Yep, xmas is coming.

30 rose salves, 30 calendula (Calendula officinalis) salves, and 30 gardener's salves, that's the order I got earlier this week. I was almost out of calendula salves, and it's a good thing I did all those rose salves a couple days ago, no?

Pic: Here's some of the calendula I used.

Pic: This is the three-chopsticks-and-a-bowl waterbath setup.
The idea being that the chopsticks stop the sides of the bowl from touching the sides of the kettle; it's necessary in this particular setup as the bowl doesn't have handles.

Making a calendula salve is very simple: Pour 1000 ml oil (this is cold-pressed organic safflower oil) into the bowl, pour water into the bottom bit, add as much dried calendula flower as will fit into the oil (the chopstick I'm stirring with should stand, at least at first), leave on medium heat (4 out of 6, on my stove) for 1.5 hours, let cool for a while, and strain through a cheesecloth.

Add 1 part beeswax (by weight) to 8 parts herbal oil (by volume); that's 100 g beeswax to 800 ml oil, which makes about 30 x 30 ml salve jars.

I wrung about 900 ml oil out of this particular oil'n'herb mess, once it had been on the stove for long enough, so that's a couple more calendula salves. I'll have to make more, of course, for the various xmas markets. I also made garden salve (meadowsweet and calendula - one batch, about 34 salve jars), and I'll have to make the warming salve. And more rose salve.

Related entries: Calendula salve - Calendula flowers - Yellow flowers: Calendula