Calendula honey salve to protect your dry hands.

This healing calendula salve not only moisturizes your skin but also creates a barrier that protects your hands against the cold wet conditions and leaves them smooth and silky. 

What is calendula salve?

Calendula salve is a natural healing ointment made of calendula infused oil, other oils, raw honey and beeswax. It doesn’t contain any water. This wax-based formula is thick and is meant to encourage wound healing, relieve minor irritations and cuts, treat infections and nourish your dry hands. It can also be used on lips.

This calendula salve is ideal for dry hands in cold autumn/ winter time for people that work manually in the garden, frequently wash their hands or use harsh cleaners. Lighter formula calendula cream is soothing and moisturizing and can also ease skin irritations.

Calendula salve Ingredients:

Calendula infused oil

There’s a reason that Calendula oil became part of many commercially available creams and ointments. 

Its healing and soothing properties enable the use of calendula for healing wounds, scars, burns, and bruises. [1] Moreover calendula oil promotes epithelization and is therefore very effective in the healing process. It generates collagen that re-seals broken or burst skin. When you apply calendula on the wound, it tends to heal much faster. 

In addition, its anti-inflammatory compounds prevent further infection.

We have been using calendula oil in this natural Calendula bug bite cream that works like a charm for red and itchy bug bites.

Raw honey

Apart from being tasty and nutritious, raw honey is incredibly soothing to the skin. Together with its antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory effect raw honey became the queen bee of the beauty world.

Rich in enzymes, antioxidants and minerals, raw honey is an ideal natural healer.

(Did you know that raw honey is so high in enzymes that it is the only food on the planet that never goes bad!)

1) Raw honey hydrates and soothes skin leaving it glowing, radiant and soft.

2) With its antioxidant properties, raw honey nourishes damaged skin and help the scars heal.

3) Raw honey possesses antiseptic properties that help prevent infections and protect wounds(2) 

Selection of honey:

When you go buy honey for your skincare product there are a few things you should consider:

1. Aim for raw honey. Raw honey comes directly from the honeycomb. The beekeeper sometimes filters the honey to remove pieces of debris such as pollen, beeswax, propolis or dead bees. Raw honey is not pasteurized and therefore contains extra elements. It is often cloudy.

On the contrary, regular honey undergoes a pasteurization process which involves intense heating. Due to the pasteurization regular honey become smooth and clear, however it loses a number of antioxidants and nutrients that raw honey has. 

For our project, the ideal would be raw honey with a high concentration of other bee products such as:

a) royal jelly – responsible for boosting collagen and promotes faster healing

b) propolis – that has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties and plays an important role in fighting acne

c) pollen – that has rutin, responsible for draining the capillaries 

Shea butter

Shea butter is an excellent moisturizer with the ability to prevent cellular water loss. Natural shea butter comes from the nut of the shea tree and its antibacterial properties help treat minor infections.

We have used shea butter to make this wonderful whipped and creamy Plantain body butter.

How to deal with shea butter strong scent if any?

For some people, shea butter might have a strong scent.

Here is what you can do:

 a)You can cover the scent with essential oils of your choice. I selected orange essential oil but feel free to use eucalyptus, lavender or vanilla. 

b) or replace shea butter with coconut butter.

 c) buy refined shea butter instead of a raw one. You will lose some soothing benefits of shea butter however the scent will not be there. 

How to make calendula salve:

First step: start with calendula infused oil. You will need dried calendula blossoms and organic olive oil. If you want to skip this step you can order calendula infused oil here.

The method is described here but in a short:

Fill 500 ml jar about halfway with calendula petals.

Pour olive oil into the jar until it’s just about full. Make sure that you covered the herbs completely with oil. After 4-6 weeks, pour the jar’s contents through a small strainer and your calendula infusion oil is ready. Alternatively, use a double boiler. Slowly heat the mixture to a maximum of 60 degrees Celsius. Simmer for at least 5 hours. Strain the mixture and enjoy your calendula infused oil full of medicinal properties. 

Second step: Mix your calendula oil with beeswax, coconut oil and shea butter.

Third step: Place the mixture in the double boiler and let it gently melt

Fourth step: wait for the mixture to cool down.

Fifth step: Add orange essential oil or other essential oils as per your choice.

Sixth step: when the mixture is sufficiently cooled, add raw honey. 

Seventh step: mix it well, pour the mixture into a glass jar till it is still liquid, let it sit for 2 hours and enjoy.

What to do if honey separates from the salve?

If that happens it might be for the following reasons:

• you didn’t use raw honey but ordinary liquid honey that is very often diluted with syrup. In that case, the oily and watery parts will separate. So make sure you use undiluted raw honey or emulsifier – to keep both parts together – I suggest emulsifying wax
• to avoid the separation of honey let the mixture of melted ingredients cool down a bit and add the honey after. 

Wax-based formula with honey and calendula is thick enough to lock the moisture in while healing your chapped hands from bruises and irritation.

Where can I use this balm?

This balm is suitable for extremely dry areas such as the hands, joint areas or the heels. It can also serve as a cuticle cream or hair conditioner.

Can I replace shea butter with coconut butter in this calendula salve recipe?

I have tried that and it worked really well. You will only lose the medicinal benefits of shea butter that rebuilds skin cells. It keeps cellular membranes healthy and prevents cellular water loss.

Can I use this calendula balm on my face?

You can, however, be aware that a balm usually doesn’t contain any water and is made of beeswax and oily parts only. Therefore is very dense and intensive and when using on your face unless extremely dry it can cause breakouts in the skin. Feel free to use it on your lips if dry.