Essential Oil – Tea Tree

Botanical name: Melaleuca alternifolia

Color: Very pale yellow/green

Consistency: Thin

Perfumery note: Top

Related Planets/Deities: None

Aroma: Strong, spicy, warm, bracing, medicinal

Energetic Properties: Healing, opening

Aromatherapy Properties: Tea tree oil is a water-white to pale yellow-green liquid with a fresh, bracing, medicinal odor. It blends well with clary sage, geranium, lavandin, lavender, marjoram, rosemary, and spice oils, especially clove and nutmeg oil.  

Spiritual Uses: Tea tree has a limited history of spiritual or magickal use. Some suggest tea tree oil may be useful in ritual purification, especially of spaces recently inhabited by sick people. With its fresh, camphoraceous qualities, tea tree oil also appears to be helpful in refreshing the spirit and clearing blocked or stagnant energy.

Blends well with: Lavender, Marjoram, Geranium, Nutmeg, Clove, Myrrh, Rosewood, and Cinnamon.

History: Native to Australia, and long used by Aboriginal peoples along with Eucalyptus, Tea tree was a surprising discovery for Captain James Cook when he landed on the continent in 1770. From that point on, Tea Tree’s reputation as a clarifying antiseptic spread among British colonists living in Australia. Formal scientific study of Melaleuca alternifolia was begun in the early 20th century. Among other things, recent studies have shown that Tea Tree is more effective than commercial medications against the scabies mite (in an in vitro solution), and has shown effectiveness against MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant superbug that sometimes infects hospitalized patients whose immune systems have been compromised.