Herbal Infused Oils - Nourishing Support for Body & Mind
Herbal & Ayurvedic Infused Oils. Nourishing Support for Body & Mind
Pure Infused Oils
A herbal infused oil is made by steeping whole plant material in a carrier oil — olive, sunflower, sesame or almond, for weeks, so the oil takes on the plant's fat-soluble constituents, colour and scent. It's different from an essential oil, which is distilled and highly concentrated, and different again from a carrier oil with essential oils stirred into it.
By colour. A properly infused St John's Wort oil is deep ruby red and a calendula oil is rich gold, because the pigments transfer from plant to oil during steeping. If a St John's Wort oil is pale yellow, it hasn't been infused, it's carrier oil with something added. Colour is the single most reliable indicator available to a buyer.
Mahanarayan oil is a classical Ayurvedic preparation made by infusing a long list of botanicals into a base oil, traditionally used for massage. Its name refers to Narayana, and recipes for it appear in Ayurvedic texts going back centuries. Formulations vary between makers, since the classical recipe runs to dozens of plants.
Nasya oil is a herbal oil prepared for the nasal passages, and nasya is the Ayurvedic practice of applying it. It's traditionally sesame-based and applied as drops, or smoothed around the inner rims of the nostrils with a clean fingertip. The practice is described in the classical Ayurvedic texts and remains part of daily self-care routines across India. Ours contains sesame.
Abhyanga is the Ayurvedic practice of self-massage with warmed oil, traditionally performed in the morning before bathing. The oil is worked over the whole body in long strokes on the limbs and circular ones at the joints, then left for a period before washing off. Sesame is the classical base oil, which is why so many Ayurvedic body oils use it.
Because light degrades infused oils faster than time does. Ultraviolet light breaks down the pigments and aromatic compounds that weeks of steeping put there, and it accelerates oxidation of the carrier oil itself. Amber glass filters most of that. Clear glass looks better on a shelf and protects the contents far less.
It depends on the formula. The full ingredients are on each product page, and our Medical Herbalists are happy to talk it through.
