How to make mint drops at home. How to make essential oil at home - the easiest ways and recipes

Essential oils with mint aroma are freely sold in pharmacies. They are not expensive. Their peculiarity is that these oils are universal in their application. They can be used for flavoring food products, in cosmetics, in personal hygiene. But peppermint oil is easy to make at home. Moreover, this requires a minimum amount of ingredients: vegetable oil and mint itself.

For mint oil, any mint is suitable: ordinary or peppermint, lemon or cat. All these types of mint are easy to grow at home in a pot on a windowsill or balcony. Free mint is sold in the store and pharmacy. So there should be no issue with raw materials.

Peppermint essential oil is made by steam distillation of the leaves and flowers of the plant. Then it is cleaned and then it comes to us, the buyers. The main ingredient in peppermint oil is menthol. It gives all the qualities for which this type of oil is valued.

Homemade peppermint oil can also be used for any purpose. However, it will not be as concentrated as essential oil from the manufacturer. But him beneficial features it won't get any smaller. In addition, your homemade mint oil can be:

Add to flavor food;

Use to treat stomach and intestinal disorders;

Use for oral care;

For coughs, headaches, to relieve nausea and irritation;

For hair and skin care.

To make your peppermint oil you need:

Olive oil

fresh mint leaves

Rinse the mint leaves well with cold water and dry them between layers of paper towels.

Then grind them to extract the juice. You can wrinkle them a little.

Put the prepared leaves in a clean glass jar. Pour olive oil. The oil should completely cover the leaves.

Close the jar tightly with a lid and leave in a warm place for a day.

Then strain through a strainer. Cut a new portion of the leaves and again pour the already infused oil.

Repeat this procedure five times. The point is that the longer you insist, pouring new fresh leaves each time with oil, the richer the aroma of the oil will be.

Strain the oil for the last time and squeeze out the leaves. Pour the resulting mint oil into a clean dark glass bottle and store in the refrigerator. There the oil can stand, without losing its properties, up to a year.

This is how homemade peppermint oil comes out.

For homemade oil, you can take not only olive oil, but also any other: grape seed oil, wheat germ oil or almond oil. No need to take oils with a pronounced own smell. If none of these oils are available, refined sunflower oil will do.

Mint tincture

In addition to mint oil, you can make a tincture with vodka or alcohol. For her, you also need to prepare mint leaves and pour them with vodka or alcohol.

Leave for four, six weeks in a dark place. During the infusion, do not forget to periodically shake the bottle. You don't need to change the mint leaves. Alcohol tincture so obtained with a strong mint flavor.

I usually do it in a small baby juice bottle. Almost completely put the leaves and pour vodka. Then I put a circle of parchment paper on the neck, close the lid and put it in the kitchen cabinet. The tincture is great for flavoring ice cream, lemonade, tea. I add quite a bit. So alcohol is practically not felt.

The tincture can be stored for several years. The main thing is a dark place and a tight-fitting lid.

When there is no mint oil, I mix the tincture with glycerin in a 1: 1 ratio and add it to muffins or cookies.

In general, it is not necessary to buy flavors in the store. And natural extracts are not sold everywhere, and they are expensive. Making your own at home is easy and certainly cheaper.

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Today I will share with you a little secret to making peppermint oil at home. Think it's difficult? Not at all! Not only is this process very exciting, it will also take no more than 20-30 minutes.

Today it is difficult to find a person who is not familiar with the fresh and bewitching aroma of peppermint. Well, and even more so about its beneficial cooling and soothing properties. This amazing succulent plant has occupied its place of honor in cosmetology, medicine and cooking since ancient times.

Homemade peppermint essential oil

Ingredients:

• Dried peppermint leaves and stems - 200 g
• Unrefined corn oil - 200 ml

Cooking process at home:

1. First, we need to chop the dry sprigs of mint. To do this, you need to arm yourself with sharp scissors, with which we will cut the plant. To prepare essential oil, we need stems, leaves and even inflorescences.
2. The resulting powder is placed in a glass vessel, which is tightly closed.
3. It is necessary to add base oil (olive, almond, sesame, etc.) to crushed mint. In my case, I use unrefined cold-pressed corn oil, as it is the leader in omega-6 and vitamin E content. There should be enough oil to completely cover the plant.

