Calendula Salve & Recipe

Calendula salve is something that should be in everyone's medicine cabinet. I've used it a few times in years past, but have become a faithful user in the last couple years on some skin issues stemming from post thrombotic syndrome in one of my legs..  It's very therapeutic, and can be used for a wide variety of things with great success.

What is Calendula? "Calendula" is Calendula Officinalis. Also know as the Marigold or Pot Marigold. Before you turn up your nose and think "EWWWWWWWWWWWWW! No way!", this may not be the same plant you think of when you hear "Marigold". I know its not for me.

Tagetes

To me, Tagetes, is a Marigold and the first thing that comes to my mind at the mention of "Marigold". The stinky flowers in everyone's garden that you'd never dream of having inside the house because of their distinctive foul odor. Thankfully, this isn't the flower were talking about.

Calendula Officinalis

Calendula Officinalis is the specie of Marigold that we need. I have only bought the commercial products, but after more searching and talking to some friends, I decided to take the plunge and make my own after learning more about which plant specie and variety was the one needed to try making my own salve. 

• Calendula is known for its benefits on the skin, and has been used as an anti-microbial(both antibacterial & anti-viral), anti-fungal, used for burns and irradiated skin, bruises, soreness, cracked dry skin, eczema, cooling to inflammation, diaper rash, and skin ulcers. It can help reduce bleeding and is great for varicose veins. I use it mainly for the veinous ulcers that come and go on one of my legs after having compromised cirrculation after several DVT's. Calendula salve has worked better than any of the topical ointments and treatments I have used from the doctor.  I also have started using it on diaper rash on my little ones with great success!

So, I ordered Organic Calendula Officinalis off Amazon.com. You could easily order from anywhere online or pickup some at any herbal or whole foods store. Just make sure that you get Certified Organic, then you wont have to worry about what kind of pesticides were used on the flowers and ending up in your salve.  Same goes for your Coconut oil. Organic is the way to go. You can use other good quality Organic oils to make your salve, it does not need to be Coconut, but the unrefined coconut works wonderful and adds alittle extra to the smell.

Fill your glass jars with the Caldendula flowers. Make sure not to pack them in tight, so the flowers have room to expand when the oil is added.

Add your carrier oil of choice. In this case, I used Nutiva Organic Coconut, which is a solid below 76*.  Warming up the oil to become a liquid, then using a funnel to pour the oil into the jars containing the flowers.

Then into the Crockpot. I filled the water to about half way up the sides of the jars, and turned the crockpot on low. 3 Days of warming the oil and flowers to speed up the process.

After the Calendula has infused for 3 days(give or take), you can strain it with a fine metal mesh strainer, a cheesecloth or thin dish rag.  I prefer the cheesecloth or rag because you can squeeze out the flowers and get the very last of the infused oil out of them.

Store in a cool dark place. 

How to make a basic salve-
 A salve or ointment, is a combination of an oil or fat that has been infused with herbs or flowers and bees wax. The oil works as a solvent to draw out the therapeutic properties of the herb and creates a healing and soothing base to build other products with besides just the salve I'm making today.  By adding the bees wax(or another emulsion wax you have on hand) it helps to solidify the wonderful healing infused oil and make it apply and have around without creating a big old sticky mess. The bees wax also adds some natural moisturizers, a protective element that helps with inflammation, irritation and dryness. Its also been found to have an antioxidant quality which is a great addition to everything.

The basic salves I make are generally 4 parts carrier or infused oil to 1 part bees wax or other emulsion agent. 1 cup carrier to 1/4 cup wax... or 1/2 cup carrier to 1/8th cup  wax.

Add the bee's wax to the infused oil in a double boiler. Slowly warming and stirring the oil & wax until wax melts. After the wax is melted and mixed well with the oil pour into containers and let cool, stirring occasionally until its starts to solidify. Store in a cool dry place. 

Safe Essential Oil Dilutions

I went on vacation for almost 2 weeks, and have been slacking and trying to get caught back up since I got home.

I'm constantly amazed by the amount of people using essential oils neat on their own skin. This is especially common in the world of the multi-level-marketing (MLM) essential oils. Focus is placed on selling volume, and not nearly enough on the safety aspect of EOs. Useage of EOs neat is when their used undiluted on the skin.

