Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Making infused oils for salves

I'm planning on sending out some small tins and jars of salve with Christmas gifts this year. I'm making goldenrod salve and calendula salve. I started the process today with making goldenrod infused oil using dried goldenrod.

I gathered the goldenrod from a field in September and hung it to dry in my garage. I had to find a big jar to store it in:


Here's 3/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil becoming infused with goldenrod:

I made some goldenrod oil toward the end of summer using fresh goldenrod. You can read how I did it here. This time I'm using dried instead of fresh.

Tomorrow I'll make calendula infused oil. I grew the calendula in my garden over the summer and harvested and dried the blooms. Here's a jar of what I haven't used already:

Calendula is so colorful:

It's hardy too. I collected a few flowers just yesterday, and there are several about to bloom. I'm not sure they made it through last night though, it got down into the twenties. I haven't checked them yet.

I've got my labels printed up and ready to go and my 1/2 ounce tins and jars came in the mail yesterday, so as soon as I've got my oils, I'm all set to make salve:


Instructions for making goldenrod salve can be found here, just substitute whatever type of infused oil you'd like for whatever type of salve you have in mind.

2 comments:

Adrienne said...

What a great project! The calendula is beautiful.

ICQB said...

Hi adrienne!

It was a fun project. I've got 12 tins of calendula salve and 10 little jars of goldenrod salve now. I'll tuck them in with holiday packages that I send out.

Thanks for stopping by!