What is essential oil ?
From a botanical point of view, essential oils are volatile aromatic compounds extracted from the flowers, leaves, trunks, roots, seeds, fruits, resins and other parts of the plant. They exist in plants and are the wisdom of plants. These small oil drops have accompanied nature over the years of changes and are a masterpiece of nature.
In the eyes of people who don’t know essential oils, essential oils are exclusive skin care products for nobles and are difficult to use in daily life. But in fact, essential oil is a very down-to-earth thing. When we receive a bouquet of roses or walk into a forest, do we often feel a pleasant fragrance coming towards us?
And these aromas come from essential oils in plants. They not only please our emotions, but also help us on a physiological level.
Essential oils in plants
Through scientific research, the plant has developed essential oils after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, similar to human blood, and it exists in different parts of the plant.
Citrus essential oils are found in the peel, and the oil sac is larger. When you pinch the peel, essential oil will explode. Fans with obsessive-compulsive disorder can squeeze the peel at home and play with it.
There are some essential oils present in the leaves, such as mint, you just need to rub it gently to smell the aroma of mint essential oil.
Flower essential oils, such as Damascera rose Under the microscope, the oil sac is completely invisible, but in fact the essential oil covers a thin layer on the surface. Flower-based essential oils are generally more precious because there are many raw materials required and the surface essential oils are easily lost, which requires high distillation process.
The meaning of the existence of essential oil
The original intention of essential oil is not to be used for people, but to allow plants to survive better on this earth. The significance of essential oils to plants mainly includes:
01 Attract insect vector , bird media assists in pollination
Flowers will attract insects and birds to get close through the pheromones effect, so that they can spread the pollen further and wider.
(The pheromones effect is a natural chemical information transmitted by air and exists in humans and animals. It can stimulate the absorption of opposite sex, also known as pheromone)
For example, ylang ylang, it is a very famous aphrodisiac essential oil, but this kind of flower cannot be said to be very beautiful. It has neither the delicate red of roses nor the plain white of jasmine. When it first blooms, it is a kind of green without any characteristics, and the petals curl like chicken feet; after gradually ripening, the color of the flower changes from green to yellow, and the yellow tone when it is ripe is obviously a tropical and erotic color.
Although ylang ylang is not beautiful enough from an ornamental point of view, it is widely popular in the perfume and essential oil industries. At the beginning, ylang ylang has no smell. After two weeks of blooming, the fragrance becomes stronger and has a heavy feeling of exotic style. Perhaps it is precisely because of this thick and plump fragrance that makes Indonesians believe that it can stimulate emotions, so you can often see Yilan Yilan in the bed of newlyweds.
(Picture) Yilan ylang
02 Fight against bacteria (bacteria, mold)
Essential oils in plants can effectively prevent the proliferation of harmful pathogens, but at the same time will not kill beneficial bacteria. Moreover, plants change the proportion of essential oils every year according to changes in the environment and climate, so that bacteria cannot become resistant to them.
, such as cedar, , orchid , and other trees that can live for hundreds of years, because the essential oils contained in it can help fight bacteria and prolong their lifespan.
(Photo) Orchid
03 Survival in forest fires
Because of the high volatile essential oils, it is easy to be quickly ignited and turned into a fire when encountering a fire in the forest. We all know the characteristics of fire burning up when encountering a big fire. Therefore, the roots and seeds of plants near the ground can survive and be reborn after the fire passes.
(Eucalypse reborn after the Australian fire)
These effects are the crystallization of wisdom of plants over hundreds of millions of years. Applying plant essential oils to us humans can also have similar effects. In the next introductory series, we will introduce the help of essential oils to humans in detail. We must lock in the introductory series of essential oils!
References:
- Monika Werner Ruth von Braunschweig. Aromatherapy Empirical Science. Defang International Co., Ltd. 2017.
- Wen Youjun Kenyuan aromatherapy therapist team. "Archive Empirical Book". CITIC Publishing House. 2016