Just today I saw a picture of a young boy, who had used a blend made to be used for ADD or ADHD along the spine undiluted in a roller bottle. The young boy had the hyperpigment(darkened skin) along his spine where the blend was used.


An example of photo-sensitization with essential oil:

The bottle was from a very large company, which also has no warning or dilution instructions. Lime is KNOWN to be phototoxic even in minute amounts, but there were no warnings nor mention on the companies website and pages about the oil. Not only is this unsafe its negligent in the simplest form.

http://www.naha.org/explore-aromatherapy/safety/ gives a great rundown on photo-sensitization

Photosensitization

An essential oil that exhibits this quality will cause burning or skin pigmentation changes, such as tanning, on exposure to sun or similar light (ultraviolet rays). Reactions can range from a mild color change through to deep weeping burns. Do not use or recommend the use of photosensitizing essential oils prior to going into a sun tanning booth or the sun. Recommend that the client stay out of the sun or sun tanning booth for at least twenty-four hours after treatment if photosensitizing essential oils were applied to the skin. Certain drugs, such as tetracycline, increase the photosensitivity of the skin, thus increasing the harmful effects of photosensitizing essential oils under the necessary conditions. Table 3 lists some common essential oils considered to be photosensitizers.

Photosensitizers (Table 3)

Essential Oil	Latin Name
Angelica root	Angelica archangelica
Bergamot	Citrus bergamia
Cumin	Cuminum cyminum
Distilled grapefruit	Citrus paradisi
Expressed lemon	Citrus limon
Expressed lime	Citrus medica
Distilled orange	Citrus sinensis
Distilled tangerine	Citrus reticulata
Verbena	Lippia citriodora

Non-phototoxic citrus oils (Table 4)

Essential Oil	Latin Name
Bergamot: Bergapteneless (FCF: Furanocoumarin Free)	Citrus bergamia
Expressed grapefruit	Citrus paradisi
Distilled lemon	Citrus limon
Distilled lime	Citrus medica
Expressed sweet orange	Citrus sinensis
Expressed tangerine	Citrus reticulata

Some oils depending on their method of distillation or expression, may fall onto either side of phototoxic, so be sure you know what your using.

All of this talk about the phototoxic oils really got me thinking about the overall safety aspect of dilution.

The normal "standard" dilution rate for an adult is 2 - 2.5%. 2.5% is 15 drops per 30ml(1 ounce) of carrier oil.  2% is 12 drops per 30ml(1 ounce).. For children, pregnant women, the elderly, immune compromised or pets, 1% is sufficent.

To get a better visual of just how powerful EOs are, and how much carrier is needed to safely dilute I created this graphic for another site. www.learningabouteos.com and the facebook group Learning about Essential Oils.
The numbers within the oil drops are the total amount of drops of essential oil. The bottles represent the amount of carrier.

Drop/Measurement Conversions

10 drops	1/10 tsp	1/60 oz.	1/8 dram	1/2 ml
12.5 drops	1/8 tsp	1/48 oz.	1/6 dram	5/8 ml
25 drops	1/4 tsp	1/24 oz.	1/3 dram	1 1/4 ml
50 drops	1/2 tsp	1/12 oz.	2/3 dram	2 1/2 ml
100 drops	1 tsp	1/6 oz.	1 1/3 dram	about 5 ml
150 drops	1 1/2 tsp	1/4 oz.	2 drams	13.5 ml
300 drops	3 tsp	1/2 oz.	4 drams	about 15 ml
600 drops	6 tsp	1 oz.	8 drams	about 30 ml
24 tsp	8 Tbs	4 oz.	1/2 cup	1/4 pint
48 tsp	16 Tbs	8 oz.	1 cup	1/2 pint
96 tsp	32 Tbs	16 oz.	2 cups	1 pint

I dilute the commercial blends I use to 2% if they're undiluted, unless its a pretty severe acute issue needing an focused treatement then it may be up to 10%.

So now that your mind is all jumbled up with numbers, I'll make it easy.. Lets go back to that 10-15ml roller ball bottle used neat, how much blended diluted oil does that make? A LOT!