There are lots of health benefits of using lemongrass essential oil.
The Latin name for lemongrass is Cymbopogon Flexuosus. It’s a genus which contains about 55 different grasses (according to Dr. Axe).
Lemongrass can grow 6 feet tall and is found in tropical regions (India, Southeast Asia, Oceania). A lot of people think of lemongrass as a seasoning used for cooking, but it actually has a lot of healing properties.
Some of the healing properties in lemongrass can help with muscle pain, reduces depression, kills bacteria, keep bugs away, and helping your digestive system.
Did I mention it’s one of the cheapest essential oils? However, because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful stuff.
13 Health Benefits of Lemongrass Essential Oil
So, down below I am going to show you some of the most popular ways you can use lemongrass. I will update this list as frequently as I can.
Lemongrass has been known to be a skin irritant. You should never use lemongrass during pregnancy and keep it away from your eyes. Also, it’s toxic for cats.
Lemongrass mixes well with cedarwood, basil, coriander, geranium, lavender, jasmine, and tea tree.
Deodorizer
Lemongrass essential oil is a natural deodorizer. No, I am not stating that you don’t need to use deodorant if you use lemongrass. Many people use this in a variety of ways. Many of the “store bought” deodorants can be a skin irritant, though. You can use it with as a roll-on where it’s mixed with a carrier oil. It’s environmentally friendly, too.
You can put a few drops of the oil in some water then put the mixture in a diffuser. This will give the entire house a nice scent. You could also add some other essential oils (like rosemary and orange) to it to make your own personal scent.
Skin Health
Lemongrass essential oil is great for the skin. This is why it’s used in so many different shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and lotions. It acts as an astringent and gives your skin that glowing shine to it. There are many people that use it to clear up acne and other skin disorders because it works very well.
You can add it to pretty much anything that you use on your skin, such as deodorant, soap, and lotion. The great thing is that it can clean any skin types and really helps sanitize your pores, which helps reduce the chances of blackheads and pimples.
Hair Health
There are many different people that are using lemongrass essential oil in their hair. This keeps their hair in great shape. Lemongrass will actually strengthen your hair follicles. Therefore, it’s great if you’re struggling with hair loss or a dry and itchy scalp. Like your skin it will leave your hair shiny, and also will give your hair a pleasant odor to it, too.
It will help keep your hair moisturized and grow faster. All you do is rub a few drops in your scalp or put it into your shampoo.
Alleviates Depression
Lemongrass is an uplifting aroma that helps many people fight depression. It will help boost your self-esteem, mental strength, confidence, hope, and uplifts your spirit. If you’re going through a part in your life where you feel very lonesome, suffering from insecurity, etc. lemongrass can help eliminate those symptoms.
Bug Repellent
Using lemongrass essential oil is fantastic as a bug repellent. Just like peppermint, it’s good for repelling bugs. It repels bugs like ants and mosquitoes. Lemongrass has even been used to kill fleas, too. The great thing is that you can use it right on your skin and it has a very mild scent. If you add about 5 drops of essential oils to some water, you’ll be able to make your own bug repellent spray.
Lastly, if you want to keep your pets safe from bugs you can mix 5-10 drops and spray their fur. Not cats though because it can be toxic to them.
Stress & Sleep
Having lemongrass essential oil around is great for reducing the stress in a person’s life. No, you can’t just spray people that stress you out; it doesn’t work that way. Not only does it help with stress it helps with anxiety, irritability, and even insomnia.
For stress, I would recommend making a lotion. For sleep issues, it can help improve the quality of your sleep. This is because it has some hypnotic and sedative qualities. This study in 2011 shows that it was effective for increasing sleep time.
Muscle Relaxer
Using lemongrass essential oil can be used as a muscle relaxer. A person just needs to rub it on the affected area with a carrier oil. Make sure you do a small skin test to make sure your body isn’t allergic to it. It helps to improve blood circulation, which will get your muscles feeling better. You can dilute the Lemongrass with your favorite lotion or body butter.
Your muscles can relax and it can alleviate muscle spasms, cramps, and other aches and pains. See this article on essential oils for pain.
Detoxifying
Lemongrass can also be used to detoxify. People love to use this when they want to clean out their system. In other words, it removes the impurities that can cause someone to feel lethargic and sickly. For instance, lemongrass helps detoxify your liver, digestion tract, bladder, pancreas, and kidneys. It actually works as a diuretic, so ingesting it will help flush out all the toxins.
