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Coumarins – found as coumaric acid – are very powerful anti-oxidants that smell like either vanilla or freshly mown hay (it’s what smells nice after clover is cut). Because of this lovely smell, it’s often used in perfumes and fragrance oils. Coumarins are good anti-inflammatories, and they reduce both oedema and redness on our skin....
More Cowbell poses this question…What timing! I was just looking at this on another site and wondering what the “hydrogenated vegetable oil” is. Do you know? Are we talking Crisco??? 🙂 It seems to also have sweet almond oil, so what hydrogenated oil is so firm that it can incorporate that and still qualify as...
So we know polyphenols are good things to have in our extracts and oils, so let’s begin – in no particular order – with the derivatives of caffeic acid. I’m putting these in separate posts every day to make it easier to link back as we discuss extracts! We discussed cinnamic acid, the precursor...
Cinnamic acid is a precursor of a group of polyphenols called hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, such as p-coumaric acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid. It is a powerful anti-oxidant, and offers UV protection as well as a reduction in inflammation, redness, and water retention. It is found in great quantities in shea butter and...
Since I’m investigating the awesome power of extracts, I thought we’d take a closer look at polyphenols. I know I’ve done a post on polyphenols in the past, but let’s get a little more in depth! So what exactly is a polyphenol? A polyphenol is defined as a compound that possesses a phenolic moiety. Okay,...