I recently had the opportunity to write up a post about how to make a calendula salve for the Herbal Academy blog, and I wanted to share that with you here!
Calendula is a beautiful flower, and is well known throughout the world as a powerful healing plant. It grows easily in most climates, and readily reseeds itself to come back year after year. It’s a plant that I believe most herbalists would recommend growing yourself. I was so pleased when I moved into my new house to find a sea of calendula in my backyard! I started thinking of all the ways I could use it, and making a calendula salve was first on my list.
Benefits of Calendula
Before I walk you through how to make a calendula salve, I want to start by telling you how amazing this plant is and why it is so common in many natural skin products and topical herbal remedies.
Calendula officinalis is anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and astringent. All of these things combined make it an herbal heal all. It is most commonly used on minor cuts, scrapes and burns, as well as rashes and bug bites. Calendula is very gentle on the skin and may help to ease dryness, cracks, and itching. It is often used in herbal salves, creams, lotions, and soaps for this reason.
Calendula is most often used dried for this purpose. You can dry your own if you have them growing, or purchase the flowers already dried (Mountain Rose Herbs is a great place to buy dried herbs and flowers).
I love the fact that you gave me a new utility to this flower I have been planting in my vegetable garden for 11 years now with the only use of adding some color and to attract insects! I have a question about making the calendula oil… I read the procedures and it says to leave the oil infused with flower in an sunny window for weeks. I kinda forgot mine for 12 weeks… is it too long? Did the oil turn bad already?
Thank you very much!
It’s hard to say, but you will know by smelling it if it has gone rancid!
Hi. I just made your salve recipe. Decided to halve it since I’m learning. I used organic calendula oil and sweet almond oil that I purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs. Love their products. Added tea tree and lemongrass oils. Added extra beeswax since it’s so hot and humid here in Alabama. The salve turned out lovely! Thank you for a wonderful recipe!
Do you have any suggestions for someone who can’t use beeswax? Any advice would be appreciated!
You could try carnauba wax, but I’ve never used it so I’m not sure what the end results would be. You can see different wax options from Mountain Rose Herbs here.
Would coconut oil work instead of wax?
You could definitely use coconut oil as part or all of the oil portion in the recipe, but it won’t work to set up the salve like beeswax does. If you don’t want to use beeswax, you can try carnauba wax (vegan) in it’s place. Shea butter might also work to a lesser degree.
as much as beeswax and carnuba wax sound good. Carnauba may not be a sustainable option (Derived from Palm), and Beeswax is not vegan.
However, would shea butter mixed with coconut oil could work Or coconut oil and olive oil?
The salve will not set up as much without some kind of wax added. Candelilla wax is another vegan and palm free alternative. Again, I haven’t used it so I’m not sure of how much you would want to use as a replacement for beeswax.
Emulsifying wax?
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We are mid autumn in Australia, so the growing of calendulas and nasturtiums will be a forward plan. Love the idea of making my own salve. Bought some Comfrey cream yesterday, now that would be a good project too. Enjoy your spring/summer. We are enjoying not having to water plants this season. All the best.