One actually does not need that many ingredients to produce marigold (calendula officinalis) handcreme at home. Basically, all that is needed is some kind of oily/fatty substance to heat the dried flowers and eventual other herbs in, for extraction. It needs some experimentation though to get the consistency one wants. I tried coconut fat/oil as a base first, but it smells very intense and when used without any other additives gives a very fatty consistency and gets very liquid the moment it’s put on the skin and melts. My second attempt was with olive oil, but it ends up smelling like kitchen/frying and that’s not so nice for a handcreme either. I then switched to Melkfett (petrolatum, paraffinum liquidum) and bees wax 3:1, which turned out very waxy, but which also smells fabulously and gives a nice protective layer! Also, bees wax is a good organic preservative. To get a more creamy touch, I read that milk can be used as an emulsifier. So the latest version had Melkfett and bees wax at like 10:1 parts, and about 3-4 parts milk, which then got vigorously whipped while slowly adding the still hot fat/wax extraction. Looks a bit like sauce hollondaise in the beginning, but I consider it my best result yet concerning perfume and consistency. Future experiments will include neutral vegetable oils, like sunflower seeds oil, in order to try to come up with something less fossile fuel dependent B-) (although paraffinum is some kind of waste/side product of the oil industry anyway, so better to use it like that, than to burn it off maybe…)