Try this calendula soap recipe colored with calendula petals, the rare case where flower petals do not get destroyed by lye water. Made with a rich mixture of vegetable oils and poppy seeds, you will get a mild exfoliant soap. You can use it on your body, face or hands.
Table of Contents
- Can You Put Calendula In Soap?
- Other Ingredients
- Calendula Soap Recipe
- Find Where to Buy Handmade Calendula Soap
- How To Use This Soap
- Related Posts
- Watch This Video About Safety
- Cold Process Soap Making Tutorial Video
- Cold Process Soap Making Lessons
Can You Put Calendula In Soap?
This recipe uses all oils infused in calendula to try to capture some of its medicinal properties in this soap bar. See here how to make herbal-infused oil. Calendula dried petals are also used infused in lye water and as decoration. Those are the three ways you can use calendula in soap, any of them will give color to your soap.
Calendula is a cherished medicinal plant. It’s a cheerful flower in various yellow or orange tones, with several medicinal properties: potent anti-inflammatory, a strong skin wound healer, soothing for burnt and irritated skin, astringent, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, soothing, healing, anti-allergic, antiviral, skin toning and bactericidal properties among others!
While it’s debatable that those properties might survive saponification, it’s a fact that its petal pretty colors do. This soap was supposed to be a pretty light yellow. Why is it not? It turned more into a brownish color because I’ve made the “mistake” of adding other plant parts along with the petals like the flower crowns and seeds. Also, I did use infused oil AND infised lye water…
Anyway this is one of those instances where you don’t get the expected result, but the soap is still pretty.
Other Ingredients
This soap is also made with olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil and lard. You get a hard but creamy, foamy, and a very conditioning soap bar. Add to it the medicinal properties of calendula petals. Poppy seeds work as a medium exfoliant soap, and you have here a wonderful cleanser for your skin.
As fragrance, we will use lemongrass essential oil and cedarwood, for a citrusy and fresh scent.

Calendula Soap Recipe
The final soap became darker than I was expecting. I suppose that it was the added effect of calendula-colored lye water with infused oils together, and using all plant parts instead of sticking only to the petals. Poppy seeds made it look even darker. I have made soap afterwards with calendula petals as a natural colorant in lye water, and the resulting color was a light pretty yellow.
Still, the final golden brown from this soap is so pretty and natural for a handmade soap that everyone would believe if I said I’ve made it on purpose… Maybe some soapmakers find using natural colorants annoying as they are unpredictable. I find it charming, a way to say that nature is actually unpredictable. It’s the beatuy of making handmade soap!
I hope you give it a try at this recipe. Enjoy your handmade soaps!!

Find Where to Buy Handmade Calendula Soap
If you’re not yet ready to try to make this recipe at home, but you still wish to enjoy natural soaps, you can find handmade lard soap in the following links:
Looking for more natural soaps? Check out my review about Apple Valley Natural Soap.
How To Use This Soap
In the shower or bath, wet your hands and rub your soap in them to create a lather. Wash your hands first, then repeat the process and apply soap to your whole body using the soap directly and your hands. You may also wash your face with it. Rinse hands and body abundantly. Also wash your soap from lather before placing it in your soap dish or bag saver.
Washcloths and sponges should be avoided. Avoid washing your intimate zone and your hair, soap pH in not adequate for those parts of your body. Avoid eye contact with soap to prevent stinging. Make a patch test before using your soap. Stop using your soap if you feel any immediate adverse reaction in your skin (red skin, rashes, itching).
To take best advantage of your handmade soap (made by yourself or store-bougth), read How Do You Use Handmade Soap?
Related Posts
Ingredients and Recipes
- Vegetable oils: Oil Properties For Soap Making
- Essential oils: Best Essential Oils for Soap Making
- Colorants: How To Color Your Soap With Kitchen Ingredients
- Beginner Recipes: Soap Recipes for Beginners
- Cold Process Soap Recipes: Free Cold Process Soap Recipes
Soap Making Techniques and Troubleshooting
- Cold Process Tutorial Guide: Learn To Make Cold Process Soap?
- Soap Making Methods: How To Make Soap At Home
- Soap Making Trace: Know Everything About Trace in Soap Making
- Soap Acceleration: Causes, How To Avoid It Or How To Fix It
- Soda Ash In Soap: What It Is, How to Remove It
Watch This Video About Safety
Cold Process Soap Making Tutorial Video
Cold Process Soap Making Lessons
The tutorials in this blog are a great – and free! – help to start with cold process soap making. Practice is the next step to harness the art of making soaps at home. However, I understand if you prefer to have some formal lessons, where you will feel more supported with the steps. Feel free to join these courses at Udemy.
