Making calendula oil is really easy and is really worth spending the time on it as it is very beneficial for your skin. The hardest part is collecting the calendula flowers and drying them. The easiest part is allowing it to soak in a good quality carrier oil on your window sill for a few weeks.

The Benefits of Calendula Oil

Calendula or, as it is sometimes known as, Marigold oil has many benefits for the skin.

• Would you believe that it is super for a baby's nappy rash?.  It soothes and heals up that scalded skin in no time because it is anti-inflammatory.  I have personal experience and can truly vouch for its efficacy for nappy rash
• Not only babies can benefit from the healing properties of calendula.  We all can use it anti-microbial and anti-fungal magic.
• It might help people with eczema and/or psoriasis as it along with the good quality carrier oil like sweet almond oil can keep your skin moisturised and hydrated.  Many of my customers suffering from these skin conditions have come back to me with a favourable experience and continue to buy my body butter
• I, personally, use it on my skin when I'm working in the sun or sitting in the sun.  It acts, for me, like a sun protection.  I'm not recommending it, however, as a sun protector as I don't have enough evidence

Collecting the Calendula Flowers

All summer long on a daily basis, I go out to the garden where I have the calendula growing and I pick all the flower heads that are beginning to look wilted.  Dead heading is great also for the forming of more flowers so it's a win/win situation.  

These flowers I take into the house and spread them out in a cardboard flat box to dry.  This stage can take up to 2 weeks to 1 month, depending on the weather. They dry out slowly but surely this way and don't lose any of their goodness as they would do if dried in an oven.  These petals are then easily separated from the bud ( I only use the petals) 

The dried petals are put into a jar to half fill it and then topped up to fill to the brim with sweet almond oil.  This jar is then left in a sunny spot for a few weeks.  Sometimes the weather is so bad (this is Ireland after all) that there is no sunshine so then I leave the jar in a pot of boiling water for a couple of hours and might repeat this stage again.

The oil should look nice and golden - a bit like golden jojoba oil in colour.  You'll notice that it has a thick texture.  That will be as a result of all the goodness from the calendula petals

By the way, one can make any kind of oil by this method.  For example to make an oil for gardeners sore hands try replacing calendula petals with daisies from the garden.  Of if you wanted to have an oil for sprains and bruises you could take comfrey leaves and flowers for this purpose.  All the stages are the same; the collecting, the drying, the soaking in sweet almond oil.  I make an oil using dried nettle leaves to put into my shampoo bars.  The nettles I soak in olive oil.  The point is the carrier oil and the flowers can be different but the process is the same.