Aromatherapy » Jasmine

All You Wanted to Know about Jasmine Essential Oil

Author — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:21:36 +0000

Jasmine essential oil is an extract from the common jasmine flower or the Jasminum gradiflora as it is named in Latin. This oil also comes from sister plants such as Jasminum grandiflorum or the royal jasmine, and the Jasminum officinale.

Where Does the Jasmine Come From?

The name of Jasmine comes from the Arabic word Yasmin. The jasmine is a small evergreen climber bush that can grow up to 10 meters or 33 feet tall, which gives exquisitely small and beautiful white flowers that have the most amazing fragrance. This is a plant which was originally brought from Northern India and China where it was used as an adornment for women and a medicine in the royal courts.

The flower spread fast in Europe after the Spanish people introduced it there and today you have Turkey where the best quality and concentration of oil is extracted. The extract is obtained in two phases, (1) the concrete phase whereby the extraction is done by solvent method and (2) the absolute phase where the extract is separated from the concrete with the help of alcohol. Lastly, jasmine essential oil is obtained through the distillation process. Jasmine essential oil is very expensive since it takes about one thousand pounds (approx 50 kilograms) of flowers to make one pound of the best quality jasmine extract.

How Is the Jasmine Essential Oil Used?

The first and most important use of this oil is used for its fragrance in cosmetics and incense industries. The alternate medicine professionals from China, India and United Arab Emirates use it both as an air freshener as well as a home or herbal remedy for a number of ailments including as an excellent aphrodisiac. In Indonesia, it seems that the jasmine flower is an exceptional tasty garnish for food and in Turkey it is a very popular tea.

The jasmine essential oil is well known for its exceptional therapeutic properties. It is able to drive away depression (even the heavy chronic types), anxiety attacks, improve self-confidence, helps in stomach ache and elimination of gas, fights respiratory related problems, etc. Daily massage with this oil is said to cure impotence and premature ejaculation, promotes easy childbirth while at the same time neutralizes childbirth pain.

You can use of this oil when you are assailed by post-partum depression or when you need an increased formation of milk. Other problems where this oil is able to make a difference for are frigidity in women and failed sexual prowess in men. Its anti inflammatory properties make it excellent remedy for minor injuries.

Love Potions: How Essential Oils Can Improve Your Love Life

Jennifer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:01:26 +0000

Whether you’re in a brand new relationship or a marriage that has lasted for decades, you can use aromatherapy to enhance the romance for your Valentine. A selection of fragrant essential oils can help create a passionate connection between you and your partner.

How do the aromas of essential oils impact romance? The olfactory lobe – the part of the brain that processes scent – is part of the limbic system, which is associated with emotion and the formation of memory. Tom Havran, aromatherapy specialist at Aura Cacia, says essential oils can be used to facilitate a wide range of moods — including romantic ones.

“There are a number of oils that lovers and aspiring lovers might find useful,” Havran says. “Depending on the situation, you might want to create a relaxing atmosphere, or a stimulating or sensual one — and essential oils are the perfect starting point.”

Essential oils have the potential to elicit romance on four different levels. Some oils offer calming effects that reduce anxiety and self-consciousness, thereby opening the path to intimacy. Other oils are known for their stimulating and inspiring properties and can impact the hormonal system directly, increasing sexual desire. Some oils have been used throughout history as sexual attractants — it’s said that Cleopatra, one of the most well known seductresses in history, used a variety of scents and essential oils to create an atmosphere of passion for her relationship with Marc Antony.

Here is Havran’s rundown of the most popular essential oils in each of these romantic categories:

Calming: geranium, clary sage, lavender, sweet marjoram
Stimulating: cardamom, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon bark
Arousing: neroli, rose otto, ylang ylang, rose absolute
Attracting: sandalwood, patchouli, jasmine, cedarwood

A good candidate for the “ultimate love oil” is vanilla essential oil — especially in combination with cocoa butter. “The vanilla and cocoa combination has a tradition as an irresistibly arousing scent that goes back at least to the Aztecs,” Havran says. “And, it has a strong appeal for both men and women.”

Whichever essential oils you choose, they will work best if you create an environment where emotional and sensual closeness can thrive. If you have children, for example, make arrangements with friends or grandparents to take them for the evening, so that you’ll have uninterrupted time to focus on one another. Draw a hot bath for your partner, adding a few drops of essential oil to the water, and light some candles around the tub. Pour a couple of glasses of wine, give your partner a heartfelt Valentine’s Day card, and your evening of romance will be under way.

Preserve the romantic feelings with essential oils as the night progresses. Keep the scents fresh by using an essential oil diffuser or placing a few drops on your pillows, your bed clothes, or on top of the light bulbs in your bedroom lamps. Or create your own special massage oil by combining a seductive essential oil like jasmine with a carrier oil such as almond oil.

