Calendula Oil Room Spray: Why Oil and Water Make a Poor Mist

Short answer: we make calendula oil, and we would not tell you to put it in a room spray. Oil does not dissolve in water, a spray bottle is mostly water, and a water-based spray that sits on a shelf needs a preservative system you can trust. If you want a fresher-smelling room, there are better first moves than a bottle of oil and water, and we list them below.

Calendula oil bottle

Calendula Oil

Our own small-batch calendula oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $13.99

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The mechanism problem

Our oil is an infused oil: calendula extracted first, then brought into a carrier oil. Spraying it means dispersing oil into water, and the two separate. Reasoning from that: shaken in a bottle with water, the oil rises and the nozzle sprays whichever layer is at the dip tube, so the first sprays may be mostly water and the last mostly oil. Oil that lands on fabric or wood is oil that stays on fabric or wood. Calendula oil is also orange (carotenoids), so we would not spray it on light upholstery without a test patch; we have not tested staining.

The usual fix in recipes is a solubilizer or emulsifier. We found no fetched source on which ones are suitable for home makers and at what level, so we are not going to hand you a recipe.

The water problem

This is the point we would most want a home maker to take away. Once the product has water in it, the risk profile changes:

Mist from a contaminated bottle goes into the air you breathe. We have no study showing harm from home-made calendula sprays, and we are not saying it happens often. We are saying the safeguard is the preservation system, and a "natural" bottle with none is the version we would avoid.

What an air freshener does and does not do

EPA's indoor air guide lists air fresheners among household products that emit volatile organic compounds. It says "increasing the amount of fresh air brought indoors helps reduce pollutants inside," and that "usually the most effective way to improve indoor air is to eliminate individual sources or reduce their emissions" (EPA, Care for Your Air). A separate EPA page lists air fresheners among VOC sources and states that no federally enforceable standards have been set for VOCs in non-industrial settings (EPA, VOCs' impact on indoor air quality). Neither page says a particular spray is harmful or safe; they say source removal and ventilation come first.

Calendula has no data behind it as an air-freshening ingredient. As a scent source it is thin: the EU assessment report puts calendula's distillable volatile oil at 0.2-0.3% of the herb (EMA/HMPC, 2008), and our oil is an infusion, not that distillate. Whatever smell a "calendula room spray" has comes from the essential oils or fragrance you add.

If you add essential oils anyway

What we would do instead

  1. Find and remove the source of the smell, then ventilate. That is the order EPA's guide describes.
  2. If you want a scent, use a product made for the job, with a label you can read and a manufacturer who has done preservation testing, rather than our oil in a bottle of water.
  3. Use calendula oil where an oil makes sense: on skin, after a patch test. Our DIY recipe roundup and the aromatherapy and diffusing piece cover the better-fitting uses; check both against the limits above.

We can answer questions about the flower, how it is dried, how the oil is made and what the batch paperwork shows. A room spray is outside that, so this piece is deliberately a reason to hold off rather than a recipe.

Calendula oil bottle

Calendula Oil

Nature's Golden Botanical, bottled: small-batch calendula oil in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $13.99

Shop Calendula Oil →

Sources & Further Reading