Starwest Botanicals Organic Dried Calendula Flowers - Natural Loose Leaf Herb for Tea & Culinary Use, Herbal Calendula Petals, Caffeine Free, Certified Kosher, Non-GMO - Bulk 1 lb Bag

Smells amazing and great packaging! Thank you!

Good price for the ammount. I recieved exactly what I ordered & whats described. Will deffinetly buy again.

I read about using calendula flowers to make a skin-healing salve with lard or tallow. When I received this order, I did check it for freshness, giving that some other reviewers had trouble with that. Fortunately, my batch was fresh and without any debris. Yay! Stems and a few leaves were included, but that wasn't a drawback for me. After looking for calendula salve recipes on the web, I ended up using the following: 2 cups lard or tallow (I used a mix to use up what I had on hand) 1/2 cup olive, avocado, almond, or jojoba oil (again, I used a mix of what was on hand) 2 cups calendula flowers Again, this is approximate, and you could use more or less or different items and still end up with a very healing salve. I like using tallow and lard because they are extremely healing for skin, but I respect that some people prefer not to use animal products. Coconut oil could be used instead of lard or tallow with the other liquid oil. That's assuming you are aiming for a salve (firmer at room temperature), and not just an infused oil. If it's an infusion you want, then feel free to simply add the flowers to your favorite blend of skin-friendly liquid oils. Also, some people just put the flowers and oil into a jar, then let it sit in a warm, sunny window for a few weeks, shaking it up every day or so. That would be great in summer time, but it's winter where I live, and while there is still sun, all of my windows are quite cold. Other people make the infusion quickly on the stove, but I preferred not to potential destroy some of the healing qualities of the flowers by using high heat. Low and slow is usually good for preserving the healing qualities! For that reason, I decided to use my slow cooker. After adding all the ingredients into the crock, I covered the cooker and turned it on low. A few hours later, I stirred it to thoroughly mix the calendula into the now-liquid fat blend. For the next two days, I let it simmer on low, stirring once or twice per day. When all of the oil was a deep golden color, I turned off the cooker and got ready to strain the mixture. I set up a mason jar in the sink, put a canning funnel in it, added a strainer over the top of the funnel, and began ladling the mix into the strainer. As the oil dripped through into the mason jar, I pressed on the flowers in the strainer to extract as much of the oil as possible. When all the oil had been strained through, I put the used flowers into the compost bin, added some essential oils to the still-liquid salve, and put the mason jar into the fridge to solidify. This helps the harder and softer oils remain emulsified, rather than separating as they would if cooled at room temperature. Also, the scent of calendula isn't awful but isn't that appealing to me, either, so a touch of essential oil made it pleasant without being perfume-y. I used lavender and ylang-ylang because both are good for skin. Later that day, and the next, I applied the salve to my dry, chapped hands. Not only did the chapped skin heal almost immediately, by the second day, an annoying and deep paper cut that had refused to heal for weeks was now closed up and turning pink! Since then, I've also used the salve on the dry skin on my legs, as well as a rough patch of skin on my face. It works wonderfully and leaves the skin very soft and smooth. Because I still have so much of this bag left over, I'm probably going to make a few small batches for family and friends. In a quilted jelly jar with a plastic lid, it makes a wonderful gift!

add these to our duck feed for yellower yolks

I have dry, sensitive skin and am allergic to a lot of things--unfortunately including natural "basics" like shea butter and beeswax. Last summer I got frustrated enough and started making my own lotions. The core of my main lotion right now is calendula-infused glycerine plus coconut oil. (I also find hyaluronic acid to be incredibly helpful, but I don't mix it in.) This is great calendula, and a lot of it. Yes, it's mostly whole flowers. Sometimes I pick the petals off and just use them, but honestly I'm not certain how much of a difference it makes. Adding calendula to my main lotion has, however, calmed my skin down and helps it to heal, and my mild eczema has been much less of an issue this winter. I had been using commercial calendula products in the past, but my skin is even happier now that I'm making the lotion on my own. I'm allergic to a lot of natural products--particularly nut butters like shea--yet I'm trying to remove

I am super anti chemicals so I make all my own household cleaning products, body scrubs, hand soaps, dish washing and laundry detergent, etc. What I have not been able to find a good recipe for is shampoo and body lotion. I tried this out to infuse some almond oil to use as a lotion. I am also pregnant and, of course, will not buy the typical chemical filled baby products, nor will I pay the ridiculous prices for the all natural, chemical free ones. So, I also got a recipe for baby powder that includes calendula flowers. I am really impressed with this ingredient for both its medicinal implications, but also for the fantastic smell. They look like they would be really pretty live so I may even start growing calendula in my garden for the scent alone. Also, let me just say "Wow!!!" when it comes to this particular product for the price. I am going to have to find more applications for calendula to use all this. It is a huge bag!!! I have found that when I purchase most of the oils, clays, soap, etc. that I use in my products, they come in tiny packages are aren't exactly cheap, but this is an enormous bad. I will definitely be looking into purchasing more of this company's products in the future. I am a very happy customer.

I bought these to feed to our backyard chickens – the more greens and yellows they eat, the brighter and denser their egg yolks become (yum). The color of these dried flowers are bright and even, and the scent is not old or foul, though not very floral either since calendula generally has a pretty subtle odor even when fresh. Most of the pieces in the package are full flower heads, with many petals attached to a very short stem. The only issue is that ladies weren't really interested in chowing down until I began plucking the dried petals off of the stem and sepal, making them smaller and easier to peck out of a feed bowl, I suppose. I have seen other products that are petals only which would be one less step for me, but since these from Starwest are organic and good quality, I'll probably stick with these when it's time to reorder.

I recently bought these Calendula flowers to infuse oil for making healing salves, lip balms and creams. This bag was absolutely HUGE! I had no idea it would be this big...but its a great value. I tried growing Calendula this summer and didn't succeed but when I got this bag, I didn't feel bad. I would have had to grow and dry a LOT of flowers to fill this bag. The product that I have used so far is definitely clean and I made my first batch of oil. I chose to use a "quick" infusion method. I filled a quart jar half full with flowers and covered with olive oil plus about another inch. I put the lid on and put the jar in my dehydrator for warm and kept it overnight. I used it the next day on deep scratches and within 24 hours, they were looking considerably better. A friend chose to buy her calendula from a road side stand and it ended up being full of little worms!