Bergamot has been a staple for me for the last ten years. I've used it almost every single day, and bergamot is one of my all-time favorite essential oils.
The fruit itself looks like a green brain. Bergamot is a unique looking fruit. Now although it is a bitter fruit, it produces a sweet essential oil. Bergamot is sourced from the coast of Calabria, Italy, which is so cool. It's from this region for a couple of reasons, for the acidic soil and the fresh sea air that that environment produces. Italians have been using bergamot for years for many, many purposes, for rejuvenating skin, for feelings of reducing stress, tension, and applying it as a cologne.
It's the base note in perfumes and colognes all over the world. It is a beautiful essential oil, and they also use it for a sweet treat, the fruit itself. They eat it, put it in their desserts, it's fantastic. You've probably ingested bergamot before because it's one of the main ingredients in earl gray tea.
Bergamot is such a unique oil, and what I love about it the most is the chemistry. Because as we know, oil from citrus fruits are pressed from the rind of the fruit. It's the only essential oil that's cold pressed, meaning they press the rind to squeeze the oil out. It's a very labor intensive process, and it takes roughly 45 to 65 peels of individual citrus fruit to make one 15 milliliter bottle of oil or 250 drops of oil.
So it's a very labor intensive process, a very cool process to produce citrus essential oils. Now bergamot is unique because most of the other citrus oils have a high concentration, upwards of 90% to 95% concentration of the molecule limonene. Limonene emotionally and physically is very energizing and very uplifting to both our mind and our body. But bergamot contains only 27% limonene, 29% linalool, which we see in a lot of the calming essential oils because linalool is very calming to the tissues of our body, our nervous system, and our emotions. Then 30% linalyl acetate, which is also in calming oils like lavender.
The 27% limonene give is the emotional energizing feel, while the remaining chemistry of bergamot is calming molecules, to our body, to our mind, to our nervous system, making this essential oil incredibly powerful for anytime you require calm energy. If you require focus; bergamot is the most beautiful oil to use for this. 48 other molecules make up the remaining 14% chemistry of this oil. So the diversity is incredible. We find the percentages at sourcetoyou.com for all of our single oils.
Anytime you feel tension or anxiousness, start diffusing bergamot to relieve any stress or bitterness in the air. A 2017 study in mental health care facilities looked at the results from diffusing bergamot in the waiting room. If you're a patient of mental health, you're going in there for things like depression, anxiety and for emotions you need help with controlling.
They diffused bergamot in the waiting room and had the patients wait for at least 15 minutes, breathing in bergamot. After at least 15 minutes of experiencing bergamot, their emotional test scores all showed an improvement in happiness, less anxious and depressed feelings, making bergamot a wonderful oil emotionally in that regard.
You can also use it in your daily skin routine. If you're looking for different ways to help purify your skin, use bergamot. Add it to your moisturizer every day. You can also use it topically like Jeff does, every day, all day long, in his cologne blend. I love it as a women's perfume note as well, adding it with other favorite essential oils to get that calming yet uplifting feeling that bergamot brings to you.
Now if you like ingesting essential oils, as Jeff does, add bergamot to your favorite beverage, three drops in hot tea, water or your favorite cocktail.
Bergamot is a beautiful oil with various benefits, and we hope you enjoy this oil as much as we do.