Can Essential Oils Kill Bacteria?

Essential oils are highly concentrated plant extracts that not only provide the pleasant fragrance we can smell, various therapeutic benefits for the mind and body but also have powerful antimicrobial properties - they kill bacteria, fungi and viruses.

When developing the MadeKind range of natural cleaning products Caroline and I spent a huge amount of time researching the different properties of essential oils and selected our 'signature blend' of Lavender, Rosemary and Peppermint essential oils for their natural ability to kill bacteria, fungi and viruses, as well as smell incredible.

We dug deep into the science and discovered that there are specific volatile compounds in the oils which are responsible for this antimicrobial power, for example, aldehydes, phenolics and terpenes. Each has a different method of killing the microbes; some bind to their cell walls and cause the cell to leak whilst others disrupt the bacteria's metabolism. There is lots of research being carried out to look into the incredible effects of these plant based chemicals, specifically how they can inhibit the growth of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics in recent years.

If you would like to learn more, we suggest you read these articles; they are quite heavy on the science but fascinating!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3873673/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1329936016300888

https://medcraveonline.com/ACP/antibacterial-activities-of-rosemary-essential-oils-andnbsptheir-components-against-pathogenic-bacteria.html

https://bmccomplementmedtherapies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6882-13-338