Essential Oils - Peppermint
 

Botanical Name: Mentha piperita

• Oil Properties

• History behind this oil

• Who can benefit from this oil?

• How to use this oil

• Method of Extraction

• Precautions

• How to buy Genuine Essential Oil?

• Blends Well With

Peppermint is a native of the Mediterranean, but is now also cultivated in Italy, USA, Japan and Great Britain. Peppermint is a perennial herb that grows up to 1 meter (3 feet) and has slightly hairy serrated leaves with pinkish-mauve flowers arranged in a long conical shape.

 Oil Properties

This oil is considered very good agent as a mouth freshener and to eliminate bad breathe. Peppermint oil is watery in viscosity with a strong, sharp, fresh and menthol smell. Well color of this oil can vary from clear to pale yellow.

Peppermint is well known for its cooling effects.

The chemical components of Peppermint oil are: Menthol, Menthyl acetate, Carvone, Menthone, Carvacrol and Limonene.

History behind this oil

Peppermint is much known to places like Japan and China, where it is grown since ancient period. However, it is said and it is proven fact that peppermint like substance was found in a tomb during 1000 BC.

There are many historical things behind peppermint. Facts are shown that in ancient Greece and Roman Empire herbalists used this peppermint for almost all the ailments.

Traditional uses of this oil are reducing pain, uplifting of mood, sharps memory and improve mental clarity.

There are many Greek mythologies attached to peppermint.

Who can benefit from this oil?

This oil is very beneficial for emotional and physical imbalance. Lets check out its therapeutic properties; this oil works as an antiseptic, rheumatism, anti-spasmodic, decongestant, stimulant, expectorant, and an analgesic.

Peppermint oil works wonder for mental fatigue, depression, shock, stress, headaches, faintness, vertigo, apathy, faintness and nervous stress. This oil also works excellent for any respiratory disorders including sinus congestion, bronchitis, pneumonia, cholera, tuberculosis, asthma and dry coughs.

This oil is also good for skin related problems like sunburns, dermatitis, acne, itching or inflammation of the skin. This oil can also provide relief in case of muscular pains, colic, cramps, nausea, flatulence, dyspepsia, aching feet, toothache and painful periods.

Peppermint oil is quite famous for its moth freshening and eliminating bad breath properties. This is also considered as an effective insect repellent.

How to use this oil

A few drops in the bath is delightfully cooling and refreshing on hot sticky summer days.

As a blended massage oil or diluted in the bath Peppermint oil can assist with: colic, cramps, back pain, inflamed bowel disorders, catarrh, colitis, circulation, constipation, coughs, diarrhea, sweaty and tired feet, flatulence, headaches, muscular pains, cramps and spasms, neuralgia, nausea, rheumatism and mental fatigue.

A mouthwash with Peppermint oil added can help with bad breath and gum infections. Inhaling this oil mixed in warm water can help with coughs, headaches, nausea, and mental tiredness.

Massaging can relax you but this essential should be mixed with some carrier oil (as olive or almond). Massaging is best suited for cramps and muscular pains.

Method of Extraction

The oil is extracted by steam distillation from the fresh or partly dried plant, which includes the leaves and flowering tops of the plant.

This type of extraction for essential oil is considered very favorable, to produce best quality of the oil.

Let's see how it works, well in this method steam is generated in a chamber and passed through the plant material which is place in a plant chamber of the still.

The steam which is passed through generates heat and that allows the tiny intercellular pockets to release essential oil, which is stored in these pockets. Here we have to take care of the temperature; it should be high enough to release the pouches where essential oil is stored, however temperature should not be so high that it burns the plant material or essential oil.

Well now we got tiny droplets of essential oil along with steam molecules, which are then passed through condensation chamber of still.

As the steam cools down it condenses into water. The essential oil forms a layer on the surface of the water cause of the fact that essential oil is lighter then water. Essential oil is then separated from the water and the water is remaining is nothing but a floral water, distillate or hydrosol.

Precautions

This oil is non-toxic and non-irritant if used with some carrier oil but still sensitive skin can get irritated cause of menthol.

Peppermint oil must be avoided if pregnant, cardiac fibrillation, fever and epilepsy. This can also cause irritation to mucus membrane or skin and should be kept away from the eyes. Also this oil should be used to children above seven cause of its potent and high amount of menthol.

How to buy Genuine Essential Oil?

Essential oils have to be Genuine, authentic, unadulterated, pure, holistic, and therapeutic to provide you the desired results. However, it is not so easy to figure out the purity and quality of oils. So many factors contribute for the oil to be pure.

Well as we know, many essential oils are quite expense cause of the process of manufacturing it, like Jasmine oil which cannot be inexpensive cause of its cost of harvesting and production.

Only genuine essential oils can guarantee the anticipated healing effect. This is the fact and one should be aware of some basic factors before purchasing essential oil. Tell me what is the use of purchasing something that is expensive and not genuine. Mostly these oils are mixed with some carrier oils and people are easily fooled. However, blends of essential oil and carrier oil are also available in the market, but that should be specified.

However, there are some important things to note down while purchasing oil

• Family of plant the oil belong

• Botanical name of the oil should be specified on the bottle

• Country of origin also matters cause of atmospheric conditions

• Smelling the oil can work out wonder, if one know the aroma of the oil, nothing like that. Try to become used to the aroma by smelling them when ever one gets a chance.

• Buy from a genuine dealer

• Check out the spellings of oil on the bottle before purchasing.

These were some of the facts taken care before purchasing an essential oil.

However, when buying an essential oil make sure the documentation which is with oil should contain information about the growth, harvest, distillation, and chemical make-up of the oil, There are many tests too to check the purity of the oil but they are too expensive. So our suggestion is to know the oil by yourself and do remember the things we have discussed.

Blends Well With:

Although most essential oils blend well with one another, Peppermint oil blends particularly well with Benzoin, Eucalyptus, Lavender, Marjoram, Lemon and Rosemary.