What Is Amyris Essential Oil?
Amyris essential oil is characterized by its woody scent. This essential oil is commonly used for aromatherapy, though it has several skin benefits with its antioxidant and emollient properties. It’s a versatile essential oil that combines well with woody and citrusy essential oils, especially bergamot and cedarwood.
Our article will cover everything you need to know about amyris essential oil, from its benefits and use cases to how you can utilize it. Whether you’re looking for an essential oil to soothe your skin or to provide a rich sensory experience, read on to know if it’s the essential oil you need.
How Is Amyris Essential Oil Made?
Amyris essential oil comes from the wood of Amyris balsamifera tree. It’s a small, bushy tropical tree native to the West Indies. Commonly found in Haiti and parts of India, amyris essential oil is typically extracted through steam distillation.
This method of extracting essential oils involves chipping and grinding the wood and placing it in a steam distillation unit where the steam’s heat helps break down the cells containing the oil.
Then, the steam and vapor of the amyris essential oil travel through a cooling unit to condense back to liquid. As essential oils are less dense than water, the extracted oil floats on top, allowing for easy separation.
Benefits of Amyris Essential Oil
Now that you have an introduction to amyris essential oil, here are the various benefits of it.
Skin Benefits
Amyris oil is a natural moisturizer. It helps the skin hydrate and prevent dryness. In doing so, amyris essential oil softens the skin and boosts skin cell regeneration. It also reduces wrinkles and fine lines and adds elasticity to the skin. Coupled with its antioxidant properties, amyris essential oil helps the skin appear more youthful.
The gentle nature of amyris essential oil also makes it an excellent remedy for irritation. You can use it to soothe irritated skin and relieve mild inflammation – perfect for insect bites, contact irritation, and skin allergies.
Aromatherapy Benefits
Amyris essential oil is commonly used in aromatherapy for its calming effects. It can bring relief with its relaxing aroma after a long day. Amyris essential oil also supports mind clarity, allowing for a clearer focus.
The calming qualities of amyris essential oil make it an excellent sleep enhancer. You can use it for better sleep, particularly helpful for those with insomnia and other sleep disturbances.
The light vanilla scent combines well with other woody oils, and you can use it in a reed diffuser without diluting it. Simply pour amyris essential oil directly into the diffuser vessel, stick in a few reeds, and you’re all set for a relaxing atmosphere. You can also get all the benefits of amyris essential oil by adding it to baths and soaps.
Other Benefits
In addition to its skin and aromatherapy benefits, you can use amyris essential oil for scalp health. It moisturizes the scalp and allows for improved blood flow. While there’s little research about its benefits for hair growth, amyris essential oil can help prevent hair loss by improving scalp health.
Also, you can use amyris essential oil as a natural insect repellent. Add about ten to fifteen drops of amyris essential oil into a 12-ounce spray bottle and use where you want to fend off insects.
How to Use Amyris Essential Oil
For skin, you’ll need to dilute amyris essential oil with a carrier oil of your choice. It blends well with spicy and woody oils, like cinnamon or cedarwood essential oils. Once diluted, you can use it to soothe irritation and hydrate the skin. You’ll also need to dilute amyris essential oil for hair.
It’s best to follow the instructions of your essential oil diffuser for aromatherapy. If you’re not using a diffuser, you can get amyris essential oil’s aromatherapy benefits by adding a few drops to a cotton ball and inhaling it.
Getting True Essential Oils
Amyris essential oil has numerous skin and aromatherapy benefits. However, you’ll need to be careful when buying amyris essential oil. There are countless synthetically produced, fake “essential oils” that can do more harm to your body than good.
When buying essential oils, make sure to order from authenticated sources, especially when it comes to not-very-popular ones like amyris essential oil.
