Geranium essential oil is derived from the geranium flower which can be found around the world, but are native to the South African region, with its temperate climate. Geranium has been used by the Egyptians for the purposes of ensuring smooth and glowy skin but the geranium essential oil has numerous other health benefits besides glowy and radiant skin!

The geranium oil is extracted not through the flowers but through the leaves and the stems of the geranium plant instead, in a process called steam distillation. It has commonalities with Rose oil, but it is also a wonderful healing oil that is unique and special in its own ways. Read on to find out more about its all-natural healing benefits.

Uses of Geranium Essential Oil:

1. Prevents wrinkles and tones muscles

Due to geranium oil’s astringent properties, contractions in various parts of the body such as your muscles, skin, tissues and intestines will take place. This makes your skin firmer and prevents the onset of wrinkles or sagging skin, thus helping to maintain your skin’s youthful and radiant glow as well as fight off signs of ageing. Furthermore, it helps to tighten your muscles too, thus giving you a toned look that can no doubt boost your self confidence further!

How to Use It: To ward off wrinkles, simply add two drops of geranium oil into your daily face lotion and apply it two times in a day. To make your abdominal muscles more toned, simply create a massage oil by blending five drops of geranium oil with one tablespoon of jojoba oil and then apply it onto the desired area.

2. Prevents infections from wounds and cuts

With its strong antibacterial and antimicrobial agents, geranium essential oil is an antiseptic which can clean a wound and prevent bacteria from growing, thus warding off any infections that might result. Additionally, it can accelerate the healing process of external scrapes, cuts and wounds.

Furthermore, geranium essential oil can also be an effective all-natural remedy to fight athlete’s foot as well.

Because of its qualities of being a cicatrisant, geranium essential oil helps blood circulation below the surface of the skin and facilitates the fast healing of scars brought about by acne, wounds or other skin conditions. No longer do you have to go for expensive laser treatments to zap away all your scars when you can simply use geranium essential oil instead!

How To Use It: To treat skin wounds or cuts, apply two drops of geranium oil (that is diluted with a carrier oil beforehand) onto the affected area. You may wish to cover it with a gauze if you like until the wound is fully healed. To treat athlete’s foot, just add a few drops of geranium oil to a foot bath containing warm water and sea salt and do this twice in a day to see optimal results.

3. Induces blood clots

Because of its quality of being an astringent, it serves to contract blood vessels which helps to stem continuous blood flows and aids the formation of blood clots instead. This thus greatly helps in healing wounds or cuts, as mentioned above and prevents harmful substances from entering the body due to open wounds.

Additionally, because geranium essential oil is a hemostatic agent, it increases coagulation levels and helps to prevent hemorrhoids. In fact, a study conducted in 2013 and published in PubMed found that geranium oil had a significant impact on hemorrhage episodes as 75% of the patients felt that there was a tremendous improvement in their health. Since it is an all-natural remedy, there are no major side-effects to the treatment.

How To Use It: To apply it externally to induce blood clots on external wounds, simply follow the abovementioned method. Alternatively, according to Dr. Axe, you can also add one drop of geranium oil to your ice cream, frozen soy milk or even to a teaspoon of wheat germ.

4. Promotes the growth of cells

Geranium essential oil also promotes cell growth and cell rejuvenation, thus revitalizing your body further as it continually regenerates itself by producing new cells. This hence increases your metabolism rates and enables it to work effectively.

How To Use It: Add a few drops of geranium essential oil into a vaporizer or distiller and let the rose-like aroma engulf your whole room.

5. Promotes urination

Geranium oil has diurectic properties, which means it increases urination levels. While having to constantly excuse yourself to the toilet every now and then can be a hassle, urination is one of the main ways to effectively remove toxins out from your body.

Geranium essential oil can remove urea, uric acid, bile, excess salts, pathogens, excess water and other harmful substances out from your body, thus detoxifying your body and keeping it healthy and free from any potential diseases. Furthermore, urination helps to decrease blood pressure levels.

