Essential Oil - Sweet Orange and a couple recipes

Essential Oil Of Orange (Sweet)

Botanical Name: Citrus Sinestis

Family: Rutaceae: Rue Family

Country Of Origin: China (originally) Today it is cultivated in many other places such as The United States <Florida and California>, Brazil, South America, Israel, Morocco, Greece, southern France, Sicily and Spain.

Description: The orange grows on a tree, with pretty white flowers. The tree is like an evergreen, with smooth and shiny leaves. This is the Sweet Orange, which is not the same as the Mandarin Orange or Neroli which are from different trees, though in the same family.

Essential Oil: The oil of the sweet orange is cold-pressed from the rind only of the orange fruit. The oil is very thin, like the lemon and also lime, and the color should be a light yellow to a more brownish-yellow color. The scent is sweet and fruity. I like this oil, as I use it in perfumes with some of the woodsy scents as the top note, as well as in soaps and lotions. I also make a potpourri each year from the peels, along with other herbs, etc's and the essential oil.

Benefits:
Relaxing and Uplifting
Balancing
Sensual
Warming

This oil is also a great grease cutter and disinfectant. If I don't have lemon ready at the sink where I do dishes and hand-wash things, I have orange - I usually have both. It will cut through grease like lemon on any greasy dishes or pots and it's got some great disinfecting properties as well.
It makes me wonder why, when (good news) Sweet Orange oil is so very inexpensive, that we can only find products in the stores for cleaning or air freshining that have orange "fragrance" in them.

Blends with: Cinnamon, Ylang-Ylang, other citrus oils, Juniper, Cypress, Sandalwood (all of them), Patchouli (both dark and light), Cypress, Spruce and pretty much what "you" like.

One of my perfume blends as I love Patchouli, is made with patchouli (dark and light) <bottom note>, ylang-ylang <middle note> and sweet orange as my top note. When it's aged for a little bit, so that the oils meld, if you like patchouli, it's got that "extra" something to it.

We also use the orange peels, organic, ribbons as well as cut chips, in our potpourri blends - we make two with this. One has the orange peels and chips in it, as well as rose petals, sage herb, rosehips, cloves, cinnamon sticks 1" pieces, off the top of my head, that's what I'm remembering and also has the sweet orange oil in it. It's aged and then used year-round.
We also make another with the above herbs/spices and the addition of patchouli herb, cut, and with the sweet orange oil, we add to it a bit of patchouli oil, giving it a little bit of a different scent, again, used year round.

Orange or Apple Pomander (these are fun to make and also fun for the children)

Either one orange, with a thin skin or an apple.
Cloves
Cinnamon ground
piece of ribbon
crochet hook

Take the orange and start putting cloves into it, filling rows of them all up and down and around the orange. It will release a lot of juice. When the orange is well-covered in cloves or apple if you'd like to use that instead, roll it in the cinnamon powder, that's placed on a plate. If you cannot get the orange covered, sprinkle some on the parts that aren't. Take your ribbon and crochet hook and from the bottom of the orange, with the ribbon looped - hook it with the crochet hook and push it through the orange's bottom till it comes out of the top. Take the hook out and tie a bow or knot in the top, leaving room to hang it up. Hang away from any humid spot and the orange (or apple) will dry and shrink and smell just great for a long while. If you need to refresh it, take a few drops of both sweet orange oil and cinnamon leaf oil and sprinkle on the orange. I have an apple that's going on over a year and a half, shrunk way down that's hanging in the kitchen and I've never had to add any oils to it - smells great still.

Questions? As always, feel free to ask!

mn - 2007