Plant Medicine is wonderful and fascinating. You can eat some plants, you can make medicine with other plants flowers through teas, tinctures, flower essences and essential oils. Today I’m opting to go over four essential oils that can be a bit confusing because they are so close in name.
- Helichrysum Gymnocephalum and Helichrysum Italicum are amazing in assisting us in health, and they each have different directions in which they help us. Gymnocophalum is used PRIMARILY for lungs and respiratory system, clearing congestion, and arouse the senses as an aphrodisiac.
Play with running a diffuser for 30 minutes before bed to increase libido! WINK! WINK!
Feeling tired or lethargic…add it to a pocket inhaler and several times a day, take 4-12 long, slow deep breaths. You’ll feel refreshed and nasal passages will clear. And it is know to shrink varicose veins and tone the skin!
- Helichrysum-Italicum is also called Immortelle or Everlasting and helps in healing wounds, encouraging better circulation, and improving vision. You can also apply it to sore muscles.
Soldiers and warriors from days gone by would carry helichrysum ITALICUM with them into battle because of the effectiveness in healing wounds. Matter of fact, it seemed to have a consciousness of it’s own – to know when the blood needed to be thinned or clotted.
Helichrysum Italicum encourages healthy skin cell growth and healing, calms the nervous system, and helps to reduce blood clots.
There are many other uses and I encourage you to do more research if interested. There are 500+ plant species of Helichrysum.
The second set of essential oils that I wish to mention are Ravensara and Ravintsara. These two essential oils are often confused and believed to be the same thing, just different spellings, but they really are different EOs.
- Ravensara is known as a CURE – ALL and is completely safe. It helps the limbic system, reduces fear while calming, and is known to accelerate emotional healing. Helps to minimize hyper-reactive stress responses while boosting hormone balance and encouraging happier thoughts.
Because it helps the nervous system is why it is great for reducing stress and anxiety. And it does a lot more than that. Ravensara is antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal, disinfectant, etc. making it helpful in fighting infections. Some people swear it gives them relief of herpes symptoms. And it can even relieve a toothache.
Be sure to add a few drops to a bath to calm any anxiousness and/or to soothe sore muscles.
- Ravintsara has more of a camphor smell and is 5% cineole where ravensara is 50%. Cineoli can destroy leukemia cells.
So what is ravintsara good for? Great expectorant for colds and flu, but should only be added to a bath or in a diffuser. Best in the evening before bed because it promotes restful sleep too!
Another fun fact is it helps the lungs with more oxygen because it dilates blood vessels. For the lungs on inhalation, you can ALSO add a few drops of peppermint to a personal inhaler or diffuser.
Many Beautiful Blessings! Beth
