40 Fun Facts About Essential Oils

Which soft drink lost its traditional flavoring when the FDA banned safrole, a key compound in sassafras oil, in 1960?

Root beer was traditionally flavored with sassafras root bark, until safrole was banned as a carcinogen. Most brands now use artificial sassafras flavoring or a safrole-free extract.

Which flower's oil did chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé use on his burned hands after a 1910 laboratory explosion?

Lavender essence stopped the gas gangrene spreading across his hands after a single rinse, by his own account. In 1937 he published the book that first put the word aromatherapy in print.

Which household pets are especially vulnerable to essential oils because they lack a key liver enzyme?

Cats lack a liver enzyme that helps clear these compounds, and the oils are absorbed quickly through skin and mouth. Warning signs include drooling, vomiting, tremors and wobbliness.

Which solvent, long used by artists to thin oil paints, is a volatile oil distilled from the resin of pine trees?

Turpentine was once tapped from living pines, but most of it is now a by-product of paper pulping. Cheaper petroleum-based white spirit has largely replaced it in paint cupboards.

Which sour fruit, grown along the coast of Calabria in southern Italy, gives the peel oil that flavors Earl Grey tea?

Bergamot oil is pressed from the fruit's aromatic rind, and it also scents Lady Grey tea and Turkish delight. On bare skin it can make sunlight burn faster, thanks to a compound called bergapten.

Which notorious poison forms alongside the essential oil of bitter almonds and must be removed before the oil is used?

Cyanide is released when crushed bitter almonds meet water, in the same reaction that frees the oil. The almond flavor itself comes from benzaldehyde, which makes up nearly all of the purified oil.

Which aromatic resin, tapped from Boswellia trees in Oman and Somalia, was one of the three gifts of the Magi?

Frankincense harvesters tap each tree two or three times a year, and the final cuts yield the most fragrant tears. Oman's ancient trade sites for it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.

Which Australian tree, whose leaves make up most of the koala's diet, yields a sharp-scented oil used in cough remedies?

Eucalyptus oil is highly flammable, and in intense heat it speeds the spread of wildfires. The same leaves are toxic to most other mammals, which leaves koalas with little competition.

Which conifer's berry-like cones hold an essential oil used in massage blends and give gin the flavor that defines it?

Juniper berries are not berries at all but small cones with fleshy, fused scales. Gin even takes its name from the plant, by way of the Dutch word jenever.

Which German city gave its name to the citrus-oil fragrance that perfumer Johann Maria Farina created there in 1709?

Cologne was Farina's adopted hometown, and he named his airy blend of citrus oils in its honor. It caught on across Europe as a fresh alternative to the heavier French perfumes of the day.

Which mouthwash, named after a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, counts menthol and thymol among its active ingredients?

Listerine began in 1879 as a surgical antiseptic and was later sold as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. It only took off in the 1920s, when ads recast bad breath as a medical condition.

Which spirit, nicknamed the green fairy, gets its flavor from the aromatic oils of wormwood, anise and fennel?

Absinthe was banned in the United States and much of Europe by 1915, with a wormwood compound called thujone taking the blame. It was never shown to be more dangerous than ordinary spirits.

Which fruit's peel oil, collected as a by-product of juice making, is registered in the US for killing termites?

Orange oil is spun out of the peels by centrifuge during juicing instead of being distilled. By one estimate it is the most produced essential oil in the world.

Which brewing ingredient gets its pungent aroma from essential oils that brewers protect by adding it late in the boil?

Hops are the cone-shaped flowers of a plant in the cannabis family. Boil them too long and the fragrant oils evaporate, leaving mostly bitterness behind.

Which country, whose flag shows the tree, gave its name to the cedar that supplied ancient Egyptian embalmers with oil?

Lebanon's cedar forests were felled over the centuries until almost none remain, and no commercial oil comes from the species today. In embalming, the oil also helped keep insects off the body.

Which term names a mild vegetable oil, such as sweet almond or grape seed, used to dilute essential oils for massage?

A carrier oil is so named because it carries the potent plant essence onto the skin at a safe concentration. The same idea is used to dilute medicines and food flavorings.

Which hybrid of watermint and spearmint is grown for an oil used mainly to flavor chewing gum and toothpaste?

Peppermint is usually sterile, so it sets no seed and spreads only by creeping runners. Its cooling kick comes from the menthol that makes up much of the oil.

Which Australian shrub yields the pungent oil sold as a remedy for acne, dandruff and head lice?

Tea tree got its name on the 1770 Endeavour voyage, the story goes, when sailors used the leaves in place of real tea. The oil itself is poisonous if swallowed.

Which spice's oil, rich in the compound eugenol, has long been dabbed on aching teeth as a folk remedy?

Clove oil is also commonly used to anesthetize or humanely put down pet and laboratory fish. Madagascar and Indonesia are the main producers.

Which disease were the legendary 'four thieves' said to dodge by dousing themselves in herb-steeped vinegar?

