Melissa: 00:09

Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: 00:11

I'm Jam.

Melissa: 00:11

And I'm a chemist.

Jam: 00:12

And I'm not.

Melissa: 00:13

And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.

Jam: 00:15

The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life.

Melissa: 00:18

Jim, how are you doing today?

Jam: 00:20

I'm doing very well. I am loving the cooler weather. I've been looking at, like, The forecast ahead of this week and stuff and seeing that it's not gonna get back up to being, like, nineties and stuff again.

Melissa: 00:34

Yeah. It was nineties this week in Texas, which Yeah. It's it's almost November, Texas. Get it together.

Jam: 00:40

Yeah. It was, like, 93. Still for a while.

Melissa: 00:55

Whatever it wants. Really all the way through January, it can kinda do whatever Yeah. It usually is cold in February.

Jam: 01:03

So that's pretty much me. How about you?

Melissa: 01:06

I'm doing pretty good. I'm pretty Excited about this topic.

Jam: 01:09

Mhmm.

Melissa: 01:10

I feel like we've had a few people sort of ask about it. I think, listener Emily s maybe wrote in a question about this once, But I I went on a wild ride last night while I was researching this episode, so I'm very excited to share with you the topic for today.

Jam: 01:28

Awesome. Me too. What is it?

Melissa: 01:31

Well, I'll tell you in a minute. Oh, okay. I guess the listeners already know, so there's no point. But I should say that, ultimately, I believe I'm not a person who just blindly trusts what people say things do. Mhmm.

Melissa: 01:46

You know? I'm I'm a healthy dose Dose of skepticism kind of person. So when people talk about essential oils and supplements, my first question is to think, Is that legitimate? Mhmm. I'm just not sure.

Melissa: 01:58

I don't just believe it.

Jam: 02:00

Yeah. I'm the same way. I'm, like, very, very like, it just seems safer to be a skeptic until there's, like, A lot of evidence. I don't know. It just seems safe.

Jam: 02:09

But

Melissa: 02:10

But I also don't just discount things because I think I learned a lot about, you know, some of those homeopathic medicines, some of that stuff that we learned about, native people who wore the sweet grass necklaces to ward off mosquitoes, and that ended up being a repellent. Right.

Jam: 02:30

Right.

Melissa: 02:30

So we have seen some of these, like, more natural solutions have a science to back them up. So I I'm a skeptic, but I also am not A naysayer who will never believe anything.

Jam: 02:41

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 02:42

So I just tend to question. And then once I have some information from reputable sources, then I can trust what people say about things.

Jam: 02:53

Mhmm. Yeah. That makes sense. So I

Melissa: 02:55

was flipping through a book called Genie in a Bottle. It's about chemistry and just some of Some told some historical stories about chemistry.

Jam: 03:06

Mhmm.

Melissa: 03:06

And there was a little bit about the discovery of Epsom salts. And I was like, oh, this is gonna be so cool. I will learn about Epsom salts and the science behind Epsom salt bath, And then I can do an episode about that, and that'll be really exciting. Except there is almost no information about the function of Some salts in salt baths.

Jam: 03:31

No way. That's just so weird.

Melissa: 03:34

It is so weird. And so Epsilon salts are magnesium sulfate.

Jam: 03:39

Mhmm.

Melissa: 03:39

And there's documented information about taking magnesium orally, and they're even studying Using magnesium in women with preeclampsia and in babies that are born prematurely, but there was only 1 study that even looked at if it could be transported through the skin.

Jam: 03:58

Weird.

Melissa: 03:58

That study I know it is weird. And that study was published, but it's published online, not in a peer reviewed journal article. So, normally, the studies I look at are published in what's known as a peer reviewed journal article. So an anonymous study or an anonymous paper is submitted. Sometimes it's anonymous, I guess.

Melissa: 04:15

Sometimes it's not, but it's reviewed by other scientists who basically give feedback on on the legitimacy of the experiment and all that, and then published.

Jam: 04:24

Got it. Okay.

Melissa: 04:25

So the one study that found any evidence at all that magnesium could be transported through the skin was just published online. So then this then I found another paper that talked about Magnesium transdermal magnesium transport, which means through the skin, magnesium transport. Fact or myth. That was the title of it, which I liked. And they basically went through all the studies that Had even touched on magnesium salt baths, and pretty much every single one didn't have a good number of participants or was questionable.

Melissa: 05:04

And they said the only evidence for magnesium transport on the skin would be around the would be around the sweat glands and the hair follicles Okay. Which makes up such a small percentage of your skin that The amount of magnesium that likely would be transported that way would probably be negligible Right.

