden and keeps flowering well into October. It opens at daybreak and closes again at dusk, which is where the old English name pot marigold and the whole solar association come from. In the herbal tradition it is the sun's flower, the flower of light and of life's gladness, and it is one of the very gentlest plants there is on skin.
Two ways to do it
The cold method is the better one. It takes three to four weeks, but it spares the delicate compounds in the flower, and the oil comes out a deeper gold and stronger. The warm method takes two to three hours and is what you use when you need the oil tomorrow. Both work, and you can easily keep one of each on the go.
Ingredients
- 3/4 jar Dried calendula flowers
- About 500 ml Oil of your choice
- About 2 % Vitamin E, for the finished oil
Equipment
- A clean, dry jar with a tight lid
- A fine sieve or a piece of muslin
- A dark bottle for the finished oil
- A bowl and saucepan if you use the warm method
Method
- 1
Fill the jar three quarters full with the dried flowers. Do not pack them down, they need room to move.
- 2
Pour the oil over until it stands at least 2 cm above the flowers. Anything sticking up above the oil will go mouldy. Stir with a clean, dry spoon so the air pockets escape.
- 3
Lid on, and stand the jar in a bright window, warm if possible, but not in blazing afternoon sun all day long. Shake it every time you walk past, or at least once a day.
- 4
After three to four weeks, strain the oil through muslin. Wring out the last drop, that is the most concentrated part. Stir in the vitamin E, pour into a dark bottle, write the date on it.
Shelf life
about 12 months
Safety and good advice
The one rule you must not break
The flowers must be completely dry. Not nearly dry. Completely.
Fresh flowers hold water, and water in oil without a preservative means mould and bacteria, and you cannot always see it until it is too late. Spread the flowers on kitchen paper somewhere warm and out of direct sun for three to seven days, or in the oven at 40 degrees with the door ajar. They should crackle between your fingers.
If you are picking your own, pick in the middle of the day when the flowers are open and the dew has gone. Use the whole flower head. Petals alone give a finer oil, but the heads give you more of it.
Shelf life: about 12 months kept dark and cool, longer with jojoba as the base. If it smells rancid and old, like stale nuts, it is finished.
Dark bottle, or a cupboard. Light breaks down both the colour and the effect.
The daisy family: if you are allergic to mugwort, chamomile or ragweed, patch test the oil on your forearm for a day before using it. Cross-reactions do happen.
The flowers can be used again for a second infusion, but the second round comes out weaker. I would compost them and pick fresh ones.
Variations
The warm method, for when you are in a hurry
Put the flowers and oil in a bowl over a water bath on low heat. The oil may go hand-warm, it must never sizzle or smoke.
Leave it for 2 to 3 hours and keep an eye on the water in the pan below. Strain, add the vitamin E, and bottle it.
The oil comes out slightly less potent than the cold version, but you have it the same evening. That is a fair trade when your hands are cracked now and not in a month.
How the herbs work
What calendula is good for
Calendula officinalis is one of the best documented herbs in the European tradition, and one of the few where modern research and old kitchen-table knowledge point the same way. The flower carries triterpenes, flavonoids and carotenoids, and those are what do the work.
Irritated and reddened skin. The classic use. It calms redness and discomfort, and it is the base oil in almost any salve for skin in a flare.
Dry, cracked and flaking skin. Winter hands, elbows, shins, heels.
Skin that needs to heal. Traditionally used on grazes, scrapes and skin after sun. Not on open, weeping wounds, that skin needs something else.
The gentlest of them all. Traditionally used on babies, on nappy rash and on sore nipples while breastfeeding, which tells you how little it provokes.
Itching and small bites. Mosquitoes, nettles, all that summer nuisance.
As a base for everything else. Salves, creams, massage oil, bath oil, face oil. It is your starting point, not your accessory.
A small ritual, if you like
Set the oil going at the new moon and strain it at the full moon of the following month, if you want a rhythm to it. The new moon is for what is being started and the full moon for what has come to completion, and an oil that steeps for four weeks follows the moon anyway, whether you ask it to or not.
Calendula belongs to the Sun. It opens with the light and closes when the light goes, and it is the flower of gladness and of what dares to show itself. Pick it in the middle of the day while it stands open, that is when she is most herself.
Shake the jar every day in passing. Four weeks of touching the same thing every single day is a kind of practice too.
Safety and good advice
- Always scald your jars and tools, and work with clean hands.
- Always do a patch test on the inside of your elbow 24 hours before you use anything on your face.
- Essential oils must be diluted, and several of them are not advised during pregnancy or for small children.
- Soap made with lye calls for safety goggles and gloves, and should never be made with children in the kitchen.
- Always throw it out at the slightest change in smell, colour or texture.
- This is inspiration for your own use, not treatment, and not intended for resale.