Method of extraction Hydrodistillation
Appearance Amber brown to reddish brown viscous liquid
Organoleptic characteristics Woody, smoky, earthy, herbaceous and spicy
Perfumery note Base
Strength of initial aroma Bold
Main constituents Beta-vetivenene, vetivones, khusimol
Niaouli oil
Originally native to India and Indonesia, vetiver grows wild in all tropical and subtropical latitudes. Vetiver is an herbaceous, perennial, bushy plant that can grow up to two meters tall. Its long, rigid, narrow leaves. Vetiver is most closely related to Sorghum but shares many morphological characteristics with other fragrant grasses, such as lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus), citronella (Cymbopogon nardus, C. winterianus), and palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii).
The name vetiver first appeared in France in the 19th century. It comes from the Tamil vettiveru, from vetti, meaning “pull out” and ver meaning “root”, thus translating as “dug up roots” or “unearthed roots.” In many Indian states, it is also known as Cus-Cus, Khus-Khus, or Khas-Khas. Vetiver is also written “vetyver”. Vetiver scent was very popular in ancient India, when Indian brides-to-be were given an ointment made from vetiver roots. The stems and leaves were used as thatch to roof houses, or were braided into mats.
Vetiver roots are the source of the precious woody, earthy smell that is characteristic of the plant. They also play an ecological role in preventing soil erosion caused by flooding and runoff of rainwater.
Indonesia, India and Haiti are the main producers of the essential oil. Javanese vetiver is characterized by its strong smoky notes.
- SPECIFICATION
- IDENTFICATION DATA
- PROPERTIES
- APPLICATION
- REFERENCES
- IMPORTANT NOTE
- GENERAL SAFETY INFORMATION
Commercial name Niaouli Oil
Botanical name Melaleuca quinquenervia
Botanical family Myrtaceae
CAS # 8014-68-4
Plant part Niaouli twigs, leaf
Origin Madagascar
Speeds up eradication of scars and other skin marks
Has antiseptic properties
Provides relief from all types of inflammation
Improves and maintains good nerve health
Rejuvenates the body and helps boost immunity
Helps heal wounds by promoting growth of new tissues
Perfumery
Aromatherapy
The essential oil information provided within the Essential Oil Properties & Profiles area is intended for professional and educational purposes only. This data is not to be considered complete and is not guaranteed to be accurate.
Do not take any oils internally and do not apply undiluted essential oils, absolutes, CO2s or other concentrated essences onto the skin without advanced essential oil knowledge or consultation from a qualified practitioner. If you are pregnant, epileptic, or have liver damage, cancer or any other medical problem, use oils only under the proper guidance of a qualified practitioner. Use extreme caution when using oils with children. It is safest to consult a qualified practitioner before using oils with children.
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Citronella oil type Java
This aromatic perennial grows about 1meter (3 feet) high and is a popular ingredient in wax candles, as an insect repellant, and is also widely used in perfumes, soaps, skin lotions and deodorants. It is extracted from a hardy grass, native to Sri Lanka and Java. Although this essential oil has been typecast as an insect repellant (especially for malaria carrying mosquitoes), it also has great benefit in clearing the mind, refreshing rooms and for softening skin, while combating oily skin and sweaty feet.
The Citronella from Java is characterized by a higher content in citronellal (>30%) and a high content in geraniol (>20%).
Verbena Essential Oil
Verbena, a somewhat scraggly shrub, is much loved for the powerful lemon scent of its foliage. This fragrance led to the plant being nicknamed lemon verbena. The waffled leaves are of a pretty shade of bright green and are covered in secretory glands containing the essential oil. Summertime is when its small, pale lavender flowers bloom, forming terminal spikes. The flowering stems are reaped in July and August and immediately distilled. The resulting essential oil is herbaceous, with a refreshing citral character. The aromatic verbena, Lippia citriodora, should not be confused with lemongrass, Verbena officinalis, with properties similar to those of melissa or lemon balm, or with the verbena used for herbal tea, Dracocephalum moldavica.
