Melissa treats herpes. What about its hydrosol?

How much do we actually know about hydrolates and how can we tell from various pieces of advice whether a plant extract actually works and if there are conditions for it?
There are no miracle plants. There are only better or worse extracts of them. We reveal what to expect from them.

It's nice to read articles and essays that play on our emotions, which texts about plants that we grow with love in our home garden certainly are.

It is very important, however, that we are critical and distrustful when reading. Everyone and everywhere writes about the topics we have on our table today, and even in magazines and daily newspapers, the value of articles rarely exceeds bare translations and transcriptions from domestic and foreign online sources, which are also unsupported by relevant evidence, often completely false and misleading.

We are not saying that we are not tempted sometimes. We create a wonderful plant extract, which we later include in the MOIKA collection because we know that in synergy with the others it forms a perfect whole. I am talking mainly about raw materials or semi-finished products, such as hydrolates , hydroglycerites, macerates and the like.

So what tempts us? To share with you as much of its useful values ​​as possible, to accept it as we have poured it into a bottle, with great faith in nature and its power and at the same time understanding that it works holistically and that each benefit of an individual plant cannot be attributed to a single molecule, but rather that the plant gives much more of itself, at least in terms of the complexity of its action. Much more, then, than an isolated or individual synthetic substance that is otherwise present in the plant in question. However…

Lately, we've noticed that the internet is flooded with copycats, that brands are copying each other's descriptions of botanical extracts, that things are repeated so much that it's hard to keep track of who wrote what nonsense first.

Therefore, we are refining the texts and providing you with data for which there are empirical studies and their results. Important: all other actions of plant extracts are a matter of experience and we do not have objective evidence for them. This means that we will talk about them exceptionally and with special notes.

It is essential to understand that simply mapping a plant's portrait onto all its possible extracts is not possible and is even unacceptable.
Let's take rosehip tea, for example, which can help you get some vitamin C, but it's not nearly the same extract as rosehip oil. You won't get the vitamin into your skin with oil, no matter how strong the association is, and no matter how cunning the insinuations of oil sellers are. The vast majority of vitamin C is found in the skin of rosehips; vitamin C is water-soluble, so you're looking in vain for it in the oil that's extracted by pressing the seeds.

Perhaps the lines written here read pessimistically, negatively and despairingly. Let us comfort you, the world is still colorful, fragrant and beautiful, if we have the will to co-create it! And we can only do this if we are well informed. Do you agree? :)

Our guiding principle is constant education, reading, research, questioning, and doubt. Constant doubt and criticism of what is written. May it be yours as it carries you to the next paragraph.

Melissa and its hydrosol.

First, let's quickly refresh our knowledge. Botanical or plant extracts are prepared in various ways, and integral extracts, which involve drying and grinding the entire plant, are extremely rare today, or rather, are difficult to find as a prepared raw material for further use. Rather than the entire plant, parts of it are used in the extraction, depending of course on the effect we want to achieve. During the procedures themselves, various solvents are used, which bind various active ingredients (water, oils, alcohols, etc.).

You can imagine that an active ingredient that is soluble in oil will not be relevantly present in an aqueous extract and vice versa. In addition, extracts in the same medium that have been prepared and stored under different conditions (pressure, temperature, etc.) also differ. We do not want to be picky, but we just want to paint a slightly clearer picture and direct you to the correct way of research when you tackle the plant world for medicinal purposes.

So we traveled to a plant that we love very much and that caused us countless headaches in the garden.

You heard right. Lemon balm, which grows like a weed and doesn't need anything to thrive. Let's just say that in a mixed planting of perennial herbs, a small black caterpillar found it and indulged in it on the principle: all or nothing. We tried all the preparations that we otherwise know as natural insecticides (wormwood, nettle, Dalmatian fleabane, etc.), in the end we had to rescue the half-dead plants by hand and collect them in a bucket. We can safely call this the joys of organic herbalism. :)

Melissa Officinalis - active ingredients in the plant

Source: Melissa officinalis: Composition, Pharmacological Effects and Derived Release Systems—A Review

The above diagram shows the composition of the active ingredients of the plant as a whole, but we were naturally interested in what effect we can expect from its hydrolate? Due to its allergenicity, we do not use its essential oil, and in addition, to produce 1 liter of EO, we would need 3-4 tons of its leaves. You can probably imagine the size of the plantations for something like that.

Since hydrolates are very poorly researched, but based on what is known so far, experts predict a bright future for them in the world of health and well-being, it is fair to say that they have gained popularity in recent years and are no longer treated as mere by-products of distillation to obtain more famous essential oils.

Take us for example; MOIKA distills fragrant and medicinal plants solely for the purpose of obtaining hydrolates . This means that we pay special attention to the quality of the hydrolate, which is why we take into account all known laws that enable this quality. We distill freshly harvested materials, stop the distillation when the hydrolate is perfect and do not prolong the process at the expense of the complexity of the essential oil or the amount of hydrolate, we ensure a clean process and proper storage, and we do not add anything to the hydrolate (e.g. alcohols, preservatives, solubilizers, essential oils, and more). Our hydrolates therefore consist of molecules extracted by the steam distillation process, which, together with water, liquefy in the final product. We are talking about volatile or hydrophilic molecules.

Sue Clarke (BSc (Hons) PhD, in Essential Chemistry for Aromatherapy (Second Edition), 2008) says that the special thing about lemon balm hydrolate is that it is quite similar in composition and action to its sibling, the essential oil. The latter is extremely difficult and expensive to distill due to its high content of hydrophilic or water-loving molecules. The samples of lemon balm hydrolate used in the study in question contained:

Ketones 3–10% – anti-inflammatory, analgesic, helps with skin healing, soothing, digestive, expectorant and sedative effects.
Aldehydes 69–73% – anti-inflammatory, antiviral, soothing and tonic effects.

Of course, this raises the question of how much hydrolate is needed to manifest a certain effect and over what period of time it has a therapeutic effect. All of these and more are questions for researchers and, of course, therapists who will be able to report on successes and results in the future.

!For all those who are curious!
We are sharing an article available online, where they determined the composition and possible therapeutic effects of lemon balm hydrolate and, among other things, confirmed the content of rosmarinic acid in it:

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis L.) Hydrolate Poorly Influences Isolated Rat Gastric Fundus Motility.

Let our lines be a starting point and an encouragement for further research, let curiosity and skepticism guide you. We will be immensely happy if you share with us any other results you have found, we will be happy to share them among our users.

The fact is that hydrosols are a gentler and less allergenic form of extract than essential oils. Their therapeutic effects are also being researched outside the boundaries of aromatherapy, and their reputation is growing year by year due to the results so far. Most are also safe to consume, but follow the rule:
2 tablespoons daily , while such a restriction does not apply to external use.

In MOIKA natural cosmetics, hydrolates can be found in almost all products. They replace industrially distilled water with the aim of reinforcing the action of an individual product and enriching it with a different spectrum of active ingredients from the plant world. We choose them according to the purpose of using the care product, which is why two or even three different ones are often present in a single application. Mint balancing water contains, for example, mint, lemon balm and clary sage. The combination is intended for acne-prone, oily skin.

May they enchant you as they enchanted us.

Daria