How To Use It: Simply inhale geranium oil through a vaporizer or a diffuser.

6. Promotes anti-inflammation

Geranium essential oil can be very efficacious in inhibiting inflammation, which can be detrimental to one’s health. In fact, research is being carried out to include geranium into anti-inflammatory drugs! With its anti-inflammatory properties, geranium essential oil can undoubtedly prevent many diseases that are caused by inflammation of the body parts, such as arthritis or even heart disease!

For example, a recent study done in 2013 and published in the Libyan Journal of Medicine found that geranium essential oil is able to significantly inhibit inflammatory effects. Furthermore, because of its natural ingredients, it exhibits far fewer side effects than normal prescriptions of anti-inflammatory drugs. As such, this development can prove to be highly significant as it can revolutionize anti-inflammatory treatments and prevent the onset of many diseases, which can help a lot of individuals!

How To Use It: Although more research needs to be done to incorporate geranium essential oil into anti-inflammatory treatments, you can also inhale geranium oil through a distiller or a vaporizer.

7. Prevents acne

As mentioned previously, geranium essential oil has antimicrobial and antibacterial properties which can help to mitigate the growth and spread of acne, as well as other skin conditions like dermatitis. Not only that, it can also help to accelerate the healing of acne scars, thus geranium essential oil can aid in the promotion of a smooth and healthy skin.

How To Use It: Mix 5 drops of geranium oil with a teaspoon of coconut oil and then apply it onto the desired area twice daily. Alternatively, you can add in a few drops of geranium oil to your daily skincare products.

8. Prevents respiratory infections

Geranium oil can also prevent any respiratory infections because of its antibiotic-like nature. This can kill off any germs or bacteria in your respiratory tracts, thus promoting the free passageway of air. Geranium essential oil thus seeks to effectively provide relief from any nose or throat infections, enabling you to stay healthy and fit always!

How To Use It: Dilute geranium essential oil with a carrier oil first and apply it topically to the nose and throat area to clear congestion of the air passageways. Alternatively, you can use a diffuser or apply 1-2 drops of diluted geranium oil onto your palms and inhale directly from there.

9. Relieves nerve pains

Because of its antiviral properties, geranium essential oil is able to combat nerve pains arising from shingles, which is caused by the herpes virus and offers relief from the condition. Since it is a potent medicinal mixture to promote healing of wounds and scars, geranium essential oil can also promote the active healing of shingles.

How To Use It: Simply mix 3 drops of geranium oil with a tablespoon of coconut oil and apply it to the affected area of the skin.

Other Uses

Other uses of geranium essential oils includes:

• Prevents Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

• Improves mental capacity and emotional health

• Prevents strong body odour as it forms a natural deodorant for your body

Safety Precautions:

• Always dilute geranium essential oil first with coconut, jojoba or olive oil equally before applying it topically onto your skin.

• Be sure to do a skin patch test, where you apply it to a non-sensitive area of your skin and leave it for 24 hours to ensure no allergic or sensitive reaction results.

• Avoid the eyes area when inhaling geranium so as to not cause any eye irritations.

• Because geranium essential oil can cause blood vessels to contract, it is not advisable for people who have high blood pressure or who are at risk of heart diseases to be using the oil. Please consult your doctor first before using geranium essential oil.

• It is not advisable for pregnant women or women who are breastfeeding to use geranium essential oil because it can interfere with hormonal levels.

• Geranium essential oil should not be used on babies and young children.

References:

Mohamed Nadjib Boukhatem, et al., “Rose geranium essential oil as a source of new and safe anti-inflammatory drugs”, Libyan Journal of Medicine (2013)

Reh DD, Hur K, Merlo CA, “Efficacy of a topical sesame/rose geranium oil compound in patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia associated epistaxis”, The Laryngoscope (2013); 123(4)