Peppermint Essential Oil

Oil Properties:
Scent: Strong, sharp, minty-fresh,menthol smell
Odor Intensity: Very High
Evaporation Rate: Top Note
Color: Pale yellow or greenish

SAFETY: Non-toxic, non-irritant (except in concentration). Possible sensitization due to menthol. Avoid in pregnancy and lactation. Although peppermint is good for nausea, use a mint tea instead of the essential oil if you're pregnant.

Uses:

It is a warming oil, so it's found in most liniments to relieve painful muscle spasms and arthritic conditions.  Peppermint oil relieves the itching of ringworm, herpes blisters, scabies, and poison oak and ivy and stimulates oil production in dry skin and hair.  Many bacterial, fungal, and viral infections are destroyed by it and when inhaled or when a vapor balm is rubbed on the chest.  It clears sinus and lung congestion. 

Peppermint oil is excellent for mental fatigue and depression; it can help for apathy, shock, headache, migraine, nervous stress, vertigo and faintness.  The scent is energizing, and historically, it was said to be an aphrodisiac. 

Peppermint essential oil as a massage oil over the abdomen relaxes the muscles to help in the digestion of heavy meals and relieves flatulence, cramping, nausea, and specific disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome.    Dilute Peppermint with oil or add to shower gel, shampoo or moisturizing lotion. Massage Peppermint into the skin or diffuse to help ease tension and stress.  Some great non therapeutic uses are: Add a few drops on a cleaning rag, and you will leave a fresh scent wherever you clean. It works great as a room freshener and won't stain carpets.  Use it in the summertime to cool down on a hot day.  Put some on the back of your neck when you are really overheating.   Use Peppermint to get rid of ants, aphids, beetles, caterpillars, fleas, flies, mosquitoes and lice.

Origin of Peppermint essential oil:

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.

It has underground runners by which it easily propagates. This herb has many species, and Peppermint piperita is a hybrid of Watermint (M.aquatica) and Spearmint (M. spicata).

According to Greek mythology the nymph Mentha was hotly pursued by Pluto, whose jealous wife Persephone, trod her ferociously into the ground. Pluto, however, turned her into a herb, knowing that people would appreciate her for years to come.

Peppermint has been cultivated since ancient times in Japan and China; in Egypt evidence of a type of peppermint was found in a tomb dating back from 1000 BC.

Extraction:

Peppermint oil is extracted from the whole plant above ground just before flowering. The oil is extracted by steam distillation from the fresh or partly dried plant and the yield is 0.1-1.0%.

Chemical composition:

 Menthol, Menthyl acetate, Carvone, Menthone, Carvacrol and Limonene

Blends well with:

Eucalyptus, Lavender, Marjoram, Lemon, Rosemary