Nutmeg

Nutmeg Essential Oil

This is a warm and spicy oil, the spice itself is traditionally used in cooking both sweet and savory dishes. perfumery and/aromatherapy are both good uses.

Product Information

Myristica fragrans

Myristicaceae family.

Grown and steam distilled from organically grown, harvested, comminuted and dried seeds (the outer shell is known as Mace) in Sri Lanka.

Nutmeg is native the Moluccaas, other islands of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and is grown widely in these areas because of its long historical use as a spice. Nutmeg is familiar as a spice used for baking, and is often associated with sweet, warm, comforting kitchen aromas—it’s also found in savory dishes. Animals might be attracted to it, but they shouldn’t eat it as it can be poisonous to pets.

Nutmeg also gives a fixed oil, which is odorless and tasteless

Last Kiss

last kiss collapses

              on hymeneal amber

                                like grated nutmeg

--Rajat Kanti Chakrabarti

Arctander says

First, he says that nutmeg is excellent to mask the odor of cooking cabbage, whose odor is one of the most obnoxious of the household odors. Mace or nutmeg sprinkled upon cooked cabbage completely masks the sulfide odor (compare lemon oil on fish etc).

Nutmeg oil is a pale yellow or almost water-white mobile oil of a light, fresh, warm-spicy and aromatic odor, a distinctly terpeney top-note and rich, spicy-sweet, warm body-note. The undertone and dryout is somewhat woody, but remains warm and sweet in good oils. There is some similiarity to the odor of sweet marjoram oil.

The oil has found increasing use in perfumery (remember this is 1960) for modern spicy perfumes and for “men’s fragrances” in after shaves and other lotions. Small additions in fantasy bouquets or aldehydic perfumes, florals, chypres, etc can have some very interesting effects.

Battaglia says

The following actions are supported by clinical studies

Anti-inflammatory

Carminative

Hepato-protective

Nervine

And the following actions are commonly cited in aromatherapy:

Analgesic

Antipyretic

Antirheumatic

Antiseptic

Antispasmodic

Antithrombotic

Digestive

Emmenagogue

Prostaglandin inhibitor

Stimulant

Tonic

If you practice aromatherapy, you are probably also aware that nutmeg is very useful, for a variety of conditions—if you don’t own The Complete Guide to Aromatherapy, it’s well worth including in your healing library.