Corn oil is able to fill the need for vitamins E, F, A, PP, K3, as well as essential minerals - phosphorus, iron, copper, nickel and potassium. In addition, the composition this product rich in unsaturated acids, which prevent the penetration of viruses and pathogens.

Benefits, Uses and Composition of Peppermint Essential Oil

Let's take a look at 9 common problems that peppermint oil is great for.

1. Reduces abdominal pain and improves digestion.
2. Eliminates bad breath.
3. Relieves headache.
4. Combats dandruff and hair breakage.
5. It has antimicrobial and inflammatory properties.
6. Improves brain activity, concentration and emotional state. Menthol, which is contained in the plant, has an invigorating effect, and also clears the respiratory tract.
7. Normalizes the secretion of sebaceous fat (pimples, acne, etc.)
8. Relieves tension in the muscles.
9. Has antifungal properties.

Peppermint essential oil contains Omega-3 fatty acid, iron, magnesium, calcium, vitamins A and C, minerals potassium, manganese and copper.

After the listed properties of peppermint oil, it is safe to say that it is simply indispensable in every first aid kit.

Precautions When Using Peppermint Essential Oil

In small quantities, peppermint oil is considered perfectly safe means, however, in some people it may cause allergic reactions. Therefore, a sensitivity test must be carried out before use.

To do this, apply a small amount of oil on the wrist. If, after a few minutes, slight irritation, itching or redness of the skin appears on the skin, immediately wash off the product and do not use again. Since the plant contains menthol, use in large quantities is prohibited, as it can damage the skin.

Peppermint essential oil is a substance that is obtained from perennial herbaceous plants, in particular from different types mint, usually peppermint. It contains many valuable components: most of all menthol, its 70%, and there is also limonene, cineole, carvone, geraniol and many other aromatic compounds.

Getting a substance

The main raw materials are slightly dried leaves and stems. On an industrial scale, the substance is obtained by distillation with water vapor (distillation). The content of essential oil in the plant is 0.5%, that is, in order to obtain one kilogram of the final product, it will be necessary to process 45-50 kg of raw materials. It should be noted that the substance obtained in this way will be quite expensive.

But most often, peppermint oil is made on the basis of some kind of base oil. Such a substance can be easily made at home. For this you will need:

Base oil, such as grape or from;

Glass containers, always with a lid;

Dark glass container;

A small piece of gauze;

Wooden hammer;

Plastic bag;

Raw materials: fresh, just picked mint (no later than 24 hours).

So, my mint, dry it and put it in a bag. Then we beat off the raw materials directly in the bag with a hammer - this is how it will release the juice. We shift the mass into a glass container, ram it and fill it with an oil base. After a day, the mixture must be filtered. We repeat all the steps three more times, each time leaving the old oil and using fresh raw materials. Then the finished mint oil is poured into a dark glass container. Store it in a dark cool place tightly closed.

Peppermint oil: application

This substance is used very widely: it is used in the production of cosmetics, personal care products, in pharmacology and traditional medicine. Special mention deserves the use of mint oil in aromatherapy. In this area, it is used for aromatization of rooms, for massage and rubbing, for baths and saunas. Peppermint oil has a complex effect on the human body: it stimulates nervous system, tones the body, acts as a light stimulant (in intimate terms) remedy. In addition, this substance is used internally and externally for many diseases, such as rheumatism, muscle and joint pain, skin inflammation and rashes, migraine, nausea, spasms, etc.

