Today Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali want’s to
introduce you to Lemongrass essential oil.
1.) Origin of Lemongrass essential oil:
Lemongrass was originally found in Guatemala, and in India.
From India it spread all over Asia and you can find it basically in all Asian Countries.
The plant can become up to 4 meter tall. And the essential oil can be extracted
by steam distillation.
2.) Properties of Lemongrass essential oil:
Lemongrass essential oil has a thicker density then most of
the other essential oils and a lemon like smell. The color is dark yellow to
amber and reddish.
3.) Precautions for use:
The
general precautions for essential oils should be taken. For more info (click here). Apart from that there is just to mention, that Lemongrass
essential oil can irritate a sensitive skin.
4.) Uses:
Lemongrass can be used in a wide range of applications. So
you can use it for example in Aromatherapy, by using different kind of oil
burner. Benefits of using this essential oil here are its calming effects on
the nervous system that help to remove fear depression and anxiety. It further
has a very refreshing smell and works very good as insect repellent as well. In
our Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we use it a lot as fragrant and as
ingredient in our massage oils.
It is suitable to mix with almost any other essential oil
and there is a high demand of use in many different perfume blends.
Mixed into massage oil, it benefits with its antimicrobial,
antifungal and antiseptic properties. Further it helps to remove pain from
joints and muscle. Its anti-bacterial properties make it as well an excellent
choice in curing acne.
The ability to reduce cellulitis make it as well another
interesting choice for massage oils and creams.
Mixed with water, or as an ingredient in Hair conditioner it
helps as well to restrain shine and to nourish your hair.
Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali, hopes to give you a lot of ideas on how to use this essential oil.
As promised Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to
have a closer look on individual essential oils, their properties,and uses, but of course check as well if and when you should be careful when handling
this specific volatile oil.
1.)Origin of Peppermint essential oil:
Although Peppermint is native to the Mediterranean, it has spread
widely and is now cultivated all over the world.Peppermint oil can be extracted from the whole plant. To extract
peppermint oil the plants have to be harvested before flowering. It is a fast
growing, perennial plant, what makes peppermint essential oil, a relatively
easy and cheap produced essential oil. The extraction method for peppermint
essential oil is steam distillation. Fresh or half dried plants are used for
it.
2.) Properties of
Peppermint essential oil:
Peppermint
essential oil has a clear to pale yellow color. The viscosity is watery and the
oil has a sharp and fresh menthol smell.
3.) Precautions
for use:
The general precautions
for essential oils should be taken. For more general info about essential oilclick here. Peppermint oil
is a non-toxic and non-irritant essential oil in low dilutions, but due to it’s
menthol content it can cause sensitization. It can cause irritations to the
skin and should kept well away from the eyes. Don’t use during pregnancy or for
child below seven.
4.) Uses:
Peppermint
essential oil can be used for a lot of different purposes.
When used in Burner or Vaporizers it helps
excellent against mental fatigue and depression; it refreshes the spirit,
stimulates mental agility and improves concentration. It further helps for
apathy, shock, headache, migraine, nervous stress, vertigo and faintness and in
general for respiratory disorders, as well as dry coughs, sinus congestion,
asthma and bronchitis. It helps as well to remove headache.
It stimulating
effects would make it as well as a interesting choice for office use or, when
doing yoga or mental exercises.
On the skin
peppermint essential oil is used to relieve skin irritation (for example as
ingredient in after shave products), and itchiness(for example insect bites).
It helps to reduce skin redness, where inflammation is present. It would be a
good choice for a blend in massage oils, if the purpose is to relief itching sunburn,
while at the same time having a cooling effect. Diluted into massage oils or
into a bath it will assist with colic cramps, back pain, tired or sweaty feets.
Here in our Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali for example we use it in our
massage cream for Foot massage and Reflexology.
Diluted into oil
and massaged into the stomach area it helps as well against diarrhea and
flatulence (Warning!! Not suitable for kids!).
Another
possibility of use is as a insect repellent and it has proven itself as very
effective against red ants.
We generally don’t recommend to take
essential oil internally. It is better to use the plant instead. As a tea
peppermint helps to calm down an upset stomach and is calming for thenervous system.
Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali
hopes you enjoyed reading.
In this Blog Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to
inform you aboutessential oils, ways of extraction, how to use them and how to
explain the huge price differences.
1.) What are
essential oils?
I would say, that essential
oils is a term that most people have heard about. And especially for those
who are working in the Spa industries
or who maybe run their own Spa, it
is part of our daily work. And of course here in our Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we are using essential
oils as well in massage oils, as
fragrant in Aromatherapy or as Insect repellant. But what exactly is an essential oil?
As a definition we could say, that an essential oil is a volatile oil, usually having the characteristic
odor or flavor of the plant from which it is obtained. So the oil is
“essential” in the sense that it carries certain characteristics(scent, odor,
essence) of a plant.
Essential oils do
not form distinctive categories, for medical, pharmacological, culinary or any
other imaginable purpose.
But even though essential
oils do not form distinctive medical categories, they have been used for
medical reasons and of course further for massage
oils, in cosmetic products, soaps and of course for adding scent to
incense.
2. ) How are
essential oils produced?
Of Course Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to provide you as well with
interesting information about the production of essential oils. The extraction methods for essential oils are: Enfleurage, Expression, Steam Distilling,
Solvent extraction, Super Critical Fluid Extraction and the Phytonic Process.
The Super Critical Fluid Extraction and the Phytonic
Process( as well called Florasolextraction) are very new methods of essential oil production. The equipment
for the Super Critical Fluid Extraction is still very expensive and so it is
not yet used so much, but Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali still wants to explain it here
with a few words.
The Super Critical Fluid Extraction is a method of essential oil extraction, which uses
Carbon Dioxid in a special form. Carbon Dioxid usually is a gas, or a solid
when frozen and well known as the so called dry ice. If you go the opposite way
and you increase the temperature and the pressure over the so called
STP(standard temperature and pressure) you get something new, what has
properties somewhere midway between a gas and a liquid ; a so called
supercritical fluid.
This liquid can now be pressed through plant material, where
it acts as a solvent. The advantage of this method is that the CO2 can be
easily completely removed and that of course produces a very pure essential oil and will be maybe later
make it an alternative to the classical solvent extraction, which is described
later on. I think that the Spa industry
or the industry in general looks very interested to this new method, and as
well we here at Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali hope to hear news about this new method.
The Phtonic Process/Florasol Extraction is a very new method that uses
“non-chloroflurocarbons” who are as well referred to as phytols. The quality of
the produced oils is close to nature, but it has to be said that the process
uses fluro-hydrocarbons, which can be potentially harmful and are definitely
not good for the environment.
Next Spiral Spa @
Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to
explain about the Enfleurage and Steam Distillation.
Both of these are opposite to the two methods mentioned
before very old techniques, but still in use for the production of essential oils.
The Enfleurage is one of the oldest forms of producing essential oils and fragrance. It can be
done as a “cold enfleurage” or as a “hot enfleurage”. In both methods normally
animal fat from pork or beef, so called lard or tallow is used. In the cold
enfleurage a thin layer of this fat is first spread onto a framed plate of
glass and then for example Jasmine flowers are placed on it. Now the volatile
oil of these flowers is allowed to diffuse into the fat for 1-3 days, producing
the so called “enfleurage pomade”. In hot enfleurage the fat would be heated
and the flowers stirred into the fat. The product at this point would be as
well a so called “enfleurage pomade”.
If we wash it now with ethyl alcohol to move the violate oil
into the alcohol and allow the alcohol later to evaporate it will leave behind
the “essence”.
Enfleurage was a long time the only possibility to extract
so delicate essential oils like
Jasmin. Now let’s come to the Steam Distillation.
In Steam
Distillation the raw plant material is put into a so called alembic, over
water and as the water is heated, the steam passes through the plant material,
vaporizing the essential oil. The
vapor now has to flow through a coil where it can condense and is then
collected in a vessel. Today most common essential
oils- such as lavender, peppermint and so on are produced in this way.
The Expression now is one of the mentioned essential oil extractions left. It is
simply mechanically pressed. This method is for example used for citrus peel
because of the relatively high amounts of essential
oil citrus peel contains. These essential
oils are produced as byproducts and relatively cheap.
