How to Make Calendula Oil

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Calendula oil is one of the most popular and potent herbs in skincare. This gorgeous golden oil is fun to make, and you’ll soon wonder how you ever lived without it.

A small glass jar full of DIY calendula oil sitting on a wooden cutting board surrounded by dried calendula petals.

Calendula (Calendula Officinalis) is sometimes called the ‘pot marigold,’ and you will likely recognize the bright orange flower. It is a gorgeous plant loved for its fresh flowers and medicinal properties.

Table of Contents

Why You Will Love This Recipe

It’s Unbelievably Easy: The great thing about an oil infusion is that no fancy equipment or ingredients are needed—just some patience.
Beautiful Golden Color: When you are finished, you’ll love the oil’s rich, sunny color. You might even start thinking of it as your liquid gold!
Gentle Enough for Everyday Use: It’s so gentle to your skin that it is often an ingredient in baby care products like diaper rash cream. So you can feel comfortable incorporating it into many of your DIY bath and body recipes.
Soothing and Calming: Calendula is a superstar herb for its skin-soothing and calming qualities. Calendula oil is useful for soothing skin irritations like sunburns, dry skin, and scalp.
Earth Friendly DIY: bottling up your own calendula-infused oil is one way to eliminate single-use plastic packaging.
Get Your Garden Gloves: If you like working in the dirt, you can even grow calendula flowers.

Ingredients:

Dried calendula flowers
Cold-pressed olive oil (enough to fully submerge the flowers and cover them by 1 inch)

Tools:

Clean, airtight container (glass jar is ideal)
Cheesecloth or strainer

Instructions:

Step 1: Fill the clean glass jar about halfway full with dried calendula flowers.

Two hands put dried calendula flower heads into a glass jar. The jar, jar lid, and a small bowl of dried flowers sit on a white countertop.

Step 2: Pour the cold-pressed olive oil over the flowers until they are completely submerged. Ensure at least one inch of oil covers the top of the flowers. I use an 8 oz mason jar.

Olive oil is being poured into a jar with dried calendula flower heads. Calendula flower petals cover a white countertop.

Step 3: Secure the lid tightly on the container. Place the container in a cool, dark location for 6 weeks. Gently swirl or shake the container daily to help distribute the herbs and prevent them from clumping during the infusion process.

A hand shakes a dark jar filled with homemade calendula oil. The jar is dark green with a black lid. There are dried calendula flower heads and petals in a bowl and scattered on the white and gray countertop.

Step 4: After 6 weeks, strain the calendula oil through a cheesecloth or fine-mesh sieve into a clean container.

A dark jar of calendula oil is being poured into another jar covered with cheesecloth. The black lid to the jar rests on the white counterop.

Step 5: Keep your finished calendula oil in a cool, dark place (like a cabinet) in a dark, airtight container. This will help it last longer.

A Little About the Ingredients:

Dried flowers—You don’t have to worry about buying a bag of these and not knowing what to do with the extra. These gorgeous, bright, dried calendula petals can be used in DIY recipes, such as my Melt-and-Pour Soap and Oatmeal Bath recipes.

Cold-pressed olive oil—I chose olive oil because it was a budget-friendly option for preparing this recipe. You are welcome to use the carrier oil of your choice.

Tips

Always Do A Patch Test

You should always do a small patch test on your skin before using any bath and body product. Calendula is related to ragweed, so there is a rare chance it could cause irritation to sensitive skin

Have Fun With This One

It feels so good to get my hands dirty in the garden. Working with flowers and petals like I do in this recipe is another chance to get a little messy.

Don’t be afraid to use your fingers to smash those petals into the cheesecloth to extract the maximum amount of oil out.

A person is using two fingers to smash the calendula petals into the cheesecloth to strain homemade calendula oil into a small jar. The black lid rests on the white countertop.

Use Whole Flower Heads, Not Just Flower Petals

If you grow and dry your own, be sure to dry the entire flower head, including the green base that holds the petals together.

The green part is called the involucre and it is rich with resins that provide the healing properties calendula is known for.

Dry Thoroughly

This recipe is pretty much fool-proof, but if you grow and dry your own flowers, be sure they dry out all the way. If there is any moisture left in the petals, it could cause your oil to become rancid.

You don’t have to worry about that if you’ve purchased flower heads.

FAQs

What other carrier oils can I use to make this infusion?

The most common oils used in this preparation are jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, or coconut oil. Be sure to look for quality oils that are unrefined and cold-pressed or expeller-pressed.

What should I store it in?

You can store your homemade calendula oil in any jar or bottle. A dark glass bottle will help with a long shelf life. Most importantly, keep it out of direct sunlight.

Storing it in a tall bottle with a narrow neck would make it easy to pour your oil as you use it in lotions and other recipes. You can use a funnel to pour your oil into a narrow-neck bottle.

How long will It last?

If you use a high-quality carrier oil and store your calendula oil in a dark, cool place, it should last for a year.

What can I use calendula oil for?

This oil can be used for any skin application. It makes an excellent massage oil and soothes and calms any skin irritation.

I use this oil as an addition to several of my lotion and soap DIYs. It is a versatile oil that can be mixed with other essential oils in your DIY recipes.

This DIY project is worth the wait. I can control the quality of the ingredients in my herbal remedies and don’t have to wonder how long they have been sitting on the shelf.

I also love being hands-on and enjoying the beauty of the bright orange blooms. If you like to garden like I do, you can really immerse yourself in the process by growing your own fresh calendula flowers.

It’s a beautiful project from the moment you immerse the dried blooms in the jar until the golden oil is ready to use on your shelf. I love anything that brings a little bit of the outside into my home.

Other Oil Infusion Recipes: