Archivi tag: essential oils

Aromatherapy, Emotional Aromatherapy, In English

Elemi, a balanced scent

Elemi (Canarium luzonicum), or Manila Elemi, is a tree endemic to the Philippines. It reaches a height of thirty metres and each tree can produce up to five kilograms of resin. It comes to us either as pure resin or as essential oil.

The aromatic resin is light yellow in colour, initially with a honey-like consistency and later when it hardens, it can be either medium soft or hard with inserts of bark and wood fragments.

Both the resin and the essence provide calmness and balance, with a spicy note that particularly emerges strongly in the essential oil.

The smell is fresh and reminiscent of pepper and lemon. You can perceive a feeling of connection between high and low, earth and sky, a balance of the bright side with the rooted, earthy side – the citrusy, spicy scent is intense and invites presence and calm.

When using the resin we are enveloped in the quiet, intense, fresh scent that can be an ideal accompaniment for meditation, reading, or a moment of simple relaxation and well-being.

The essential oil, rich in terpenes, sesquiterpenes and alcohols, is known to have healing, antiseptic, balsamic and stimulating/balancing properties. We can try using it in massages, foot baths and diffusing it in the environment, when we need both to feel “present” and a feeling of calm and active serenity.

Aromatherapy, Emotional Aromatherapy, In English

A warm scent, cinnamon

Cinnamon, one of my favourite spices…and I think loved by many. This spice is present in our kitchens; in aromatherapy it is distilled as a particularly intense and strong essential oil.

Cinnamon is widely used in the Middle East and the Orient, with its two most widely used varieties coming from Sri Lanka and China. Two of the blends that contain it and are widely used are:

garam masala (a warming blend) which in addition to cinnamon includes cardamom, cloves, black pepper, cumin, fennel seeds, coriander and fenugreek;

and ras el hanout, the ‘best of the grocer’ in Morocco, which can include up to thirty spices, including garam masala and also rosebuds and lavender.

In aromatherapy we have three essential oils available, which are:

Cinnamon bark (Cinnamonum zeylanicum)

Cinnamon leaves (Cinnamonum zeylanicum)

Cinnamon bark (Cinnamonum cassia);

and of these, the most recommended is the second, cinnamon leaves, because they tend to be less aggressive. This essence has warming, anti-infective, immune-stimulating properties and should be used with care, but its invigorating power is one of my favourites.

If by chance we want to use cinnamon bark essence, we can do so by being careful with the dosage, because it is strongly dermocaustic (although its scent is excellent, and can be appreciated even in high dilutions). Cinnamon cassia essence is just as aggressive, but its scent can be appreciated by using it in high dilutions to create an ambient olfactory synergy.

In emotional aromatherapy, cinnamon can help us find warmth when we feel that the world is getting particularly tough around us, preserving our inner wellbeing which is essential for filtering out difficulties and obstacles. It also invigorates, strengthens, and can be a wonderful element in Christmas scents.