Contraindications

Despite its usefulness, peppermint oil is not a remedy that can be taken thoughtlessly and without any restrictions. For example, if you increase the dose of this substance, you can cause respiratory distress or bronchospasm. In addition, peppermint oil actively affects the functioning of the heart muscle, which can lead to pain in the heart. This substance is also not recommended for use during pregnancy - it can cause contractions. And small children should not apply it on skin- Peppermint oil is too strong for delicate baby skin. Therefore, use this substance wisely: in small doses and preferably only externally.

The use of essential oils has long gone beyond the perfume industry and gained wide popularity. Therapists in polyclinics can now easily prescribe aromatherapy treatment, and cosmetologists even consider these drugs to be indispensable in restoring beauty. Their only drawback is their high price. But this problem is easily solved by knowing how to make essential oil at home. As practice shows, in terms of quality it is not inferior to the pharmacy one, but it is several times cheaper.

Preparatory stage: the correct procurement of raw materials

Aroma oil can be extracted from almost any vegetation, whether it is a wild bush or a noble flower from a country flower bed. But before making essential oils at home from the selected plant, it should be clarified in which part of it the maximum amount of aromatic substances is concentrated. For example, in the flowers of the May lily of the valley, despite the pronounced pleasant smell, they contain only about 0.04%, and in the fruits of the clove tree - 22%.

spicy cloves- Leader in essential oil content

To obtain a quality end product, it is important not only to know how to make an essential oil, but also when to procure raw materials for it. There is nothing complicated in this, just remember a few of the following rules:

If inflorescences are used to isolate aromatic oils, then they are cut at the peak of flowering, choosing fully opened flowers.

1. Rhizomes are dug up exclusively in the fall, with the beginning of the drying of the leaves.
2. In the case of using stems or leaves, the raw material is harvested before bud formation begins.
3. Seeds and fruits are taken only fully ripened.
4. If the entire above-ground part of the plant is suitable for processing, then optimal time for collection - the initial stage of flowering.
5. Raw materials are harvested only in dry, sunny weather immediately after the dew dries.
6. For the preparation of oils, both fresh plants and dried herbs are suitable.

Available ways to prepare essential oils

There are several methods for making your own essential oil. These are pressing, distillation, enfleurage and infusion. The choice of method largely depends on the type of raw material.

Low cost methods: pressing and distillation

The simplest and fast way obtaining aroma oil, which does not require any additional devices and extra costs - spin. But it is good only in the case of processing citrus fruits. The essence of this method is the manual squeezing of an oily liquid from the fruit peel.

Any raw material is suitable for extracting odorous oil from plants by distillation, except for fruits and seeds. The disadvantage of this method is that it will not be possible to get by with improvised means - a special distillation apparatus is required for distillation, similar to the one used to make homemade alcohol.

But if you build such a device at home, then the production process will practically not differ from how essential oils are made in pharmaceutical factories, and at home it will be possible to obtain a very high-quality product that is in no way inferior to pharmaceutical preparations.

Flower lipstick and essential tinctures

beautiful word"enfleurage" is called complicated procedure obtaining aromatic oils by extraction with purified solid (mainly beef) fat. The bottom line is that parts of plants are laid out on a thin layer of fat, pressed with a press and left for a while. The fat absorbs the fragrance and the result is what perfumers call a flower lipstick. Further, it is dissolved with alcohol and filtered, obtaining a pure oil.

This method is very expensive and laborious, so it is used only for processing very delicate and fragile flowers of plants such as rose, violet, jasmine.

Enfleurage for the extraction of aromatic oils from plants began to be used several centuries ago.

Some essential oils can only be prepared at home by infusion. To do this, alcohol or basic vegetable oil without its own odor is additionally used. They pour prepared plants and insist usually from 3 days to 3 months. Thereafter alcohol tincture filtered, and the oil is squeezed out. The saturation of the oil depends on the duration of the infusion.

The most popular recipes for homemade aroma oils

Fragrant aphrodisiac of roses

For the preparation of this aromatic oil with a subtle enticing smell, strong-smelling red garden roses are taken.