Jam: 05:24

Right.

Melissa: 05:24

If at all. So, Basically, I was all ready to do magnesium salt baths and Epsom salt baths, and then I found out that there was no science to support anything about them or even technically really to disprove it. And that just felt like a bummer of an episode.

Jam: 05:42

The Yeah. Seriously, that would be a bummer. I'd be like, and here's what people think it does, and we don't know if it does or does not.

Melissa: 05:51

But we don't have any evidence to prove that it does. Only kind of questionable studies. So I was bummed, and I had just bummed you guys all out about that plastic stuff. So I felt like instead of bumming you out, I should find a better Mhmm. But I did wanna share that little that path down magnesium salt.

Melissa: 06:13

So Then I was already in the bath mode, and my friend had given me some lavender bubble bath.

Jam: 06:21

Oh, nice.

Melissa: 06:23

And I started to wonder, and Emily s listener Emily s had written about essential oils. Mhmm. And I started to wonder about lavender oil.

Jam: 06:34

K. Nice.

Melissa: 06:36

And let me tell you, it was a it was a wild ride. It was crazy. Lavender oil is not a joke. It is fascinating. I've learned so much about it.

Melissa: 06:48

And so today, we're gonna talk about what it is, what is lavender oil, And we're gonna talk about what does it really do? What do we have scientific evidence for it doing?

Jam: 06:57

Nice. I have no idea about any of this stuff. And I'm certainly on the skeptical side, but, like, Have no preknowledge.

Melissa: 07:04

Well then, I'll start with a little chemistry lesson. The chemistry part is on the what is lavender oil.

Jam: 07:10

Okay.

Melissa: 07:10

And then the rest of it is other types of science. So lavender oil is comprised of guess what?

Jam: 07:20

Lavender? I'm just kidding.

Melissa: 07:23

Organic compounds.

Jam: 07:25

Of course. Nice.

Melissa: 07:27

Of course. My favorite thing. So it's made up of organic molecules. These are carbon based molecules. When I say organic, that's what I mean.

Melissa: 07:36

Carbon based, not the organic that we see in the grocery store aisle. Mhmm. And the 2 major organic molecules that are present are linalool Mhmm. Linalool, which is just kind of a carbon chain with a few double bonds and oxygen and a hydrogen and alcohol group off of it. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 07:55

And then Lena Lil, I think is how you say it. Uh-huh. Lena Lil Acetate. So those are not the technical Standardized name written by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, so that's why I'm not a 100% sure on the pronunciation. Those are just That's

Jam: 08:13

what I was gonna ask you about because it, like, seem like such different names than the normal, like, compound names or whatever.

Melissa: 08:19

Yeah. I looked it up, and it's long and, you know, sort of has all these little substituents on it, so they're Long, complicated names that only people who've taken organic chemistry will care about at all, so I figured I would just skip over that.

Jam: 08:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 08:34

But these are likely responsible for a lot of the function of what lavender oil does, which we'll talk about at the end. Okay. So the ratio of these 2 things plus a lot of other smaller minor percentages of of other types of organic compounds are present in lavender oil. Those are impacted by where it's grown, under what conditions, and what type of lavender you're using to extract your lavender oil out of.

Jam: 09:04

Okay. Got it.

Melissa: 09:05

So lavender oil Isn't necessarily standardized. Like, it's 85% this and 5% this

Jam: 09:12

and

Melissa: 09:12

2% this. You know? There there's nothing like that.

Jam: 09:15

Mhmm.

Melissa: 09:16

The primary Compounds are going to be linalool and linalyl acetate, and then there are a lot of other things that could be present in the lavender oil that will vary based on the type of lavender oil and where it's grown. Interesting. Sure that makes

Jam: 09:34

it a little bit hard to, like, do good studies on it because you'd you'd be doing, like you'd be figuring out something about 1 specific kind of lavender oil, but it might Maybe not be true about all the kinds?

Melissa: 09:46

Yeah. That's right. So there's a lot of studies that extracted different types of lavender oil and compared the 2 different kinds or 3 different kinds and found different chemical compositions of the different kinds kinds of lavender oil based on those different things. So it it is hard to kind of across the board say, This is what we're doing. And some of the studies I found for the medical field later said, this is what the lavender oil is comprised of, you know, that we tested.

Melissa: 10:15

So that was kind of interesting.

Jam: 10:17

Yeah. Yeah. Dang. Weird.

