Laurel Leaf Essential Oil (Bay Laurel)

Laurel oil is excellent for both perfumery and aromatherapy, as well as culinary use. The scent is fresh, strong but sweet, aromatic-camphoraceous, somewhat spicy-medicinal odor.

Product Information

Laurus nobilis

Steam distilled in Turkey from organically grown leaves and twigs. 

This tree is native to the Mediterranean. Sun dried laurel leaves were used in Turkey as wrapping for local licorice production. The licorice (exported to Scandinavian and other northern countries,) adapted some of the cineole scent, which goes well with it, and the packing material also took on some of the sweet licorice scent, which was beneficial to it, and it was then sold separately as a kitchen herb. Ironically, the local populations of these countries consider the licorice note as part of laurel, and didn’t have the experience of the full laurel aroma despite small laurel trees in pots which decorated the outdoor cafes of northern cities each summer—

Arctander says

 Laurel leaf oil is a pale yellow to very pale olive green or almost colorless liquid of fresh, strong but sweet, aromatic-camphoraceous, somewhat spicy-medicinal odor. As a rule, the dryout notes of this oil are sweet, pleasant and slightly spicy, unlike those of eucalyptus, cajuput and to a certain degree myrtle.

Laurel leaf is used as a flavor ingredient in the canning industry and Arctander disagrees with published material (which I haven’t seen) that claims the taste of laurel is bitter. The flavor is fresh, almost orange-like, with a rich and delicately spicy undertone, warm and soft.

In perfumes, the fresh and warm-camphoraceous notes blend well with citrus oils, spice oil, bay leaf, pine needle, juniper berry, cypress, clary sage, rosemary, frankincense, labdanum and lavender.

Laurel gives heat to blends, and sweet, dry slight spice note.

Schnaubelt says

Bay laurel is a strengthening and preventative oil with the following properties:

Expectorant

Mucolytic

Viricide

Anti-fungal

For more information please refer to Kurt Schnaubelt’s Medical Aromatherapy—Healing with Essential Oils.

Mountain Laurel

She is like mountain laurel, a breath of fresh air,
a bird on the wing, or a flower so rare,
like the dew on the grass, at mornings first light,
aurora borealis on a early fall night,
like a dolphin, on a calm summer sea,
the eighth wonder of the world
is what she is too me,
her natural beauty, thrills this loving man,
and I want her with me all that I can,
she is a whipoorwill calling, in evening time,

like a star falling, in the moonshine,
she is the sunshine on the new fallen snow,
she is a natural beauty, because I say so.

Harry Bryant

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