Plague victims were being robbed by the thieves, the usual story goes, and when caught the gang traded their recipe for leniency. The tale is usually set in Marseille or Toulouse.

Which lemon-scented grass oil has been registered in the United States as a plant-based insect repellent since 1948?

Citronella candles, for all their popularity, proved ineffective against the mosquito species that spreads dengue and Zika. Canada banned the oil as a repellent in 2012, then lifted the ban in 2015.

Which Balkan country's Kazanlak valley has grown roses for centuries and is one of the world's main sources of rose oil?

Bulgaria's Rose Valley celebrates the crop with festivals every year. Rose pickers traditionally work by hand before sunrise, and the petals go into the still the same day.

Which waxy, strong-smelling compound from an East Asian laurel tree is an active ingredient of Tiger Balm?

Camphor was once consumed in immense quantities by the early plastics industry, which used it to turn nitrocellulose into celluloid.

Which daisy-like herb, popular as a herbal tea, yields an essential oil that turns deep blue during steam distillation?

Chamomile oil gets its inky color from chamazulene, a compound that is absent from the fresh flower and forms only in the heat of the still.

Which kitchen herb, whose Latin name means dew of the sea, was the main ingredient of the early perfume Hungary water?

Rosemary gave Hungary water, one of Europe's first alcohol-based perfumes, its scent. Legend says the blend was made at the command of a queen of Hungary.

Which minty-smelling oil is about 98 percent methyl salicylate, the compound that warms muscle rubs such as Bengay?

Wintergreen leaves contain none of the compound until they are steeped in warm water, when an enzyme creates it. The same chemical flavors chewing gum and mints.

Which earthy oil from a bushy herb of the mint family became the signature scent of the 1960s hippie movement?

Patchouli is said to take its name from Tamil words meaning green leaf. Indonesia grows the bulk of the world's supply.

Which French Riviera hill town, once a center of leather tanning, is known as the world's perfume capital?

Grasse perfumers got their start scenting leather gloves during the Renaissance, and in 1614 the king recognized a guild of glover-perfumers. Its mild microclimate suited flower farming.

Which compound, named after the lemon, makes up most of the oil in citrus peels and doubles as a food flavoring?

Limonene has a mirror-image twin that smells of pine instead of citrus. Makers of cleaning products prize the common form as a renewable solvent.

Which name is given to the fragrant water left over when plants are steam-distilled, sold as rose water or witch hazel?

Hydrosols were long treated as a mere by-product of making oils but are now valued in their own right. Made hot and slightly acidic, they resist bacteria better than fungi.

Which tropical grass, a major crop in Haiti, is grown mainly for the fragrant essential oil distilled from its roots?

Vetiver roots plunge two to four meters straight down instead of spreading sideways. That makes the grass a favorite for holding soil in place on eroding slopes.

Which blossom oil is said to honor a 17th-century princess in Italy who used it to perfume her gloves and her bath?

Neroli echoes the title of Anne Marie Orsini, princess of Nerola, who made the scent fashionable. The same bitter citrus tree gives a second oil, petitgrain, from its leaves and green twigs.

Which resinous wood, the source of costly oud perfume oil, forms only after Aquilaria trees are infected by a mold?

Agarwood heartwood is pale and nearly scentless until the infection takes hold. The tree then floods it with dark, fragrant resin as a last line of defense.

Which Persian physician, author of The Canon of Medicine, is credited with first distilling the fragrance of flowers?

Avicenna is the name Europe gave to Ibn Sina. The earliest written account of how the oils were made may come two centuries later, from the Andalusian pharmacist Ibn al-Baitar.

Which alchemist's still, whose name reached English through Arabic, was used by medieval distillers to make rose water?

Alembic stills live on in the pot still used to make distilled spirits. The word began as the Greek ambix, meaning a cup or beaker.

Which old perfumery method captures the scent of delicate petals by laying them on glass plates smeared with animal fat?

Enfleurage workers swap the spent petals for fresh ones every one to three days until the fat is saturated with scent. The framed glass plate that holds the fat is called a chassis.

Which compound, the main flavor of anise and fennel oils, makes ouzo turn cloudy when water is added?

Anethole dissolves readily in alcohol but barely at all in water, so diluting the drink forces it out as a milky haze. The clouding is known as the ouzo effect.

Which city, famed as India's perfume capital, still makes attar oils in copper stills by a centuries-old method?

Kannauj perfumers won protected geographical status for their scents in 2014. Their traditional attars include one distilled from baked soil.

Which compound smells of spearmint in one form and of caraway seeds in its mirror-image form?

Carvone comes in left- and right-handed versions built from the same atoms, and the human nose can tell them apart. The compound also gives dill its flavor.

Which Indian tree's heartwood oil is so prized that the government banned exports of the timber to curb over-harvesting?

Sandalwood trunks take about ten years to develop any fragrance and are not ready to harvest until after twenty. The wood is often cited as one of the most expensive in the world.