Put a few drops of Young Living Mountain Savory essential oil into your diffuser and inhale to escape the city and put on your virtual hiking boots and breathe in the crisp, majestic mountain air.
It’s your ticket to the top of the summit without leaving home. Crack open the lid of your oil bottle and you’re just about there.
Lie back, put up your feet, allow its slightly-sweet, fresh and peppery aroma to invigorate and energise you. You might not be ready for Mt Everest, but you’ll sure as heck be ready to dig into the garden or get stuck into all those projects you’ve been putting off.
With a flavour akin to oregano, mountain savory essential oil (Satureja montana, also known as winter savory) is steam distilled from the flowering, shrubby perennial with its soft purple flowers and woody stems. This herbaceous plant grows in the warm temperate areas throughout the Mediterranean and southern Europe.
It’s a member of the prolific Lamiaceae botanical family, along with basil, clary sage, dorado azul, hyssop, lavandin and true lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), marjoram, melissa, oregano, patchouli, peppermint, rosemary, sage, Spanish, sage, spearmint, thyme and vitex.
The Lamiaceae family is a chef’s best friend! It’s commonly known as the mint family (and deadnettle, though mint sounds much more appealing) and found all around the world. These plants are easily cultivated from stem cuttings, which could also help account for how widespread and common they are.
General characteristics include pretty flowers and beautiful, herbaceous fragrances, with many being used in cooking as we’ve mentioned before.
Most leaves of this family contain volatile oils, which makes them a walk-up start for essential oil distillation.
Fun fact: catnip is also a member of the Lamiaceae family! As a cat lover, I like to think nature knew what she was doing when she gave the catnip plant heart-shaped leaves.
But I’m digressing down a side-track in today’s olfactory mountain climb, so let’s get back to mountain savory in particular.
Traditionally used for a long, long time as an all-over ‘feel good’ tonic, inhalation of mountain savory is revitalising, stimulating and motivating.
You can tap into its tonic-like properties with Young Living’s blend called ImmuPower™ which includes mountain savory in its ingredients, along with hyssop, cistus, oregano, cumin and a bunch of other fortifying oils.
The plant has been used as a culinary herb since ancient Roman times if not earlier, where it was cultivated and eventually its popularity caught on in Europe and around the globe as
an addition to meats, stews, soups, even preserves, and as a substitute for pepper.
Culinary herbs are great for both flavour and enhancing our digestion’s natural ability to do its job, so diffusing mountain savory at meal times is a great choice for your dining essential oils playlist.
When it comes to topical application, mountain savory is high in phenols, as are oregano and thyme. And just like them, it’s considered to be a hot oil. So it’s wise to go gently when applying it to the skin, and always dilute generously. Around 4 parts of pure carrier oil to one part mountain savory is a guide from which you can fine tune your own skin’s sensitivity and needs.
From a mood perspective, along with energising and stimulating, mountain savory is thought to help us go with the flow and release the need for control over things in our lives and others. This tells us why it’s a key ingredient in Young Living’s beautiful essential oil blend Surrender™.
Not all oils are created equal. Far from it. Quality varies immensely, so please ensure you are choosing a brand with complete transparency from seed to seal, such as Young Living. Discover why we love them so much in this short video.
Essential oils are potent, so as always, please follow directions on the bottle and the usual guidelines for safe use of authentic essential oils.
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