foeniculum vulgare (fennel) oil

Fennel is an herb and it has distinctive aroma and mouth refreshing taste. Fennel seeds are either used as a whole or crushed to either make an extract or they are steam distilled to get volatile oil. It is medicinally also very much useful. It mainly contains fenchone and anethol, d-pinene, phellandrene, anisaldehyde, and anisic acid. The fennel seed extract is usually in water, and light to amber colored liquid. There are two different varieties of fennel, one variety is sweet fennel and anethol is an ingredient responsible for fennel’s taste and fragrance; another variety is bitter fennel, and essential oil comes from wild fennel plants; they lack in the constituent anethol, and that’s the reason they are bitter in taste. However, they have another constituent called alpha-phellandrene.

Fennel essential oil/extract has all those active constituents which can nourish skin as they can get absorbed quickly. It is also medicinally and cosmetically active constituent. It helps cleanse the skin, by mainly loosening of dead skin cells from the top epidermal layer. These dead skin cells also have debris and dirt embedded into them, so when this unwanted dead skin cell layer comes off the skin, helps the bright newer looking skin to show up on the surface. Bitter fennel oil is also used in cosmetics to provide its skin protective effect. It improves microcirculation in the skin, thus helps getting rid of toxins faster. Essential oil/extract also rejuvenates skin because of many terpenes or triterpenes. The oil and extract both are used in lotions, toners, bath products, and eye serums.