Essential Oils and Their Properties

Essential Oils are organic compounds extracted from plants that possess wonderful emotional, mental and physical healing properties. For over 5,000 years, across many different cultures and peoples, essential oils have been used to treat a variety of conditions.

These oils are extracted, primarily through steam distillation, from the leaves, bark, flowers, fruits, seeds and roots of plants and trees. The process separates the plant compounds into highly concentrated and aromatic essential oils and water-based complexes called hydrosols.  The powerful healing compounds of the plant, concentrated into the single extracted oil can then be used therapeutically.

The olfactory (smell) system directly connects to the emotional center in the brain (the amygdala) and to the limbic system which is connected to the parts of the brain controlling memories, stress levels, hormone balance, breathing and blood pressure. This means that aromas almost instantaneously are able to have a direct effect physically and psychologically on the body and mind.  Essential oils are composed of very small volatile molecules that can penetrate cells and some can even cross the blood-brain barrier (meaning that the essential oils are absorbed into the bloodstream via the blood vessels of the lungs and then circulated throughout the body - even to the brain - where they can then affect our physical, emotional and mental states.)

Inhalation of essential oils using a spritzer or diffuser is the quickest way to obtain their most valuable psychological and physical therapeutic benefits.

Here is a list of the key essential oils used in the Pranachic mists - with a description of the scent and therapeutic properties of each:

Balsam de Peru

Balsam de Peru Essential Oil has a soft, sweet vanilla-like woody aroma. It is soothing and can help during times of stress. Its calming effect reduces anxiety and allows rest and relaxation.

Basil

Basil Essential Oil has a warm spicy herbaceous aroma. It is energizing and great for stimulating the mind and aiding focus - giving clarity and mental strength.

Bergamot

Bermagot Essential Oil has a citrus aroma, hinting at orange – but far more complex, with warm spicy floral and minty undertones. It is emotionally uplifting and calming and said to be helpful in the treatment of depression, stress, tension, sadness, grief and fear.

Black Pepper

Black Pepper Essential Oil has a warm, sharp, spicy ‘peppery’ aroma. It is stimulating and is helps enhance alertness and stamina.

Cardamom

Cardamom Essential Oil has a warm, spicy-sweet green herbaceous aroma. It has a refreshing, energizing and uplifting effect. It is also  considered an aphrodisiac.

Cedarwood

Atlas Cedarwood Essential Oil has a rich warm slightly spicy woody aroma. It brings a calming and soothing affect on the mind and nerves. It can help with anxiety and nervous tension, creating a positive calming atmosphere and insulating you from outside chaos and negativity. It is also said to act as an aphrodisiac.  Virginia Cedarwood Essential Oil has a fresher, cleaner dry woody aroma.  It also has calming properties, making it ideal for meditation and spiritual work.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon Essential Oil has a familiar aroma – warm, woody, dry and spicy. It is warming, stimulating and energizing and ideal during times of worry and fatigue.  

Clary Sage

Clary Sage Essential Oil has a dry, musky, earthy bittersweet floral aroma. It engenders a calming and sedating effect on the emotional and nervous systems.

Clove

Clove Essential Oil is another familiar aroma – rich, woody, spicy with a warm fruity top note. It helps relieve stress and lessen mental exhaustion, depression and anxiety. It is also  said to be an aphrodisiac and treat insomnia.

Coriander

Coriander Essential Oil has a sweet spicy slightly fruity aroma. It is oil refreshing and uplifting for the mind; calming nerves and helping relieve mental fatigue, tension and nervous weakness. It also aids in relaxation before sleep.

Cumin

Cumin Essential Oil has a warm, spicy, nutty aroma. It is a natural relaxant and instills a calming effect on the mind acting as a stress reducer. It also reinforces the mind, assisting memory enhancing and relaxes the body, resulting in sound sleep

Cypress

Cypress Essential Oil has a fresh, green, evergreen aroma with sweet woody undertones. It relieves fatigue and helps one to be able to concentrate.

