Calendula for Skin Health

Research suggests that calendula may offer meaningful benefits for skin health, particularly through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The available evidence includes a 2024 narrative review of aromatic plants in cosmeceutical applications, which identifies calendula among several botanicals reported to have photoprotective, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing, and anti-aging effects attributable to compounds such as flavonoids, phenolics, and terpenes. A 2025 mechanistic study adds more specific support, identifying C16-hydroxylated triterpenoids as key anti-inflammatory molecules in calendula and describing a newly discovered pathway by which these compounds reduce interleukin-6, a protein central to inflammatory responses. It is worth noting that neither study is a clinical trial directly testing calendula on human skin outcomes, so while the mechanistic and review-level evidence is encouraging, more rigorous human studies would be needed to draw firmer conclusions about its real-world effectiveness for skin health applications.