Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Calendula salve

I've been wanting to make up a batch of this healing salve for some time now. What do I use it for? Mostly for cuts and scratches, but also I've been putting it on insect bites too. Might not stop the itching that well but I figure it can help the skin! Actually I found out from researching remedies for insect bites that ice is the best home remedy.

Anyway, back to the salve. Fortunately I had sufficient calendula flowers in the garden:


It was very easy to make. I used my slow cooker to infuse 2 cups of petals with 1 cup of olive oil for a couple of hours. Then I strained this through some muslin into another container. I melted 1/4 cup beeswax pellets using a double boiler, then checked the temperature of the wax and heated the oil up (gently) a wee bit more so they were roughly the same temp. Then I added the oil to the beeswax and whisked it up, added 10 drops of lavender oil and poured into clean, dry pots. This quantity of ingredients made 5 little pots. It sets fairly quickly, putting it in the fridge helps to solidify even more.



I'm storing them in the fridge too, although I guess you could just keep them somewhere cool - has been quite hot here as we are at the end of our Summer and we don't really have anywhere that's very cool!

4 comments:

BLD in MT said...

Great idea!

Ruth @ Camellia Rose said...

Thanks for the recipe. This is one of those things (like cheesemaking) that I've wanted to make for ages. I have lots of self sown calendulas that will be blooming soon so I'll have to remember to harvest some petals!

Tanya Murray said...

Must get round to this...after the tomatoes maybe...sigh!
Like the labelling by the way.

Cabbage Tree Farm said...

Hi guys
Well I can honestly say it's one of those things that takes no time at all yet one puts it off for ages!!
Tanya, I wish I had all your tomatoes, last year I grew loads and was preserving them like crazy too, but this year I failed to get much going in the garden. We can go out and pick a handful but not the boxloads of big Brandywines last year!