Essential Oil Spotlight: Cinnamon

A friend of mine has a signature when serving up coffees to guests at home. He always includes a cinnamon quill in the cup for stirring in your low GI sweetening agent of choice. And even if you don’t add sugar or honey, you score a cinnamon quill. He says, “Everyone can do with sweetening up or spicing up.”  Maybe he’s onto something.

So aside from being a talking point with friends and a pantry stalwart, cinnamon is good for us, of course, as are pretty much all herbs and spices. Traditional remedies going back to AD78 with Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica include it, so clearly ancient medicine has believed in its powers for a long, long time.

Cinnamon is potent and essential oils are already potent by nature, being the highly concentrated form of the goodness in plants. So please bear this in mind when you’re using it and rotate its use with other oils rather than using it excessively. It can irritate nasal membranes if inhaled too closely so please don’t sniff it straight from the bottle or have it diffusing too close or for long periods. Pay close attention to the usual guidelines for safe use of authentic essential oils as this one can bite you if you don’t.

Cinnamon bark is the single oil supplied by Young Living. It’s extracted by steam distillation and the plants can be sourced from Sri Lanka, Ceylon and Madagascar.

Cinnamaldehyde is the highest constituent in cinnamon bark essential oil.  This organic compound is responsible for giving cinnamon its flavour and smell.  It generally sits in the 50 to 75% range for a genuine, unadulterated essential oil. (That’s the only kind you’d ever use, right? Are you sure? Please click here and we’ll connect you up with the ones we trust: Young Living.)

Energetically, cinnamon is quite fiery, and physically so, too, hence the earlier caution.

Bearing that in mind, we need firing up sometimes, don’t we? It can be a tremendous motivator for change and shaking up our status quo, and it’s thought to attract wealth.   Cinnamon is included in the Young Living blends of Abundance™, Gathering™, Highest Potential™, Magnify Your Purpose™ amongst others, so you can tell from their names that it’s useful in those areas. It’s also thought to help with letting go of dogmatic tendencies and attachment, freeing you up to new attitudes and responses.  All good things, surely.

Some of our old buried stuff can be released by cinnamon, so it’s good to remain aware of that and get into observer mode. Just breathe, notice what surfaces without getting caught up in it and let it go, asking it to be safely dispersed once it has left you.

As far as its physical attributes go, cinnamon is a key active ingredients in Young Living’s Thieves® natural cleaning range so it’s highly effective for cleansing and purifying. Don’t worry about its ‘hotness’ when it comes to using those products, as its concentration is powerful enough to be effective but completely safe to use with bare hands. And you can freely enjoy the spicy, fresh smell of Thieves® while you’re cleaning with no harmful fumes or irritation. If you don’t believe me, check out my ‘non-toxic oven cleaning in action’ video then contact me to order. You’ll be gobsmacked.

When it comes to using the single essential oil, generous dilution with a good quality carrier oil like olive, sweet almond or Young Living V-6 Enhanced Vegetable Oil Complex is the safest path, and avoid using on sensitive areas.

Enjoy this oil with respect for its fiery nature and it will reward you handsomely.

Enjoy the good oil daily.

The information on this site does not constitute advice. Please consult with your health practitioner. When using any of the products mentioned throughout this site, please be sure to read the labels and follow their suggestions for safe use. We make commissions from sales via many of the products we recommend but we only suggest products we genuinely enjoy and want you to benefit from.