Originally from Latin America (Chile, Peru, and Argentina), verbena was introduced to Europe by 17th-century Spanish conquistadors. It is now grown around the Mediterranean basin, especially in France and North Africa, as well as in the West Indies, Reunion Island, and India. Verbena has many botanical names: Lippia citriodora, Aloysia citriodora, Aloysia triphylla, Lippia triphylla, and Verbena triphylla. The common name comes from the Latin verbennae, referring to branches of laurel, olive, myrtle, and verbena, clustered together. With time, this term came to mean only verbena.
Lemon or lemon-scented verbena – not to be confused with its relative, vervein, Verbena officinialis – is a native of South America (Chile and Peru). It was introduced to North Africa, India, Australia, the Caribbean islands and the island of Reunion and reached Europe around 1760. It is a perennial, deciduous, slender shrub which reaches about 1.5 m (5 ft) in height, less in temperate regions. The leaves are long, pale green and pointed, and the flowers are tubular, purple and grow in terminal clusters. The entire plant smells strongly of lemon.
Lippia comes from Augustin Lippi, a seventeenth-century Italian naturalist. The plant is now more correctly defined as Aloysia citriodora, although it is also know as Verbena or Lippia triphylla.
In Parte pratica de botanica (1784), Palau y Verdera was one of the first to describe the plant, giving its therapeutic values as a fortifier, regularizer of the nervous system, and a stomachic; he said it helped with bad digestion and flatulence, nervous palpitations, dizziness and hysteria.
Nutmeg Essential Oil
The nutmeg tree is a pyramid-shaped tree that grows up to 15 meters high. The fruit is a fleshy, pale-yellow drupe resembling an apricot. Once ripe, the fruit’s pulpy pericarp half-opens into two parts, to reveal a single seed protected by a brown shell. This seed, with high essential oil content, is what is used in the distillation process. It is surrounded by a bright red-orange aril that streaks the hull with color. The fruits are picked when mature with a long-handled, basketed “fruit-picker” making it possible to harvest fruit from high in the tree. The stripped seeds are dried in the shade to prevent deterioration of the lipids (the melting point being 38°C). After six to eight weeks, the inner kernel has dried sufficiently and can be freed from its outer rigid shell. It takes seven years for a nutmeg tree to produce its initial crop. Productivity increases with age, with an optimum yield occurring when the tree is between 15 and 30 years old.
Native to the Indonesian Moluccas, nutmeg long remained unknown in the West. Though used in India and Egypt before Christ, it was imported to the West by the Arabs in the Middle Ages. Like pepper, this rare and extremely expensive spice led to monopolistic trade, one disputed by the Portuguese and Dutch for centuries. The Dutch even developed a way of sterilizing the seeds with lime to control spread of the species. In the end, it was the initiative of French missionary Pierre Poivre that led to illegal nutmeg plants being introduced and cultivated on France’s tropical island territories, putting an end to the Dutch exclusivity.
Ginger Essential Oil
Ginger, native to China, is a large, hardy, tropical herbaceous plant. It is an emblematic member of the Zingiberaceae, a family it shares with other celebrated spices like cardamom and turmeric. Ginger’s aromatic rhizome forms buds from which emerge leafy stems. The plant’s shape is similar to that of reeds. The essential oil, which lies in the cells beneath the rhizome’s epidermis, is extracted by steam distillation. Its spicy, warm fragrance has citrus notes, characteristic of the plant’s Asian origins.
Considered a panacea in Asia, ginger can be found in every pharmacopoeia on that continent. The “ancient” Indians viewed it as the mahaoushadha or great medicine. Ginger has been consumed in Asia and India since ancient times and was introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages by Arab spice merchants. Today, ginger is still grown in parts of Asia, where the tropical climate creates favorable conditions. In China, ginger rhizomes are harvested once a year, when the leafy stems become yellow. They are cleaned, brushed, and then dried for one to two weeks. The rhizomatous stumps are then pulverized, dried, and sieved before being distilled to make the essential oil.