Melissa: 10:20

Okay. And so here is your more specific chemistry lesson.

Jam: 10:24

Okay.

Melissa: 10:25

You have to extract lavender oil from the plant. Essentially, the definition of extraction is just Taking the thing you want out of all the stuff you don't want. It has fancier words like matrix and blah blah blah, but That's basically what an extraction is doing. You're taking what you want out of

Jam: 10:46

Mhmm. A

Melissa: 10:47

bunch of stuff you don't want.

Jam: 10:49

Okay. Got it. That's one of the confusions that we've we don't have to go into right now, but we, you know, talked about, like, what's actually happening when you brew coffee. And a lot of times in the coffee world, We use the word extraction, which may not technically be true in t TBD in a future episode someday, but it's one of the things that I that's the only way that extraction enters my life if that even is that. So yeah.

Melissa: 11:16

I mean, that is actually not unreasonable. I don't think to call it an extraction. It's hard to know for sure. Mhmm. Because in a way, you are getting the solid out of You're getting the the molecules or the compounds you want out of the solid matrix

Jam: 11:31

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 11:32

Quote, unquote of the coffee bean. So It's possible. It could also be something else happening. So I guess we'll just have to kind of Yeah. Wait until we do that of a sudden see.

Melissa: 11:45

In chemistry, we use extractions a lot. Right. Because we add, you know, a plus b to get our final desired product, c.

Jam: 11:55

Mhmm.

Melissa: 11:57

But our final desired product isn't usually just c. It's usually c plus a little bit of d, e, f, g, sometimes all the way to z. All kinds of other side side things that we may or may not want.

Jam: 12:07

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 12:08

So we have to purify our product is what we say. We isolate that one thing that we're looking for.

Jam: 12:15

Mhmm.

Melissa: 12:16

And in purifying, you do a lot of things like extractions and other purifying techniques.

Jam: 12:22

Mhmm.

Melissa: 12:23

So we use Extractions in the chemistry lab, and they also are using extractions to get oil out of this lavender plant. I literally did

Jam: 12:36

Nice. Okay.

Melissa: 12:37

Extractions in the lab every single day. So this is very common in the chemistry lab. Mhmm. Okay. So we're going to we need to be able to isolate the organic material from the plant.

Melissa: 12:50

Mhmm.

Jam: 12:50

And

Melissa: 12:51

I found that they did that through 3 main extraction methods.

Jam: 12:56

Okay.

Melissa: 12:57

1 is known as a Soxlet extraction.

Jam: 13:00

Sockslet.

Melissa: 13:01

Sockslet is kind of a weird name. It's named after the person who invented it.

Jam: 13:05

Like a small sock?

Melissa: 13:06

Yeah. That's what it sounds like, but it's s o x h l e t.

Jam: 13:12

Okay. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it.

Melissa: 13:14

So a Soxhlet extraction. And that one is essentially the solid is I like to call it being forever boiled. So You boil water, and then there's a condenser on top that can condense it back down or maybe not necessarily water, maybe an organic solvent in this case. And so it'll boil up, and then there'll be something that cools it and condenses it back down.

Jam: 13:41

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 13:42

So, essentially, the water or the organic solvent that you have is boiled up. It hits a cooler area that's cooled by cool water running through it. It condenses and drops down into a different Flask holding a solid.

Jam: 14:01

K.

Melissa: 14:02

And then it it extracts as much solid as it can, and then they release The liquid backed down into the original boiling pot. It's this crazy glass contraption that allows you to do all this.

Jam: 14:14

Yeah. It sounds crazy.

Melissa: 14:16

It is totally crazy. And then they boil the solvent or water again, and it goes back up and drops back down into the place with the solid to extract as much as it can out of the solid over and over again. Interesting. Weird. It's kinda weird.

Jam: 14:35

So how many times do you have to do that, like, before you really get a good amount?

Melissa: 14:40

I'm I haven't used this oxide extractor. Someone nearby me did In the lab, use this oxalate extractor pretty consistently, but I've not used 1. Mhmm. I think in the study, they said They used it for a total of I can't remember if it was 3 hours or 45 minutes, but either of those is reasonable.

Jam: 14:59

Okay. Okay.

Melissa: 15:00

Sometimes you can do a Soxat extraction, you know, over and over all day where you you release the liquid down and then let it boil and come up, and then you you can just be doing that

Jam: 15:10

Mhmm.

Melissa: 15:11

Basically, on rotation for a very long time.

Jam: 15:13

Got it.