Equipment
Ingredients
Lye Water
- 228 g distilled water
- 112 g lye (100% sodium hydroxide)
- 3 tsp dried calendula petals
Oils
- 200 g refined or organic coconut oil calendula-infused oil
- 400 g extra virgin olive oil calendula-infused oil
- 130 g lard
- 70 g castor oil calendula-infused oil
After Trace Ingredients
- 8 drops grapefruit seed extract (GSE) (anti-oxidant)
- 30 ml essential oils blend optional
- poppy seeds
- alcohol or witch hazel to sprinkle
Essential Oils Blend
- 15 ml essential oil lemongrass 1 tbsp
- 10 ml essential oil cedarwood Atlas 4 tsp
Instructions
Get Ready!
- Wear goggles and gloves! Look at “Safety Precautions” in the video above or in Soap Making Safety Precautions
- Watch the video above about "Cold Process Soap Making Tutorial" or read the post Learn To Make Cold Process Soap for instructions on cold process soap making before starting. These are generic but important steps for all recipes.
- Assemble everything: ingredients, equipment, safety equipment. Prepare your workstations. Measure all the ingredients. Don’t start the recipe without having everything ready!
- Prepare the infused oils in advance. Learn how to make them in How To Make Infused Oil With Dried Herbs. This will work as a natural colorant to your soap. However, the color obtained in this recipe's photo was given by adding calendula petals to the lye water, in addition to the infused oils.200 g refined or organic coconut oil, 70 g castor oil, 400 g extra virgin olive oil
Heat the Oils
- Heat the oils until the solid oils are completely melted (it is not necessary to heat all to the end).200 g refined or organic coconut oil, 400 g extra virgin olive oil, 130 g lard, 70 g castor oil
Make the Lye Water
- Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Mix it until the vapors start to dissipate. Add the dried calendula petals in the end (optional).228 g distilled water, 3 tsp dried calendula petals, 112 g lye (100% sodium hydroxide)
Make the Soap Batter
- Use as a target temperature 35ºC for the oil-solution mixture. If necessary, you can reheat the oils, but not the lye solution.
- When adding the lye water to the oils, strain the water to avoid lye crystals in your soap batter.
- Start mixing the soap batter with the immersion blender. Although this is a balanced recipe in soft and hard oils, be watchful about trace accelerating (soap batter going solid quickly)
- Add the extract, essential oil (s) and poppy seeds after trace and stir with just a spoon.8 drops grapefruit seed extract (GSE) (anti-oxidant), 30 ml essential oils blend, poppy seeds
Molding and Curing
- Pour the soap batter into the soap silicone molds and sprinkle with alcohol or witch hazel.alcohol or witch hazel to sprinkle
- Wait 48 hours, keeping an eye on the hardness of the soap. Unmold and let the bars cure for 4 to 6 weeks. See How To Cure Soap.
Hello Sofia, I was fascinated to read your post about the Lard and Calendula Soap Recipe. This was especially because I had no idea that Lard could be used in handmade soaps. My only experiences with Lard have been my mother’s recipe for making good shortcrust pastry – the secret is in the addition of Lard! Your recipe for soap certainly sounds quite luxurious and I really liked your use of all natural ingredients. Jenni.
Hello Jenni,
Thank you for your nice comment, I am glad you liked this post about lard soap.
There are more, this is the newest one: How To Render White Lard At Home. Lard is indeed a “vilified” ingredient, as long as you don’t eat too much of it (it has a lot of saturated fat), it’s actually a healthy one, better than many hydrogenated butters. And it’s great for cosmetics!! As long as it’s natural, and not over-processed.
Cheers,
Sofia
Love it! I like this easy to find oils recipe. Ready to make it. I already have the calendula infused olive oil. Keep posting soap recipes please!!! Thank you
Hello Mayela and thanks for your really nice comment!
I am so happy you liked the recipe! And yes, I even encourage soap makers to use the oils they have locally available, that’s what makes sense to me, as you can make soap with pretty much any oil or fat.
And be sure I will keep posting recipes, I have already a queue of 14 recipes to post, and much more ideas 🙂
Last but not the least: enjoy making your soap, I am sure it will be a good experience!! Post your questions if you have them.
See you soon!
Sofia