Uses and Benefits of Sweet Orange Essential Oil

 Sweet Orange is one of the best essential oils to keep at home in your cabinet for all times of the year; refreshing in the summer and comforting in the winter.  Children love it as they also recognise the sweet, natural scent.  What’s more it has immune boosting effects, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties and is often found in beauty and cosmetic as well as household cleaning products.

When someone peels an orange in the room and you get that lovely refreshing, pungent aroma, it’s just like the scent you experience when you put your nose to a bottle of ‘Sweet Orange Essential Oil’ (Citrus sinensis). 

Sweet Orange essential oil contains a high amount of d-Limonene, great for cleaning and removing grease, so makes a good general spray cleaner for the kitchen; see my ‘multi-purpose cleaner’ recipe below. 

Also because it's wonderfully scented that's one of the reasons why I use it in the orange butter for our oily shampoos and orange essential oil to our normal & dry hair shampoos as well as our luxury dog shampoo bars. I also use it in my easy ‘Baby Wipe Formula’ (recipe coming soon)!

It’s a great de-stresser ‘anxiolytic’ (I like that word!) and mood booster with a high amount of Vitamin C, so a good and healthy oil to use for all the family in an oil diffuser.

Some citrus essential oils can make your skin photo-toxic (make your skin more sensitive to the sun), which wouldn’t be good if you applied a leave-on product for the beach or even a lip balm before skiing. However, the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA) lists Sweet Orange essential oil as one of their ‘Non-photo toxic Citrus Oils’, so I’m happy to use it and know that wherever my products go, they’ll not cause these issue.

Bitter Orange (Citrus aurantium) on the other hand, is listed as a photosensitiser, as is cold peel Lime essential oil, though distilled Lime essential oil is not. We use distilled lime in our anti-itch balm and herbal hair care bars.

Make sure you check out the full ranges of the best UK shampoo bars and all natural conditioner bars here!

Not only has orange been lovely to mix with Cinnamon for candles at Christmas time, to grate orange peel into Baklava pastries, it is also lovely to have in the kitchen as part of a multi-purpose spray which takes only literally two minutes to make. Here I use it with palm oil free Castile liquid soap. Other citrus oils such as lime, lemon will also work well with this recipe.

You can also use these same ingredients to make laundry liquid (recipe coming soon), which I’ve used for several years now.

Multi Purpose Cleaner Recipe

A cheap and easy recipe that can be made in minutes

 You need:

• 2 empty 250ml spray or pump bottles (from baldwins.co.uk)
• 1 teaspoon Borax (from ebay.co.uk)
• 1 teaspoon organic liquid Castile soap (from naissance.com)
• ½ teaspoon Soda Crystals (or USA use Washing Soda) buy at supermarkets or on Amazon
• 1.5 cups water (pre-boiled)
• 15 drops sweet orange essential oil (from mysticmoments.co.uk)

Method:

• Heat water in a saucepan to boiling point then turn off and let cool slightly. 
• Pour the heated water into heat proof jug and add the Castile soap, borax and washing soda.
• Stir. 
• Let cool to room temperature and add orange oil drops. 
• Pour into pump bottles. 
• Use within 6 weeks. 

You can download a copy of this recipe here for ease of use.

Don't forget, whilst you are here, to read this wonderfully informative blog post that reveals the good and bad about antiperspirants and why you should be using aluminium free deodorants - Here Are The Answers To Your Quest For A Safe Natural Aluminium Free Body Deodorant. 

Best wishes,

Rebecca