Melissa: 15:14

So that's one method of extraction that they use for lavender oil. Another, a little bit easier to understand, is called steam distillation.

Jam: 15:23

Okay.

Melissa: 15:25

So water is boiled. In this case, it's actually water, most likely. Mhmm. And they they boil water and let the Steam hit the plant material, and that will vaporize the organic molecules that they're trying to eliminate as well. Mhmm.

Melissa: 15:42

And the vapor of both the steam and the organic molecules will then be condensed down into a flask

Jam: 15:49

Okay.

Melissa: 15:49

That will collect The oil and the water, and then you'll have to separate the oil from the water, which is a whole process. Another extraction, actually, all on its own.

Jam: 15:57

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 15:58

But Then you at least have the oil isolated from the solid material.

Jam: 16:03

Got it. Okay.

Melissa: 16:05

And then finally, The last type of extraction that's used to extract oil from lavender is known as supercritical CO two extraction.

Jam: 16:16

Woah.

Melissa: 16:16

This one, I'm the least familiar with. It's the fanciest, craziest. They put a whole diagram on how that works.

Jam: 16:23

Mhmm.

Melissa: 16:23

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but it seems they put the carbon dioxide under pressure and use that pressurized carbon dioxide to extract the organic molecules from the plant. That's the best I can do.

Jam: 16:34

Okay.

Melissa: 16:37

Okay. So those are your 3 methods of extracting Organic molecules from your lavender.

Jam: 16:46

Okay.

Melissa: 16:47

And that is how you get these organic molecules combined altogether to make Lavender oil.

Jam: 16:53

Wow. Okay.

Melissa: 16:54

And that lavender oil composition can be affected both by the method of extraction and where the lavender is grown and what type of lavender it is.

Jam: 17:05

Did you say if one of those methods is, like, better than the other, or do Is it hard to say because they are so different? Or

Melissa: 17:15

Well, I actually did read 1 paper that compared all 3 of these methods. And I think they said that the supercritical c o two was the best, but then they compared the best in terms of yield, I believe, and It didn't damage the compounds. It seems steam distillation maybe showed a little bit of that the compounds had started to break down because of heat. Or maybe that was Soxhlet extraction. No.

Melissa: 17:43

I can't remember. But I did read a paper that compared the 3 different methods together, And then they looked at the function of those 3 different methods of how the the oil that was extracted function, and that was very similar.

Jam: 17:57

Okay.

Melissa: 17:57

So their performance was very similar even if they had slight differences in the how much oil you got or the different ratios of the oil. Their function seem to be pretty similar because their major compounds are still the same. Okay. They weren't exactly the same, but they were similar.

Jam: 18:15

So it might be more like depending on who's making it or extracting and trying to, like, produce this oil might pick 1 based on the fact that it might be a little bit better yield or make more sense at a large scale or something like that, but not really about the end products, like, effects or something.

Melissa: 18:32

Yes. Exactly. Okay. So that's your chemistry lesson. That's the basics of what lavender oil is.

Jam: 18:39

Okay.

Melissa: 18:40

So before I move on to tell you all the wild stuff that lavender oil may do Uh-huh. I think we should do a little, chat back here to make sure you're tracking with me because that's a lot. I just threw a lot of chemistry words at you. You know, I just wanna make sure you're you're tracking with me here.

Jam: 18:58

Totally. I think I am. So, basically, when you've got something like lavender and you wanna get the stuff that's in it out the organic compounds, at least in the case of lavender, there's Three main ways I'm guessing that you could use these ways with other, like, organic Compound extractions too or whatever, like other types of flowers and things like that.

Melissa: 19:26

Mhmm.

Jam: 19:26

Plants.

Melissa: 19:27

Definitely definitely can. I saw this used in the application of other things as well.

Jam: 19:31

Okay. So the first one will be the Soxlet extraction, which has a forever boil Contraption going on

Melissa: 19:41

Mhmm.

Jam: 19:42

Where it's constantly boiling and the stuff that comes out the organic compounds are trying to come out of The, solid, the plant go come out and go back in. That was kinda hard to visualize without knowing, Like, what that actually looks like. But, basically, continually getting Yeah. Stuff to come out and then go And and keep getting more and more of those organic come out of the original plant for, like, a long time, and it collects in a different Area or it keeps just going through and going through or something?

Melissa: 20:17

It kinda just keeps going through. The same stuff sorta just goes through over and over again.

Jam: 20:21

That kinda reminds me sorry. I keep thinking about coffee, but it kinda reminds me of of percolator. Have you ever used a percolator? Like, the old school kind?