For rose oil, you need to take only garden flowers, and not greenhouse ones with a slight smell

Two cups of petals are first put into a container and pressed down for a day with a load for tamping, and then poured with olive oil so that it covers the petals with a thin layer from above, preventing air from entering. Insist this mixture in a dark place for at least a month. Every two days, the jar must be thoroughly shaken or mixed with its contents. When the infusion is ready, the petals are squeezed and discarded, and the odorous product is poured into a dark glass bottle and stored in the refrigerator.

This remedy is well suited for taking baths, after which the body exudes a pleasant aroma. Mythologists say that it was thanks to rose oil that Cleopatra conquered Caesar.

Mint symphony with anti-stress effect

For cooking natural preparation called "Mint Symphony", which relieves stress and calms the nervous system, use only fresh and intact peppermint leaves. They must be thoroughly washed, dried with a paper towel and torn into small pieces with your hands to speed up the release of juice.

The leaves are tightly packed into a glass jar, filling it to the very top, and poured with grape seed oil, then closed with a lid. The jar is hidden for a day in a dark place. After 24 hours, the mixture is filtered, the leaves are squeezed and discarded, and the procedure is repeated again using fresh leaves and oil filtered from the previous use. Each time it will acquire an increasingly rich aroma and a characteristic greenish color.

Tonic citrus oil

The beauty of this product, besides healing properties and pleasant aroma, also in the fact that orange or lemon peels are used for its preparation. Thus, you can eat the fruit, replenishing the body's vitamin supply, and use the peel with benefit.

To prepare an aromatic remedy, peels from several fruits are crushed, put in a jar and poured with any refined vegetable oil that does not have its own smell. After letting the mixture brew for a week, a jar with a loosely closed lid is placed in a steam bath for 30 minutes, after which the resulting liquid is filtered, carefully squeezing it out of the peel. Once cooled, homemade essential oil is ready to use.

Before using any aroma oil in medicinal or cosmetic purposes it is necessary to consult a specialist, because each of them has a number of contraindications. For example, mint can provoke a miscarriage on early dates pregnancy, and citrus - cause allergies in children.

Peppermint essential oil is used in aromatherapy to treat various respiratory ailments such as colds and bronchitis. Peppermint oil is also indispensable for stress relief, as a sedative. It is also added to cosmetics, for example, in handmade soap. You can just add a few drops of this oil to the aroma lamp and enjoy a fresh and invigorating aroma. Industrially, peppermint oil is obtained by steam distillation of the leaves of the plant.

Natural mint essential oil contains: menthol, limonene, cineole, and some other components. Such oil is quite expensive, but, fortunately, you can make it yourself, which will cost much less. At home, peppermint essential oil is made from a base oil, such as grape seed, almond, or wheat germ oil, which can be purchased at a pharmacy.

To make peppermint essential oil you will need:

fresh mint

plastic bag for food storage

wooden mallet

base oil

Glass jar with lid

dark glass container

Gauze

Cooking method:

1. For the preparation of essential oils, only freshly picked plants are used. Therefore, it is better to grow mint in the garden, or buy it on the market.

2. You need to collect mint in the morning, when the dew dries. The oil content is highest in the morning before the heat has set in. Choose healthy leaves, without damage.

3. Wash the peppermint in cold water, shake to make the water glass, and spread on a towel to dry. Then transfer the leaves to a tight plastic food storage bag and seal. Gently beat the leaves with a wooden mallet to break the skin and release the natural juice.

4. Transfer the contents of the package to a glass jar, tamp and fill with base oil. The oil will absorb the peppermint juice.

5. Close the jar tightly and shake well to mix the mint and oil. Then leave for 24 hours. After that, strain the contents of the jar through a piece of gauze, wring out and discard the leaves.

6. Repeat the process for 3 days, each time using new leaves, but leaving the old oil. After that, pour the finished peppermint essential oil into a dark glass bottle and close tightly.

Store in a cool dark place out of direct sunlight.

Warnings: Do not use peppermint oil during pregnancy. It is believed that it can cause premature birth. Do not use peppermint oil on children's skin as it is too strong for their delicate skin.