Common Thyme Essential Oil
The perennial herb, a member of the mint family, is used in aromatherapy, cooking, potpourri, mouthwashes, and elixirs, as well as added to ointments. According to the American Botanical Council:
The ancient Sumerians and Egyptians used thyme as a medicine and to embalm the dead. The ancient Romans used thyme to flavor cheese and alcoholic beverages, burned it to deter wild animals, and bathed in it to 'provide vigor.' Medieval women embroidered thyme on gifts for knights.
Many of thyme’s beneficial properties come from its essential oils, which include potent compounds like thymol, camphene, linalool, and carvacrol.
The benefits of thyme essential oil have been recognized for thousands of years in Mediterranean countries. This substance is also a common agent in Ayurverdic practice. Today, among the many producers of thyme oil, France, Morocco, and Spain emerge as the primary ones.
Clove bud oil
The employment of clove as analgesic have been reported since the 13th century, for toothache, join pain and antispasmodic, being the eugenol the main compound responsable for this activity. The antioxidant activity of eugenol are multifunctional as reducing agents, hydrogen atom donators, and singlet oxygen scavengers.
Eugenol, is a clear to pale yellow oily liquid extracted from certain essential oils especially from clove oil, nutmeg, cinnamon, and bay leaf. Eugenol, a component of clove, may reduce the ability to feel and react to painful stimulation. Therefore, use of clove products on the skin with other numbing or pain-reducing products such as lidocaine / prilocaine cream, theoretically it may increase the effects.
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Vetiver Oil
Originally native to India and Indonesia, vetiver grows wild in all tropical and subtropical latitudes. Vetiver is an herbaceous, perennial, bushy plant that can grow up to two meters tall. Its long, rigid, narrow leaves. Vetiver is most closely related to Sorghum but shares many morphological characteristics with other fragrant grasses, such as lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus), citronella (Cymbopogon nardus, C. winterianus), and palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii).
The name vetiver first appeared in France in the 19th century. It comes from the Tamil vettiveru, from vetti, meaning "pull out" and ver meaning "root", thus translating as "dug up roots" or "unearthed roots." In many Indian states, it is also known as Cus-Cus, Khus-Khus, or Khas-Khas. Vetiver is also written "vetyver". Vetiver scent was very popular in ancient India, when Indian brides-to-be were given an ointment made from vetiver roots. The stems and leaves were used as thatch to roof houses, or were braided into mats.
Vetiver roots are the source of the precious woody, earthy smell that is characteristic of the plant. They also play an ecological role in preventing soil erosion caused by flooding and runoff of rainwater.
Indonesia, India and Haiti are the main producers of the essential oil. Javanese vetiver is characterized by its strong smoky notes.
Patchouli Oil
Patchouli, an evergreen subshrub, is a tropical aromatic plant that thrives in the rich, shady soil of its native land of Indonesia. Along its upright stems are large, velvety green leaves containing the precious fragrance of patchouli. The name even honors the foliage: “patchouli” comes from the Tamil patch which means “green” and ilai which means “leaf.” The essential oil accumulates in the leaves’ secretory glands, principally in the young leaves, meaning that only the more recent above-ground portions of the plant are harvested for extraction, providing better yield during distillation and letting the plants regenerate faster. Patchouli heart is obtained after traditional patchouli essential oil has undergone rectification. This method is used to enrich the extract’s patchoulol content, the molecule responsible for the characteristic patchouli odor. This scent of the heart is therefore more powerfully woody and earthy, as well as nobler.
The smell of patchouli was discovered in the West through importation of scented shawls from India and Indonesia. This addictive fragrance remained a mystery until 1844, the year that saw the arrival of the first shipment of patchouli leaves in London. Since that time, patchouli has left its charismatic olfactory mark on history. As the fragrance symbol of the Sixties hippie movement, the scent expresses freedom and sensuality.