Peppermint is one of the most popular and versatile essential oils. With a delightfully refreshing, cooling, soothing, and rejuvenating aroma.
From your belly to your brain, your lungs to your lovely locks, peppermint oil can bolster health in most every area of your body!
 Description
Botanical Name: Mentha piperita
Origin: Mediterranean
Extraction method: Steam distillation
Plant Parts Used: Flowering herb
Note Classification: Top
Scent: Fresh, cool, concentrated grassy-minty, more fragrant than spearmint
Blends Well With: Basil, eucalyptus, geranium, grapefruit, juniper, lavender, lemon, myrrh, pine, rosemary, spearmint, tea tree, and wintergreen
Shelf Life: 4-5 years
Cautions:
- For a list of cautions associated with the use of peppermint essential oil, please review this article.
- Read more about essential oil safety here.
Maximum Dilution: 5.4%
 Benefits of Peppermint Essential Oil
Skin and Hair Health: Peppermint is an invigorating refresher for the biggest organ in the body – your skin!
Clarity and Focus: One whiff of this clarifying, uplifting, energizing aroma, and you’ll access laser focus in no time.
Energy Boost and Stress Relief:Â Wake up feeling tired? Breathe in peppermint and feel new energy rush in.
Respiratory Health: This is one area where peppermint especially shines.
Sickness Be Gone! Peppermint is a rock star at addressing so many different symptoms of sickness.
Freedom From Pain: Peppermint is like a long out breath when your nerves and muscles are contracted.
For Healthy Skin and Hair
Peppermint has the magical quality of warming and cooling at the same time, so while hot, itchy, aggravated skin will be brought back to calm by the coolness of the oil, the warmth it brings will also increase circulation, which is great for stimulating hair growth. Longer, healthier hair, less dandruff, and no itchiness all in one.
Additionally, the oil is great for dry, itchy skin anywhere on your body, including chapped lips. Peppermint is also a natural pain reliever, so will work for most any discomfort associated with skin condition. And that wonderful breezy quality? The absolute BEST feeling on a sunburn.
 For A Clear And Focused Mind
Peppermint is a powerful remedy for an overactive nervous system and a busy mind, so if you find yourself feeling distracted, having trouble concentrating, or afflicted by monkey mind, give peppermint a try.
The scent goes directly through the olfactory system, which reaches the brain quickly, meaning that just smelling the oil will offer an immediate feeling of relaxation.
To Reduce Stress and Boost Energy
Peppermint is full of aromatic volatile oils, which pass through the olfactory system and have a fast and direct effect on the nervous system.
Alongside activating the parasympathetic system (the part that feels like a warm hug), peppermint brings a coolness to the body, mind, and spirit. Meaning that if you are feeling angry, irritable, or otherwise uncomfortably charged, peppermint can help restore balance.
From this place of lowered stress, it is easier to access clearer, more directed energy. Peppermint will activate you into higher energy and motivation levels as well, without the energy feeling scattered or frenzied.
 A Breath Of Fresh Air For The Lungs
Peppermint is a wonderful ally for the respiratory system. From chronic lung conditions like asthma and bronchitis, to symptoms of cold and flu, to a simple support of deeper, more mindful breathing, peppermint can help.
You can tell simply by the spacious, expansive, cool quality of the scent of peppermint, that your lungs are receiving support to open wider. Inhale deeply the aroma of this oil and you’ll feel your tissues soothed, your chest relax, and your breath deepen.
For A Happy Belly
One of the best and most popular ways to use peppermint essential oils is to address digestive issues. It has qualities that help reduce inflammation, release gas, ease spasms, and aid digestion.
It can also help with symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, and will ease the stress of stomach discomfort alongside its ability to reduce symptoms.
Most notably, peppermint is an incredible remedy for nausea – whether it related to bacterial or viral sickness, motion sickness, or over heating, the cooling aroma of peppermint will recenter you and calm your belly fast.
To Fight Sickness
Peppermint oil can help remove toxins and bacteria from the body, so it’s great for fighting symptoms of illnesses like colds, flu, sinusitis, infection, sore throats and more. Often, being sick is stressful, and the scent and soothing quality of peppermint oil can reduce stress, which supports our immune system as it fends off sickness.
Additionally, peppermint has a unique ability to cool the body (great for fever), at the same time as it can warm the body, due to its ability to increase circulation. Often, the circulatory system can feel a bit taxed during sickness, so increasing blood flow helps nourish tissues as the body heals.
For Pain Relief
When applied topically (read the essential oils safety guide first), the cooling sensation of peppermint oil is great at both relaxing muscles and numbing tenderness. When used aromatically, the effects of peppermint can be felt at the nervous system level, which ripples throughout the body.
Also, because it is a useful oil to clean bacteria, it can be used topically on various kinds of wounds to help prevent infection and support healing.
Read next – 21 ways to use Peppermint Essential Oil
The Bottom Line
- Peppermint is uplifting, soothing, rejuvenating, cooling and (magically!) also warming.
- This essential oil is a rock star at supporting digestive issues. Most notably as a fast and incredibly effective remedy for nausea.
- Peppermint is wonderful at supporting the mind to achieve a more relaxed and focused mental state.
- It is a great disinfectant and can be used to help clean and heal wounds and sores anywhere on the body.
- Peppermint is incredibly versatile, affordable, safe, and powerful. It is a great choice to keep in your medicine cabinet, or to carry on you for emergencies.
Read more:
I’m using peppermint for nausea…. is the best way to use it is diffusing? or should i dilute and use topically as well? with which carrier?