Calendula Oil Composition: What Is Measured, What Is Assumed

The long lists of compounds you see under "calendula oil composition" describe the flower, not the bottle. A calendula infused oil is mostly its carrier oil by weight, with a small contribution from the flower, and very little of the published chemistry has been measured in oil. We make one oil and do not publish composition numbers for it; the batch paperwork is where those live. This page sorts what is measured from what is assumed, constituent by constituent.

Calendula oil bottle

Calendula Oil

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

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The flower on one side, the oil on the other

The table gives published figures for the flower, then says what we can and cannot say about oil. "Reasoned" means we are inferring from chemistry, not quoting a measurement.

ConstituentIn the flower (source)In an infused oil?
Carotenoids (colour)48 to 276 mg per 100 g fresh flowers across four varieties (Pintea, 2003); up to about 200 mg per 100 g dry petals in a 2022 review. The older EMA figure of "up to 4.7%" is about 20 times higher, with no stated basis.Fat-soluble, so plausible. Measured once in an abstract: 57.5 mg/kg (as beta-carotene) in a 72-hour room-temperature maceration at 1:5 in olive oil (Novkovic, 2005).
Faradiol esters (triterpene esters)About 12 to 13 mg/g dry weight each for the myristate and palmitate in ray florets, none in leaf or root (Golubova, 2025)Non-polar, so plausible. No source we found measured them in an infused oil.
Flavonoids0.3 to 0.8% (EMA 2008), 2 to 4% (2022 review); European Pharmacopoeia minimum 0.4% as hyperosideMostly polar glycosides. Reasoned: little reaches an oil. Not measured.
Saponins2 to 10% of the herb (EMA 2008)Water-soluble glycosides. Reasoned: not expected. Not measured.
PolysaccharidesUp to 15% of the herb (EMA 2008)Water-soluble. Reasoned: not expected. Not measured.
Volatile oil0.2 to 0.3% (EMA 2008); 0.9 g per 100 g dry flowers by hydrodistillation in one lab study (Salome-Abarca, 2015)Not measured in infused oil. Relevant to aroma more than to the bulk of the oil.

The sources disagree in two places. Carotenoids and flavonoids differ between the EMA's textbook values and the measured studies, probably through different methods and bases (fresh versus dry, flower versus petal), and we did not find the cause stated. We therefore quote the measured values, and do not rely on the 4.7 percent figure.

Why the carrier dominates by weight

The EU herbal monograph defines the oil preparation as a 1:10 extract in a fatty vegetable oil such as olive oil (EMA/HMPC, 2018). Here is arithmetic of our own, not a measurement: at 1:10, 10 g of dry petals sit in 100 g of oil. A Macedonian study got 13.76 percent of dry petal weight as n-hexane-soluble material (Rafajlovska et al., 2012). Even if all of that dissolved into the oil, it would be about 1.4 g in roughly 100 g, so well under 2 percent of the bottle, and that material was mainly oleic and linoleic acid, not a distinct profile. In practice the fatty acid make-up of an infused oil is mostly that of its carrier.

Two consequences follow. First, claims that calendula oil is rich in calendic acid mix up two materials. Calendic acid made up 51 to 58 percent of fatty acids in calendula seed oil across eleven genotypes (Dulf et al., Chem Cent J, 2013). The petals used for an infused oil are not seeds, and no published fatty acid analysis of an infused calendula oil turned up in our search. Second, a 2025 study found that macerating basil or sage changed fatty acid proportions in some cold-pressed oils, at far higher herb loads than 1:10 (Laskos et al., Sci Rep, 2025). So "the carrier's profile" is a good approximation and not a guarantee.

The carrier is also where products differ most visibly. A supplier data sheet for a commercial organic macerate lists a sunflower oil carrier with 0.2% added tocopherol (Golgemma/Biolandes, FB026, 2025). Ours has no added tocopherol, preservatives or stabilizers, and the carrier is named on the batch paperwork (email the lot number to [email protected]).

Why we infuse petals, and what we are reasoning from

We infuse petals separated by hand from sound, whole dried flower heads, not broken florets. The reasoning behind that is published even though the oil outcome is not: in one cultivar, petals held about 103.8 mg of carotenoid per 100 g fresh weight against 8 mg in the tubular centre (Pintea et al., 2003), and faradiol esters were about 8-fold higher in ray than disc florets (Golubova et al., Nat Commun, 2025). Reasoning from those two studies, the petals are where the colour and the ester fraction of the flower sit, so petal quality is the lever we can control. We cannot show how much of either reaches our bottle, and we do not claim to.

The open questions nobody has settled

Reading a certificate with this in mind

A certificate of analysis lists only the tests that were run, and a UV-based total-carotenoid number cannot show which plant the colour came from (Gafner et al., J Nat Prod, 2023). The data sheet quoted above, for example, specifies physical constants, peroxide value and microbial counts, with no carotenoid or flavonoid assay. Our batches are tested by independent third-party labs for physical assays, chemical assays and contaminant screening, and a Certificate of Analysis PDF is linked on the shop page. Read which tests are listed, and ask about any you wanted that are missing.

Limits apply as always. Calendula is in the Asteraceae family, and the EU monograph lists hypersensitivity to that family as a contraindication and notes skin sensitization has been reported. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel listed many compound classes that calendula-derived ingredients may contain and concluded they are safe at the concentrations in its 2010 report (Andersen et al., Int J Toxicol, 2010). That is a safety conclusion about cosmetic use, not a statement that any one constituent does anything. For skin conditions, see a dermatologist, and patch test first.

For the compounds this page touches on one at a time, see carotenoids, faradiol, saponins, polysaccharides and infused versus essential oil.

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