Menstrual Cramp Relief
Women can use the lemongrass essential oil to menstrual cramp relief too. It helps with nausea and irritability. People have been drinking lemongrass tea for years to help with menstrual cramps.
In this book by H. K. Bakhru an “Herbs That Heal: Natural Remedies for Good Health” lemongrass mixed with black pepper is recommended during difficult menstruation cycles. It’s is commonly infused as a treatment.
Stomach Protector & Gastric Ulcer Cure
The lemongrass essential oil can be used to protect someone’s stomach and is a long-term gastric ulcer cure. When lemongrass is diffused it can help treat diarrhea and nausea. If you are going to consume lemongrass you need to make sure it’s 100% pure, though.
Also, in this book “Herb & Spice Companion: The Complete Guide to Over 100 Herbs & Spices” by Lindsay Herman lemongrass can calm the stomach, and is considered to be widely used for healthy digestion.
Headache
One of the most popular uses for lemongrass essential oil is to treat headaches. Many people find relief by rubbing a little bit of the oil on their temples. Often times, it will completely make the headache stop, while other times it will ease it enough that you won’t be in excruciating pain.
This study that was conducted in 2011 shows that lemongrass was very effective for treating headaches.
Kills Bacteria
Lemongrass has high amounts of citral and limonene, which can stop the growth and kill bacteria. It can also help prevent you from getting things, like athlete’s foot and ringworm. You can make your own body scrub or foot scrub to help prevent bacteria growth!
Fever Reducer
Lemongrass has been used to reduce fevers for an extremely long time. You can consume it and it will help reduce the temperatures. It works the same way if you get a lemongrass infusion.
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Hopefully, this article helps you learn about lemongrass. If you have any questions about lemongrass please leave a comment down below.
8 thoughts on “13 Powerful Lemongrass Essential Oil Benefits”
Lemongrass appears in many refrigerated bottled juices and is one of many ingredients I like to check for. But, it hadn’t occurred t me to get the essential oil for those varying uses. Thanks!
Hey Tina,
You are correct lemongrass is in lots of different food beverages. One of the most popular ones is tea. This is because it has so many healing properties. As an essential oil lemongrass can be even more powerful, though.
I am always interested in natural products to treat and soothe remedies, a very interesting read. I look forward to using lemongrass oil next time I have a headache.
Hey Joseph,
Certainly, you should try out lemongrass. It has so many healing properties. It’s great for headaches.
great article. I use other essential oils but did not know lemongrass had so many uses. I get headaches often so have had to live on ibuprofen which I would prefer not to do. I will give lemongrass a try. also, rubbing alcohol is a great deodorant – it kills the bacteria that cause the odor – I keep a spray bottle of it in my purse to spray on a few times a day. I have used orange oil to lessen the smell of the alcohol but I wonder if lemongrass would be better since there are so many benefits? what do you think?
Hey Corey,
I don’t like taking ibuprofen daily. The important thing to remember about taking ibuprofen is you need to take it on a full stomach.
I have heard of using rubbing alcohol as a deodorant. However, you should certainly add some lemongrass or orange essential oil to it. It’s really a matter of what scent you prefer. You could also use Tea Tree if you wanted. It’s great as a deodorant.
Hey Garen! This is an interesting article and very informative as usual. I was wondering though, is there a mixture of essential oils that can be used as deodorant?
Also, I used to use a diffuser until I got hermit crabs. They are very sensitive but I’m not really sure how essential oils in diffusers effect them. I was wondering if you knew anything about this?
Thanks for sharing,
Marlinda
Hey Marlinda,
Essential oils can be used as a deodorant. For instance you can use:
Thyme.
Lavender.
Tea Tree.
Rosemary.
Geranium.
Lemon.
Lemon and lemongrass are very strong essential oils. Meaning you need less. For instance, a couple of drops of lemon and lemongrass are fine. But, for lavender you might need 5-8 drops.
For a deodorant, you typically mix the essential oil with baking soda and dip your finger in the mixture after showering.
Lavender, eucalyptus, citronella, pennyroyal, peppermint, and lemongrass are essential oils that are bad for hermit crabs though. They are toxic for hermit crabs. I would avoid using them.