Melissa: 20:28

It It's kind of like a percolator. That's a great way to think about it.

Jam: 20:32

Excellent. Yes.

Melissa: 20:33

Yeah. It is kind of like a percolator. Yep. That's really good.

Jam: 20:37

If you know, we don't have to explain all that, but if you know what a classic percolator is at home, and then that's what I was, and it sounds like it's not too far off where it just keeps Washing

Melissa: 20:47

Mhmm.

Jam: 20:47

Water over the coffee over and over. And so that's one method. And the and I guess the way I'd be getting it out is that just by boiling the original, plant material, it starts to break things down and get stuff out. Is that the Kinda simple way to understand why it gets the lavender oil out of the plant?

Melissa: 21:12

Yeah. I think that's a good way to describe it. It just kind of in the case of the succulent extractor, you usually use an organic Solvent that's going to dissolve the thing that you want out of the plant. So oils are usually nonpolar. So you usually pick a nonpolar organic solvent, And it will be pretty good at dissolving the oils out of the ground up plant material.

Melissa: 21:33

So, usually, you like grind up the plant material, put it in there, and so it'll be pretty good about extracting the oil. And you let it go through several times to get basically as much as you can out of there.

Jam: 21:42

Awesome. Okay. Cool. Cool. And so that's Option 1, Soxlet extraction.

Melissa: 21:48

Mhmm.

Jam: 21:49

Number 2 is It's distilled. Remember what the other word was. Steam distillation?

Melissa: 21:58

Uh-huh. It's steam distillation. That's right.

Jam: 22:01

And so in that case, it's boiling just water, right, and letting these steam or is there a solvent in there too or just water?

Melissa: 22:11

I think it's just water in the case of steam distillation. I think water gets to the maybe ideal temperature is is what I was understanding. Although I'm not Okay. Positive because I'm not an expert in plant extraction.

Jam: 22:24

And so the steam then, like, Where they have it rising up to meet the plant, material. And then Mhmm. Somehow, the the effect of the steam and the the collection of the water and whatever the steam is able to get out of the plant are collected separately just like, I guess, normal distillation would be that is happening without the plant material. You're evaporating something, and then It's collecting somewhere else?

Melissa: 22:55

Collecting it down. Yes. So I think steam distillation, the it's you the steam is distilling liquid as well from the solid. So there's more normal distillation. It's still technically steam distillation, but you're You're heating something up, and you're usually separating 2 liquids from each other.

Melissa: 23:13

So in this case Okay. It's you heat this the water up. Yeah. The heat of the steam seems to vaporize the molecules in the plant material, and then they both condense down to liquid. In normal distillation, you're usually separating 2 liquids out.

Melissa: 23:30

So you're distilling 1 and collecting it, and that's it. That's all you're doing.

Jam: 23:35

Got it. Got it. And in this case, it's not the final product because we get water, that's condensed back, and then also the oil from the lavender plant is mixed in together. So it still has to do other stuff to get it to a pure oil For later use or whatever?

Melissa: 23:54

Yes. That was my understanding. I'm not 100% sure. That was my understanding of of that method is that you are going to have to do more work because you're collecting the water and the oil together.

Jam: 24:07

Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. And then the last 1 is supercritical, c o two?

Melissa: 24:16

Yep. That's right. Okay. And it's

Jam: 24:19

just this one's like it's tough because it does a good job, but it's not the most popular in terms of personality. Like, people just feel like it's really Critical and kinda hard to get along well with, and so people don't really enjoy it. That's was that right?

Melissa: 24:36

Just kidding. That's a 100%. That's the science.

Jam: 24:40

It's like the kind of it's the kind of extraction that you can't really watch a movie with. You know? Just, like, Way too judgmental the whole time.

Melissa: 24:47

Way too critical. Hypercritical.

Jam: 24:50

And that one's the the crazy one that is weirder and dang it. I'm having a hard time remembering what you said about it.

Melissa: 25:02

Basically, they can it's very complicated, but they can adjust the pressure and the temperature of the CO 2, and they use that to run the CO 2 through an extraction vessel that has the Ground up lavender in it. Mhmm. And somehow that extracts the somehow the c o two is the is the thing which is extracting the, the oils, and I am not clear on how. And this just gave a very brief overview, And I wasn't satisfied with anything else I found. I was worried it would get too complicated for our listeners.

Melissa: 25:39

So just in in that case, know the CO 2 is the thing that's extracting it out.