Because essential oils are very concentrated, it takes only a few drops per tablespoon of carrier oil to derive their benefits. However, you should never apply essential oils directly to the skin – always dilute them first in water or a carrier oil such as almond, grapeseed, or jojoba. Some oils such as cinnamon bark and clove have the potential to be irritants and should not be used on the skin at all.

For more on creating your own love potions and how to inspire or rekindle the spirit of love with essential oils, join Aura Cacia’s online chat on February 6 at 7 p.m. CST. To join the chat or access information in advance, visit www.auracacia.com/chat. For more information on aromatherapy and a complete selection of pure, high-quality essential oils, visit www.auracacia.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

All About Jasmine Essential Oil

Jennifer — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:15:27 +0000

Jasmine essential oil is very fragrant and a useful oil. Here we will look at different ways the oil is used and how it is made.

Uses For Jasmine Essential Oil

Jasmine is one of the oldest and most used of scented botanicals of all time. Jasmine essential oil is known for its relaxation qualities. It is also known for its use in helping depression, and boosting libido. To reap its benefits, use it in burners or vaporizers, or add it to a hot bath.
By massaging jasmine essential oil into the skin one will find that it tones, calms, and improves skin elasticity. It can also help to lessen the appearance of stretch marks and scars. The best way to use it for skin is to find lotions containing jasmine essential oil. Geraniol, which can be found in some jasmine essential oils and other aromatherapy oils can be skin irritants in some people, so you should test jasmine oil first before using it on the skin. It should also not be used during pregnancy, but jasmine essential oil can help in childbirth. It is said to be able to strengthen contractions while relieving pain.

How Jasmine Essential Oil Is Made

Jasmine essential oils are made from Jasmineum Gradiflora (synonym officinale), of the Oleaceae family. The blossoms are so fragile they must be hand picked, processed quickly, and without heat. This plant is harvested at night, when the smell is most potent, in countries such as Turkey, France, Egypt, Morocco, China, Japan and Italy. It takes 1,000 pounds of flowers to make one pound of mixture used to make jasmine essential oil. After the entire process, 1,000 pounds of jasmine will come out to very little oil.

Because they are so fragile, jasmine is one of the very few essential oils still being manufactured by enfleurage. Enfleurage uses odor-free fats to capture the fragrant compounds let off by the plants. The plants are either hung over the fat or mixed directly into the fat. This process is called solvent extraction. The fragranced fat is called “enfleurage pomade”. After the solvent extraction, an ‘absolute’ is obtained from the enfleurage pomade by separating the fat from the essence with alcohol. Put simply, the enfleurage pomade is soaked in ethyl alcohol to draw the fragrance into the alcohol to make sort of a perfume like mixture. The alcohol is then separated from the fat and is distilled. The essential oil is created from what is left over from this by steam distillation.

The Best Essential Oil Recipes

Jennifer — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:56:40 +0000

Of course you can go out to a store and purchase your essential oil recipes, but if you really want to have some fun and be creative and make your own essential oil recipes, then you should know that the process involved here is really not all that difficult, as long as you have at least a basic idea of what you are doing and where to start.

Exotic Recipes

Arabian Nights

This is one exotic essential oil recipe in particular that is sure to create a romantic mood, for which you will need 3 drops Coriander, 1 drop Frankincense, 3 drops Juniper, and 4 drops Orange.

Egyptian Empress

Another exotic essential oil recipe, this one can really make you feel as though you are in another world, and all you need to do for it is mix 2 drops Cinnamon, 3 drops Lime, 4 drops Rose, and 5 drops Ylang Ylang.

Happiness Recipes

Besides exotic essential oil recipes, there are also happiness essential oil recipes that you can create, which will help you to feel that warm and blissful state of pure happiness and joy. These particular recipes can help to brighten the start of every day

Bliss Recipe

You need: 2 drops Bergamot, 1 drop Jasmine, 1 drop Rose, and 2 drops Sandalwood.

Joyfulness Recipe

You need: 2 drops Basil, 1 drop Geranium, 3 drops Melissa, and 2 drops Sandalwood.

Confidence Recipes

Then there are also various confidence essential oil recipes to choose from, with the four most popular recipes in particular being: Poise, Decisiveness, Self Belief, and Wedding Nerves.

Poise

For the first, Poise, you need 2 drops Basil, 3 drops Bergamot, 1 drop Coriander, and 4 drops Petitgrain.

Decisiveness

For the Decisiveness recipe you need 2 drops Benzoin, 3 drops Frankincense, 1 drop Geranium, and 3 drops Orange.

Self Belief Recipe

You will require 2 drops Ginger, 3 drops Myrtle, 4 drops Rosemary, and 3 drops Verbena.

Wedding Nerves

You need 4 drops Jasmine, 2 drops Lemon, and 1 drop Patchouli.

All of these essential oil recipes work very effectively, and have a pronounced relaxing and soothing effect that no other recipes in the world can offer. Essential oils are truly profound and wonderful, and regardless of whether you make your recipes from scratch or go out and buy them from a store, the point is that you are going to be doing yourself some serious good by using them.