Last but not least Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to introduce you to the
solvent extraction.
The Solvent Extraction uses chemicals such as hexane,
acetone, di-methylene chloride and others to extract essential oils. Using this method the plant is actually immersed
into the solvent to become a thick substance called “concrete”. Often now
another solvent, such as ethyl alcohol is used to extract the fragrant or essential oil from the concrete.
Allowing the alcohol to evaporate it leaves behind the so called “absolute” or essential oil. Of course we don’t
prefer this method, because of the use of chemicals, but at this point simply
has to be mentioned that vegetable oils are produced in the same way, still
delivering a product that can be eaten!!!
Knowing now the amounts of essential oils that might be used in massage oil we are talking
about extreme small amounts of solvents that might remain!
But of course Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali and probably many others would be
happy about alternatives and maybe the Supercritical Fluid Extraction will
offer that one day.
3.) Why are there so
huge differences in the price of essential oils?
Here in our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we are often asked why prices of essential oils offered in Supermarkets
differ so much prices of the essential
oils we and other high class Spa
offer.
There has to be first mentioned, that in general there are
big differences in the the production prices of essential oils in general. So we already know that one factor is
definitely the extraction method that is used. But there are other criteria as
well, like for example the availability of raw material and that makes for
example Sandelwood essential oil(what
needs ages until it can be harvested ) compared to clove essential oil(what can be distilled out of the leaves) an expensive
essential oil. And last but not
least don’t forget that cheap essential
oils are very often synthetic products ( and should then be called
fragrance) or simply not pure!
4.)What should be considered when using
essential oils?
When handling different essential
oils please be aware that the potential danger of essential oil is generally relative to its level or grade of purity.
That means the higher the level of purity; the more careful we have to handle
them. In general you have to say that essential
oils have to be diluted before they should come into contact with the body.
Doesn’t matter in which way you want to use them, as a Perfume, a Mist or for massage, we first have to mix them! In
case of an massage oil we normally
mix the essential oil with a so
called carrier/base oil. Example for that could be Olive oil more info, Sunflower oil more info,
Grapeseed oil more info, Sweet Almond oil more info, Jojoba oil more info, Apricot Kernel oil more info, Soy Bean oil,
Coconut oil and many more. In our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we follow the following guidelines
when blending massage oils:
Body massage-50
drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Facial massage-25
drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Children 1 year to 12 years-25drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Elderly people-25drops essential
oil/100ml base oil
Babies up to 1 year- No! essential oils!! Pure Sunflower oil is perfect for infant massage
Pregnant woman- No essential
oils
If not diluted and directly applied to the skin some essential oils can cause severe
irritation, provocatean allergic reaction and, over time even be hepatotoxic (that
means to damage the liver!).
Please be as well aware that other essential oils, like for example many of the citrus peel oils
increase the skins vulnerability to sunlight. Apart from that it is suggested
to not use essential oils internal!
I mean just the fact that many of them can attack plastic
bottles, should make clear that the stomach isn’t the right place for essential oils. Some of them can have
as well certain toxicity if taken orally.
In the end we would like to recommend doing a bit of a
research before using a new essential
oil. And there will be soon Article published in our Blog concentrating on
the different essential oils.
5.) What are
essential oils mainly used for?
Essential oils
have a very wide range of use and so of course the main usage in the Spa and Beauty industry is the usage in
massage oils, creams, perfume, body
mist and many more. They are as well the key ingredient of Aromatherapy an alternative
healing method, and here in our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we use them as well frequently as
insect repellant, or as fragrance for face towel( for example lavender).
Outside of the Spaessential oils are used as well, for
example for flavoring food(but just certain, in certain amounts and quality’s!!!!
Pls. don’t experiment with that!!!), Household Cleaner, and even today still in
medicine. So is for example juniper valued for his diuretic effects and Thymol
well known for its antiseptic effects.(By the way a Tea made of Thyme leaves
helps very well with colds and diseases of the respiratory system).
In the end Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to show you a list of essential oils we are using in our Spa and which will be soon subject of
further article.