Jam: 25:43

Okay. Got it. The CO 2 is the thing doing it. So the so to compare, it's like the first one is a solvent kind of thing, something that Is is that the word you said? Solvent that can kind of break down the oil and get it out of the plant?

Jam: 25:59

Second 1 is just Water, steam is the main thing. Mhmm. And then the third one is CO 2.

Melissa: 26:06

That's exactly right. And I did find I pulled up the paper again just to answer your question. The steam distillation, they did for 5 hours.

Jam: 26:18

Okay.

Melissa: 26:18

The forever boil, the sockload extractor, they did for 3 hours.

Jam: 26:22

Okay.

Melissa: 26:22

And the supercritical c o two, It was 40 minutes.

Jam: 26:29

Wow. Okay. That makes a huge difference.

Melissa: 26:32

Yes. The that one was the fastest. Absolutely a 100%.

Jam: 26:37

Wow. That's crazy.

Melissa: 26:40

It was pretty crazy. It was pretty fun to read this paper, Actually, I was very interested in in this and all the things they found. So so the amount of times varied and so did the chemical composition based on different methods of extraction.

Jam: 26:55

Mhmm.

Melissa: 26:55

But overall, the major compounds were the same. So we had the linalool, The Linoyl Acetate, and then there's there's camphor in in these that they extracted. There's 2 other. It's camphor and one other compound I can't remember off the top of my head. Not all lavender has camphor, though.

Melissa: 27:15

A lot of it does, but not all of it does. So This was one particular type that did. So

Jam: 27:20

Got it.

Melissa: 27:20

There was a lot of different small compounds that they found when they studied everything that made it up, but the major ones were the same no matter what kind of extraction they

Jam: 27:30

did. Okay. I forgot to say any of those compounds whenever I said my explanation, so sorry

Melissa: 27:35

about that. That's okay. I think the main thing was about the how they are extracted. Uh-huh. Okay.

Melissa: 27:42

So that is essential oil. That is how lavender oil is extracted, and that is what it's made up of.

Jam: 27:52

So this might show some of my, like, lack of knowledge, but is lavender oil one of the most popular essential oils?

Melissa: 27:59

Have no idea. I don't know much about essential oils. But

Jam: 28:02

Okay. Okay.

Melissa: 28:03

Lavender oil is the one. I like the smell of lavender, and a lot of my roommates use it because it's purported to have a lot of benefits.

Jam: 28:10

Mhmm.

Melissa: 28:11

But I should say, one of the papers I read did indicate that commercial lavender oil can be tampered with or mixed with other things. So this everything that I just said and everything I'm about to say is of of True and pure lavender oil extracted from lavender.

Jam: 28:30

Got it. Got it. Not all are you can't assume that about every Lavender oil you find in a store or something.

Melissa: 28:35

Yes. Exactly.

Jam: 28:37

Got it.

Melissa: 28:38

Okay. So Now let's talk about what lavender oil does according to science.

Jam: 28:45

Yes, please. This is what I'm jazzed about.

Melissa: 28:48

Me too.

Jam: 28:49

I mean,

Melissa: 28:49

extraction is cool too. Yeah. Well, you've gotta extract to get to the science. You know?

Jam: 28:55

Right. Right.

Melissa: 28:56

So people talk about lavender oil all the time, about how great it is, about how it helps you sleep, about how it does this, how it does that. But, again, I had a healthy dose of skepticism.

Jam: 29:06

But what

Melissa: 29:06

I found out is that lavender oil is very well documented to be antimicrobial.

Jam: 29:12

Oh, interesting.

Melissa: 29:14

And 1 paper I read said that they're testing it as an alternative to current antibiotics.

Jam: 29:20

Woah. That is crazy.

Melissa: 29:22

I know. I know. It's amazing. They one of the things I saw in the the paper that did the 3 different types of they tested its antimicrobial activity after the extraction to see how effective the different ones were.

Jam: 29:36

Wow.

Melissa: 29:37

It's also known to be antifungal, so it keeps fungus from growing, and it has antioxidant properties. I was the most surprised by that because it doesn't have those long chains of alternating double bonds like you see in some other Antioxidants, but it could be that there's another compound present that does have some of those that I just didn't, actually lay eyes on. But it is That paper also tested the antioxidant properties after different types of extraction.

Jam: 30:07

Mhmm.

Melissa: 30:08

So all that stuff I didn't know about, and it's really cool. That is very well documented, apparently. Antimicrobial, antifungal, and antioxidant was documented.

