essential oils

I thought I’d share a few other things I learned about lemongrass essential oil this week… SPATIAL MEMORYI thought this was a really interesting study on rats and spatial memory and citral! “Although some central effects of citral have been reported, cognitive effects on spatial memory have not been investigated. The evidence showed that citral can...

Lemongrass is reported to be an essential oil with great anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. Does it stand up to the science? ANTI-FUNGAL PROPERTIESThis study (1) concluded that “…limited exposure of yeasts to lemongrass oil at subcidal concentration can suppress growth for more than 24h. Altogether, the results obtained indicate that lemongrass oil possessed antifungal and...

Lemongrass isn’t just for flavouring your favourite Asian noodles any more! It’s an essential oil, too! Lemongrass essential oil (Cymbogon citratus) is steam distilled from cultivated plants. (It can also be CO2 extracted.) It’s considered to be a sedative, flavouring and fragrance agent, analgesic, anti-microbial and antiseptic, fungicidal, insecticidal, and astringent. (And you know we’ll...

I regularly get e-mails from readers who have read somewhere or have been told by someone that they can use essential oils to preserve products, so I thought I’d address this question – if our essential oils have anti-microbial properties, why can’t we use them to preserve our products? Because they aren’t very good anti-microbials...