Lavender Essential Oil

If you have a chance to visit a lavender farm like I have, take the time to sit and breathe and observe the magic of this amazing flower.  The color alone will take your breath away and the aroma is fresh and floral, soothing and refreshing.  You will notice a tremendous calm in your being and the sense that the stresses of your life are a mere memory.  Lavender essential oil distills this experience and delivers it at your fingertips any time you want. 

Lavender (botanic name lavandula) is a flowering plant in the mint family, lamiaceae.  It is native to the Old World and originally grew from southern Europe to northern and eastern Africa, in the Mediterranean, and from southwest Asia to southeast India.  Many members of the genus are cultivated extensively for the extraction of essential oils.

To get a sense of the power of this plant, search the internet and you will discover a whole subculture that has been built around lavender.  Festivals, magazines, 5k and half marathon races, lemonade and a variety of food recipes, and all manner of personal care products lavender is an industry unto itself.

Specific to its use in skin care, lavender essential oil is said to be anti-tumoral, analgesic, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and prevents build up of sebum (a skin oil that bacteria feed upon).  The French scientist Rene Gatefosse was the first to discover lavenders ability to promote tissue regeneration and speed wound healing when he severely burned his arm in a laboratory accident.

Lavendar is also an adaptogen.  An adaptogen improves the ability of an organism to adapt to environmental factors and to avoid potential damage from these factors.  These environmental factors can be either physiological or external, such as injury or aging, or they can be psychological or internal, such as anxiety or worry.  As an adaptogen lavender essential oil has a normalizing effect that counteracts or even prevents disruptions brought about by these external and internal stressors.  As such, lavender essential oil at its very essence is medicine in a bottle.
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