Three Ways to Make Calendula Oil (Easy, Quick, & POTENT)

Calendula flowers are an easy-to-grow flower that we use to make calendula oil. Calendula oil as an ingredient can help to soothe skin, to heal it, and we can use it in lots of different ways in medicinal preparations but also in day-to-day skin care. It’s also great for naturally coloring soap. There are three ways to make this: a really easy method, a quicker one, and one that makes a really potent calendula oil.

Growing and Drying Calendula Flowers

Most people when starting off calendula oil will probably start off with calendula that they have purchased. Calendula officinalis is a medicinal plant; it’s commonly available. However, the dried material that you can often buy doesn’t have any information on the variety, where it was grown, how it was harvested, and all of that. That’s why growing your own is always a good idea. This is a type called Resina; it’s one of two varieties that I grow. The other one is called Erfurter, and both of them are super high in resins and those compounds that help to heal the skin and make it such a beneficial skin plant.

Now when we’re making calendula oil, we always start off with dried flowers; we never use fresh. The reason being is that we are putting this plant material into a carrier oil, and these plants right now as fresh plants contain moisture; they contain water. When you add that into a carrier oil, it can reduce the shelf life dramatically; it can cause the oil to oxidize and basically go rancid. So the first step if you’re growing your own flowers is to pick them and then dry them.

Drying calendula flowers is easy and there are several ways to do it. Pick the flowers on a dry calm morning and then you want to leave them outside in the shade for at least an hour. This is to allow any insects that are in the flowers to escape. You do not need to wash the flowers. Then spread the flowers out on a drying rack and leave them to dry completely. The rack should be in a dry place that’s dim to dark and really airy. When they’re ready, the flowers will be crispy to the touch and it usually takes about a week. Alternatively, you could dry calendula flowers in a food dehydrator. This is the preferred method when it’s too cold or damp to air dry them. Give each flower plenty of space on the rack and dry them on a low setting until they’re crispy dry. The drying time depends on your model and how many flowers you’re drying at a time.

Choosing a Carrier Oil

With the calendula flowers covered, the next ingredient is carrier oil. There are two main factors when it comes to choosing your carrier oil: the first one is what are you going to use the calendula oil for in the end, and the second is shelf life. As far as use in soap recipes, which a lot of my recipes are, predominantly olive oil is used. I’ll use olive oil as a carrier oil. Olive oil is also great if you want an oil that’s going to be shelf-stable for a long time and has lots of different applications. It’s quite heavy though, so it doesn’t really make a really good oil for say lotions and creams, which is what I would use sweet almond oil for.

With shelf life, a lot of people don’t realize that by using an oil and making it into another product you’re not extending the shelf life. So choose an oil with the longest shelf life possible and be very wary of supermarkets because they tend to put oils that have been on the shelf for a long time up at the front to try to get them to move along more quickly. So it’s better to look at the best-by date and make sure you get the best product possible.

The Easy Method: Solar or Cold Infusion

The easiest way to make calendula oil is also the gentlest and my favorite method. To begin, you’ll need just a few items including a glass jar with a lid, dried calendula flowers, and your preferred carrier oil. Loosely fill the jar halfway to all the way full with dried calendula flowers. Next, fill the jar with your liquid oil of choice until the flowers are submerged. Seal the jar with a lid and put it someplace that’s dark and also room temperature to warm and leave it there for four to six weeks. The longer you leave it, the more potent and colorful the oil will be. If you want to keep the jar in a sunny spot, put it inside of a brown paper bag to protect the oil from UV light. UV light causes oil to go rancid.

The Quick Method: Heat Infusion

The easiest way to make calendula oil takes weeks. If you don’t have the time or you want to make calendula oil with a solid oil such as coconut oil or tallow, you can gently heat the ingredients. This quick method creates calendula oil in just hours. Follow all of the ingredient steps for the easy method, but if you are working with a solid oil, melt it gently before you pour it over the flowers. After filling and sealing the jar, place it in a crock pot or double boiler and fill it with hot water. The water level should come up at least a couple of inches and it’s best to place a cloth at the bottom for the jar to sit on. Now leave the jar in the crock pot on low with the lid off for 4 to 12 hours. Afterward, strain the oil while it’s still warm.

The Potent Method: Alcohol Intermediary

The last way to make calendula oil is also relatively quick; it’s called the alcohol intermediary method. Though calendula and many other plants infuse beautifully into oil, you can extract more active constituents into alcohol. To use this method, pulse or chop one ounce of dried calendula flower. Mix it with an ounce of high-proof vodka or brandy and allow it to infuse for a day. After that time, place the calendula alcohol mix in a blender with 8 ounces of liquid carrier oil. Then turn on your blender and allow it to blend for 5 minutes. Next, pour the calendula oil into a glass jar and heat on low in a slow cooker as you would do using the quick method of making calendula oil. Heat it for 4 hours with the jar uncovered. This is so that some of the moisture and alcohol can evaporate away.

Straining and Storing Calendula Oil

When your calendula oil is finished infusing, it’s time to strain it and store it so it has the longest shelf life possible. For all three methods, you can strain the oil from the flowers using cheesecloth and a sieve. For the first two methods, pour the oil and flowers through a cheesecloth or linen-lined sieve. If you use a solid oil, you want to do this while it’s still warm and liquid. Once all of the oil has strained through, bundle the flowers up and then squeeze to get every last drop.

You strain the oil made using the alcohol intermediary method a little differently. There are likely much smaller pieces of calendula that ideally you want to strain out, so pour it through a sieve lined with a double layer of cheesecloth. Also, you don’t want to squeeze it since it’ll push tiny particles through. Instead, leave the pulp to drain on its own overnight. The next day, pour off that first straining of oil then you can bundle up and squeeze the pulp if you’d like. The second press can contain sediment that’s best settled or strained before storage.

Once you’ve strained your calendula oil using whatever method you used, pour it into a glass container with dark glass bottles being the best for protecting the oil from UV light. Store the jar in a cool and dim place and use it by the best-by date of the carrier oil used or within a year, whichever date comes first.

Uses for Calendula Oil

We covered calendula flowers and drying them, carrier oils, and three different ways to make calendula infused oil. So once you have your oil made, what do you do with it? There are so many different ways to use calendula oil and because you’ve used dried flowers it’s also safe for eating as well because you don’t have any fear of botulism from fresh flowers. For me what I tend to use calendula oil for is making handmade soap, for making handmade skin care like creams and lotions, and for making body balms and salves.