Jam: 30:20

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 30:21

But then I found a paper called lavender oil and the nervous system, and that indicated a lot. I was very excited about it. It was a review. It's called the review paper where it just summarizes all these other studies that have been done about this one topic. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 30:39

And unlike magnesium, lavender oil has been shown to transport through the skin. The main components were found in the bloodstream after being massaged onto the skin.

Jam: 30:48

Wow.

Melissa: 30:50

It showed it told about a study where women exposed to lavender oil demonstrated regional Activity in their brain indicating there was a relaxation effect.

Jam: 30:59

Okay. Wow.

Melissa: 31:01

I know. And it said that mice exposed to lavender oil or the linalool in the air displayed reduced stress responses such as they were less aggressive, And they did a lot of different studies that showed that they had a relaxing effect on the mice if they were exposed to lavender or lanolue oil.

Jam: 31:22

Woah. Mhmm. That's interesting. Like, that you can, like, Measure relaxing. You know?

Jam: 31:28

It's like yeah. You can see that that's happening. Wow.

Melissa: 31:32

Yeah. It's so cool. And in humans, they're testing lavender taken orally as an alternative to lorazepam, which both treats seizures and is a sedative.

Jam: 31:46

Dang. That is crazy.

Melissa: 31:49

It's so cool. I actually copied an excerpt out of the paper to read you. It might be a little mumbo jumbo y, but I think you can kinda get the idea.

Jam: 31:56

Okay. Sweet.

Melissa: 31:58

And I actually copied this and sent it to one of my friends who struggles with sleeping because I was because I was like, oh, we've science is helping you. So it says, in addition, lavender improved associated symptoms such as restlessness, disturbed sleep, and somatic complaints and had a beneficial influence on general well-being and quality of life. Mhmm. In line with this study, the efficacy of a 6 week intake of oral lavender preparation, they have a specific amount of that. Compared to lorazepam was investigated in adults with generalized anxiety disorder.

Melissa: 32:33

This study indicates that the lavender effectively ameliorates Generalized anxiety comparable to 0.5 milligram daily lorazepam. Alleviation of anxiety and mood improvement were reported in 36 Patients admitted to intensive care unit who received lavender oil aromatherapy. The same results were reported for 14 female patients who are being treated with chronic Hemodialysis. A survey in a long stay neurology inpatient department showed increased mood scores and reduced psychological distress Following aromatherapy with Lavender accompanied with tea tree and rosemary.

Jam: 33:09

Wow.

Melissa: 33:10

Isn't that wild?

Jam: 33:12

So measurable positive effect. Like

Melissa: 33:15

Yes.

Jam: 33:16

Wow.

Melissa: 33:17

And those are kind of small numbers, you know, just a 20 or 14 or 8. That's not a A huge large scale study.

Jam: 33:25

Right.

Melissa: 33:26

But that was encouraging and interesting to me, and those Were findings published in peer reviewed journals about lavender?

Jam: 33:34

Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay.

Melissa: 33:35

And now these are these this is a review. Not all of this stuff is in human trial phase. I don't know everything about what the drawbacks are. I'm not giving you medical advice to take Lavender oil. But I am very impressed at the findings of lavender oil, and it seems that there is some scientific basis to the idea that lavender oil can reduce stress and maybe help with infection.

Jam: 34:05

There's, like, there's something there. There's a there's some promise for sure in the general sense. Not like a if we take this for these specific things that we mentioned or whatever, but like a It's it seems like there's definitely real scientifically, like, definable potential to Lavender oil. That's very interesting.

Melissa: 34:25

It's so interesting. I was so excited. I was so blown away. As disappointed as I was by Epsom salt, That's how excited I was by lavender oil. Yeah.

Melissa: 34:36

So

Jam: 34:36

So, yeah, I'm I I think I'm down. I'm if I'm understanding correctly, I'll just drink a liter of lavender oil every morning and then

Melissa: 34:45

No. This is not medical advice. I'm not telling you to take lavender oil in any way that's an Safe.

Jam: 34:52

Okay.

Melissa: 34:52

And I don't think the lavender essential oils are food grade, but

Jam: 34:56

Yeah.

Melissa: 34:56

I think there's you know, you can have lavender syrup or lavender and other things. So maybe in that Food grade case, it would be it could have beneficial effects, but I'm not a doctor.

Jam: 35:07

Yes. And I'm not either. I'm just a jokester, So don't do what I said, please.

Melissa: 35:13

Well, that's it. That's what I have for you about lavender oil.

Jam: 35:16

Dude, awesome. I love it. That was very interesting. Just very surprising.

Melissa: 35:20

Excited.

