Do you love eating different cuisines or drinking wines from overseas because it feels like you’re getting a taste of another country without leaving home?
I do!
Essential oils can help you travel without travelling, too. When you’re applying or inhaling one of these precious gifts of nature, it’s likely to have originated from a plant that was grown in soil a long way from wherever you call home.
Ledum essential oil is known more commonly as Greenland Moss or Labrador Tea. If your geography knowledge is more than fair to middlin’, those alternate names will have you wondering if ledum comes from east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in Greenland, or from continental Canada. And you’d be thereabouts right.
The essential oil is steam distilled from the flowering tips. People indigenous to that region have counted on the tea from ledum leaves – Labrador Tea – for thousands of years as a general tonic, especially for support with keeping one’s inner workings cleansed.
The tea is high in vitamin C and considered to be a tremendous aid in warding off scurvy. Given the oft-harsh climatic conditions where citrus isn’t so easily grown and plentiful, no wonder ledum and ‘Labrador Tea’ has always been highly valued there.
Interestingly from a botanical point of view, its family Ericaceae is not shared by many other essential oils. In my particular favourite oils reference guide, the only one I could find is wintergreen. And their constituents are very different, likewise their features and benefits so to speak.
Ledum’s key constituents are a bunch of mouthfuls: limonene, alpha-selinene, cis-para-mentha-1(7),8-dien-8-ol, trans- para-mentha-1(7),8-dien-8-ol and trans-para-mentha-1,3,8-Triene. Wintergreen on the other hand is over 90% methyl salicylate. Also interestingly, though, in spite of their differences, both are used as teas. Where ledum is used for Labrador Tea, the leaves of wintergreen are used to make Thé des Bois.
For the information of keen DIY perfumers, it’s classified as a middle note, with strongly aromatic with a freshly herbaceous, woodsy and earthy fragrance that verges on medicinal.
Energetically speaking, ledum helps to support flow, and is felt to have a harmonising and balancing aroma.
This energy of flow, harmonising and balancing makes ledum a beautiful oil for diffusing or adding to your favourite daily personal perfume blend to help your day and interactions feel like they are in tune. This essential oil is only seasonally available as a single oil, so keep your eyes out for its availability and add a bottle to your collection when you can.
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Young Living includes ledum oil in JuvaCleanse™ essential oil blend along with helichrysum and celery.
JuvaCleanse™ is a companion oil that can be used on its own or alongside Young Living’s food powder JuvaPower®. This is a vegetable and fibre complex that’s a tremendous source of acid-binding foods, along with being enhanced with essential oils of anise and fennel. I love it because if my vegetable and fibre intake hasn’t quite been as flash as I’d like, I put a sprinkle over what I’m eating and it makes me feel a little more saintly.
If you’re doing a spring clean of your system, ledum single essential oil, JuvaCleanse™ and JuvaPower® can provide great general support for your efforts in that area.
Spring cleaning your system is one thing, but how about your chakras? They often can do with a sparkle up, too.
If you suspect there are blockages, a drop of ledum applied topically to all your chakras (dilute as needed) can help to release them. Here’s a lovely comforting method to incorporate into this: add 1-2 drops of ledum to a splash of pure carrier oil like Young Living V6 Enhanced Vegetable Complex and lightly massage over your tummy and midriff area.
When you’re feeling like energetically and spiritually you are in a state of flow, it’s easier to open your throat chakra and speak your truth, so this can be an added benefit.
Essential oils are potent, so as always, please follow directions on the bottle and the usual guidelines for safe use of authentic essential oils.
My preferred source of essential oils and diffusers is Young Living. Not all oils are created equal. 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.
This will also connect you up with The Good Oil Team for our personal support and coaching. We'd love to help you on your journey to vibrant well-being the natural way!
Any questions? Please get in touch via our Contact page.
