Cl
Clary Sage Oil
Salvia Sclarea Oil · Salvia Sclarea Flower/Leaf/Stem Extract
An essential oil thought to affect hormones and used to bring on labor. Ask your OB before using it in pregnancy.
What it does
It’s an essential oil used mostly for its calming scent. There’s little evidence for what it does on skin.
The EU’s ingredient database lists it as a fragrance (adds scent).European Commission, CosIng (© European Union, CC BY 4.0) · uses put in plain words by Drop ↗
The evidence, graded
expert consensusClary sage essential oil is used in aromatherapy to bring on labor. That use is the reason for care: ask your OB before you use a product with it while you’re pregnant.Tadokoro 2017 · BMC Research Notes ↗
expert consensusSeveral essential-oil constituents have documented reproductive toxicity and should be avoided in pregnancy — trans-sabinyl acetate, thujone, camphor, pulegone and methyl salicylate. The review behind this flag names the oils rich in them: juniper savin, thuja, Dalmatian sage, Spanish lavender, sweet fennel, wintergreen, sweet birch and pennyroyal, plus hyssop on a separate constituent. Clary sage and rosemary are not in that review. Read INCI lists; essential oils often hide under fragrance.Dosoky 2021 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences ↗
moderateFragrance, essential oils, denatured alcohol and certain preservatives (methylisothiazolinone, the formaldehyde-releasers) are the usual suspects on sensitive skin. In the patch-test data read here — patients whose dermatitis was linked to a cleanser — the preservative quaternium-15 topped the list at 11.2% and fragrance mix I came fifth at 7.7%. Test a new product on a small patch of skin before you use it on your face.Warshaw 2018 · Dermatitis ↗
Graded per the methodology: strong · moderate · emerging · expert consensus. A weak source on a strong claim gets the weaker label.
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