Jam: 35:20

Not what I expected. I'm definitely on the skeptic side like you are too, and so just would not have expected Any episode like this to have yielded some exciting results like that?

Melissa: 35:32

Yeah. I wasn't sure what I would find, but I'm really glad that I dug into this topic. I think this is really exciting. And that's not to say all essential oils have these properties. I mean, we it just probably depends on the plant and the chemical makeup and everything, but lavender oil does seem to have some scientific evidence to back that it has positive impact Physically and mentally.

Jam: 35:54

Mhmm. That's awesome.

Melissa: 35:55

Very cool.

Jam: 35:56

Very, very cool. Is it time to talk about our weeks?

Melissa: 36:02

I think yes. Yeah. Definitely.

Jam: 36:05

So mine is pretty short and pretty simple, but something kinda cool that happened my week this week is just that My son got a chance to meet his only cousin on my side of the family. That's fun. He's got a lot of cousins on my wife's side of the family. He's the 12th of the cousins on that side. But On my side, he is only the 2nd, and so that is really cool.

Jam: 36:32

And it was very, very special to get to to see that and get them have a chance to meet. They're only about a year apart, and so, just was cool. Just a definitely a cool kinda thing to witness.

Melissa: 36:44

And is that your niece, Harmony, who we've seen very cute pictures of

Jam: 36:47

in the past? Yes. It is. And we've talked yeah. And we've talked a lot about Steph.

Jam: 36:53

So, yes, she's she's very special.

Melissa: 36:56

Oh, that's so sweet. I'm glad you shared that with us.

Jam: 37:00

So how about yours? You don't have to directly compete. I know it's pretty impossible to top something that cute and sweet, but

Melissa: 37:07

It really is cute.

Jam: 37:09

Your week late?

Melissa: 37:10

Little babies meeting is the cutest thing. Well, I'll just go with, actually, my health. So I just been feeling kind of, like, low, not getting a lot of work done for the past several weeks and kind of doing the bare minimum and then going home and going to sleep and Mhmm.

Jam: 37:27

It

Melissa: 37:27

was very weird. And I finally went to the doctor. I had gone to the doctor at the beginning of that.

Jam: 37:34

Mhmm. But I

Melissa: 37:34

think I just was convincing myself it would pass. It was allergies or all these things. You know? Mhmm. I finally went back to the doctor, and I had a sinus infection that whole time.

Melissa: 37:44

So I took some medicine. Yes. I am feeling so much better now because I got some medicine for it.

Jam: 37:51

Mhmm.

Melissa: 37:51

And it's amazing what it feels like to have energy again. Mhmm.

Jam: 37:54

It

Melissa: 37:54

feels so good. You know? I can work a full day, and I don't want to take a nap in the middle of it.

Jam: 37:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Like, your body's working hard on trying to fight something for a while, and that that would take a lot of energy out of you.

Jam: 38:05

That makes total sense. Yeah. Well, thank very good. I'm glad that you are feeling better.

Melissa: 38:11

Me too. I feel so much better. So I'm very happy, and I have lots of energy to go in-depth on all the amazing things that lavender oil does. So Mhmm. Thanks so much for coming and learning and being excited about lavender oil with me.

Melissa: 38:25

Maybe can make us some lavender oil coffee.

Jam: 38:28

Yes. Yes. Yes. I definitely should explore that. I've heard of a lot of different lavender related coffee drinks, so I'll have to look into that.

Melissa: 38:35

Lavender syrup or something? Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks Again, for coming and learning all about lavender. This is so exciting to share with you.

Melissa: 38:43

And thanks also to the listeners at home. We definitely can do this about you. So thanks for Sending in your questions about essential oils and for asking questions. We really appreciate it.

Jam: 38:55

And thank you so much for teaching us. It's a very, very interesting topic. Wilson and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry in everyday life just like this one, but we wanna hear from you just like this Topic came from a listener. So if you have questions or ideas, you can reach out to us on Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook at chem for your life. That's Kem, f o r, Your life to share your thoughts and ideas.

Jam: 39:14

If you like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to kodashfi.com/chem for your life and donate the cost of a cup of coffee. If you're not able to donate, you can still help us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app and rating and writing review on Apple Podcasts. That also helps us to able to share chemistry with even more people.

Melissa: 39:34

This episode of chemistry for your life was created by Melissa Colini and Jam Robinson. References for this episode can be found in our show notes or on our website. Dara Robinson is our producer, and we'd like to give a special thanks to s Flint and a Hefner who reviewed this episode.