Elemi

Elemi Essential Oil has a tangy/peppery woody aroma with musky undertones. It is grounding – bringing balance emotionally and spiritually and giving a feeling of peace. It is calming and rejuvenating, assisting in achieving a meditative state and enhancing visualization.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus Essential Oil has a powerful fresh green camphoraceous aroma. It has a soothing and calming effect on the body and a refreshing and stimulating effect on the mind, helping to improve concentration.

Fennel

Fennel Essential Oil  has a sweet anise-like aroma with slightly camphoraceous, earthy undertones.  It is energizing and uplifting, helping to comfort and revitalize when worries are high. It also brings courage and strength in the face of adversity.

Frankincense

Frankincense Essential Oil has a green balsamic lemony wood aroma. It soothes and calms the mind, slowing down and deepening breathing and is excellent for use when meditating. It is also grounding, calming and relaxing without being sedating.

Geranium

Geranium Essential Oil has a green rose-like herbaceous aroma. It is uplifting, bringing a balancing effect on the mind and relieving  feelings of stress and anxiety.

Ginger

Ginger Essential Oil has a fresh warm spicy aroma. It is energizing and uplifting, assisting in ameliorating feelings of loneliness and sadness. It is also considered an aphrodisiac and good for encouraging expressing gratitude.

Grapefruit

Grapefruit Essential Oil has a sweet juicy citrus aroma. It has an uplifting effect on the mood and helps with stress and depression. It is energizing and especially good in the morning or at times when you need a bit of a boost. 

Jasmine

Jasmine Essential Oil has an exotic waxy fruity floral aroma. It soothes the nerves, producing feelings of confidence, optimism and euphoria. It is also good for revitalizing and restoring energy and is said  to be an aphrodisiac.

Juniper

Juniper Essential Oil has a sharp green conifer aroma. It reduces nervous tension and anxiety, calming nerves and helping to ease stress without imparting the sedative effects. It also cleanses and purifies the air, making it ideal for prayer or meditation.

Lavender

Lavender Essential Oil has a familiar sweet, slightly soapy herbaceous-floral aroma. It is soothing and calming; well known for its sedative properties and its ability to help reduce stress and anxiety and promote sleep.

Lemon

Lemon Essential Oil has a powerfully fresh zesty lemon aroma. It is refreshing, energizing and uplifting. 

Lemongrass

Lemongrass Essential Oil has a fresh lemony tea-like aroma. It revitalizes the body and helps combat nervous exhaustion and stress. It is uplifting and refreshing, imparting feelings of happiness.

Lime

Lime Essential Oil has a sweet green citrus aroma. It is refreshing and energizing; leaving cheery upbeat feelings. It is also known for its ability to cleanse, purify and renew the spirit and mind and is said to be effective in cleansing the aura.

Mandarin

Mandarin Essential Oil has the sweetest of the citrus aromas – fresh and full-bodied. It is very uplifting and the most calming of the citrus oils; relieving stress and sadness.

May Chang

May Chang Essential Oil has a strong lemon aroma with oily, grassy notes. It has energizing and uplifting properties, and promotes  mental and physical well-being.

Melissa

Melissa Essential Oil has a fresh lemony aroma. It is uplifting and calms the nerves – assisting in fighting depression.  It also has a sedative effect and assists in falling into a peaceful sleep.

Myrrh

Myrrh Essential Oil has a dry resin-like amber/woody aroma. It is grounding and helps to mellow out the emotions. It also aids during meditation to create a relaxing and uplifting atmosphere.

Neroli

Neroli Essential Oil has a sweet orange blossom aroma. It is comforting and effective when dealing with grief, nervous tension, or exhaustion. It is very relaxing and can relieve anxiety, fear, shock and stress.  

Nutmeg

Nutmeg Essential Oil has a rich spicy woody aroma. It is centering and calming – removing doubt and resistance and encouraging flexibility, spontaneity and joy.

Orange

Orange Essential Oil has a sweet zesty orange aroma. It is positive and sunny, bringing happiness and warmth to the mind. It encourages releasing negative and highly charged emotions like obsessions and fears, assisting emotional balance to be restored.

Palmarosa

Palmarosa Essential Oil has a soft green rose-like aroma. It calms the mind, yet has an uplifting effect. It steadies emotions and brings a sense of security and unconditional love.

Patchouli

Patchouli Essential Oil has that familiar ‘hippie scent’ - a rich musky-sweet, spicy and slightly wine-like aroma. It is calming, grounding and balancing. Patchouli banishes lethargy, sharpens wits and fights depression and anxiety. It can also create a romantic atmosphere and provide an environment perfect for prayer and meditation.

Peppermint

Peppermint Essential Oil has a fresh cool grassy minty aroma. It stimulates the mind and focuses concentration relieving mental fatigue and depression. It refreshes the spirit, stimulates mental agility and improves concentration. It is considered an aphrodisiac.

Petitgrain

Petitgrain Essential Oil has a woody bitter-sweet floral aroma. It is uplifting, calming and balancing, helping to ease anxiety and assist in handling high stress situations. It soothes the mind, while relaxing the body, easing breathing and reducing heart rate.

Pine

Pine Essential Oil has a strong sweet-green conifer aroma. It is cleansing, purifying and invigorating; relieving mental, physical and sexual fatigue.

Rose

Damask Rose Essential Oil has a beautiful sweet waxy floral aroma. It soothes and harmonizes the mind and helps with depression, anger, grief, fear, nervous tension and stress. It also assists self-nurturing, self esteem and dealing with emotional problems, imparting a feeling of well-being and happiness and is also considered an aphrodisiac.

Rose Geranium

Rose Geranium Essential Oil has a sweet musky rose-like aroma.  It is calming and grounding, helping to reduce feelings of stress and worry. Uplifting and positive – it balances the body and mind, relieves feelings of stress and anxiety, lifts moods and promotes feelings of well-being.

Rosemary

Rosemary Essential Oil has a strong fresh woody-herbaceous aroma. It is invigorating, refreshing and stimulating - clearing the mind and improving mental awareness and memory

Rosewood

Rosewood Essential Oil as a sweet rich woody aroma. It lifts spirits and balances the mind and body – allowing negative emotions to be released and engendering a sense of encouragement. It is grounding and relaxing – giving a sense of peace and security.

Sage

Sage Essential Oil has a warm spicy-herbaceous aroma. It is mentally stimulating and has long been used to induce trance states and enhance spiritual awareness. It is also used for spiritual and emotional purification and cleansing and as it also brings the protection and comfort needed to make life changes.

Sandalwood

Sandalwood Essential Oil has a rich, warm, woodsy/earthy aroma.  It has a harmonizing and calming effect; reducing tension and is ideal for addressing all negative emotional states: depression, fear, stress, nervous exhaustion and anxiety.  It is deeply grounding and helps to instill a sense of inner peace and has been used since ancient times for spiritual practices. It is also considered an aphrodisiac.

Tangerine

Tangerine Essential Oil has a sweet fresh citrusy aroma. It is bright refreshing and rejuvenating - encouraging soothing and calming to the mind and body.

Tea Tree

Tea Tree Essential Oil has a green medicinal herbaceous/woody aroma. It is well known for its effectiveness at warding off infections as it is active against all three varieties of infectious organisms: bacteria, fungi and viruses. This benefit of cleansing and purification also extends to the mind: easing mental stress and purifying the mind and body of emotional wounds.

Thyme

Thyme Essential Oil has a strong sharp woody/herbaceous aroma. It stimulates the mind and strengthens the nervous system, aids memory and concentration, can help with the feelings of exhaustion and combats depression. It is also uplifting, especially when fatigued. 

Vanilla

Vanilla Essential Oil has a strong sweet true vanilla flavor. It is reduces nervous tension and agitation, and promotes relaxation before sleep. It is also a relaxing sensuous aphrodisiac, inviting sensuality and relaxing inhibitions.

Vetiver

Vetiver Essential Oil has a deep rich earthy/woody aroma with light green top notes.  It calms and soothes the mind and helps to dispel anger, irritability, stress and tension. It is also very grounding and ideal for meditation and prayer.

Ylang-ylang

Ylang-ylang Essential Oil has a sweet intensely floral aroma. It has a euphoric and sedative effect on the nervous system reducing stress and anxiety. It assists in happiness and gratitude and is also considered an aphrodisiac.