Clary Sage Essential Oil Health Benefits: 3 Top Insights

The foundation of women’s health remedies, clary sage essential oil benefits both men and women. It’s calming, healing, and very safe to use, but it does come with some potential risks. Learning how to properly use this ancient remedy is pretty straightforward and important to know!

What is Clary Sage?

To learn about the benefits of clary sage essential oil, let’s learn more about this plant. The medicinal use of clary sage dates back to the age of Rome and Greece. Officially named Salvia sclarea, it was used for eye conditions, to clear (clarify) the eyes, potentially with the mucilaginous seeds. In 1653, Dante Culpeper’s work Complete Herbal described clary sage as such:

“The seed put into the eyes clears them from motes, and such like things gotten within the lids to offend them, as also clears them from white and red spots on them. The mucilage of the seed made with water, and applied to tumors, or swellings, disperses and takes them away; as also draws forth splinters, thorns, or other things have gotten into the flesh. The leaves used with vinegar, either by itself, or with a little honey, doth help boils, felons, and the hot inflammation that are gathered by their pains, if applied before it be grown too great… The juice of the herb put into ale or beer, and drank, brings down women’s courses, and expels the after-birth.”  (1)

Centuries later, we still embrace the benefits of clary sage essential oil in similar ways, with particular focus on its anti-inflammatory benefits and role in women’s health.

Primarily originating from the Mediterranean region, clary sage is a species in the Salvia genus, which you may know from your ornamental perennial garden or from its cousin sage, which is used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. The Salvia genus is a part of the larger Lamiaceae distinction, where we also find our mint varieties, which is full of fragrant plants rich in essential oil and healing qualities.

Clary sage is used in both herb and essential oil forms, and even the seeds have nutritional value. As with any herb or essential oil, where clary sage is grown, how and when it is harvested, and the parts of the plant used all play a part in the quality and components.

Covered in spikes of flowers, fragrant, and grown as a perennial, it’s little wonder that the ancients found use for this favorite family of herbs!

Composition of Clary Sage

Clary sage essential oil is derived from the flowering tops and contains many components known for their anti-inflammatory and calming benefits, including linalool (a major component of lavender essential oil), linalyl acetate (excellent for anti-inflammatory benefits on the skin), and a minor component called sclareol. The method of extraction may affect the components found in the essential oil, so always be aware of your source before using an oil therapeutically.

Aside from anti-inflammatory abilities, clary sage is also known to be relaxing and antidepressant, making it useful for stress relief, sleep aid, and more. It’s also shown to be antifungal and antimicrobial.

Another component, sclareol, has shown some promising things in lab tests. Over the last couple of decades but as recently as this year (2015), studies have emerged that analyze sclareol’s effect on cancer cells. With the caveat that these benefits occurred within the confines of lab cultures and dose adjustments, sclareol may have an impact on the way that cancer cells proliferate, and they could help to induce apoptosis (cancer cell death). (2)

More About Essential Oils and Cancer Read more about essential oils and cancer to see what the research is showing!

While this does not tell us how much potential sclareol has to directly treat cancer – it’s exciting to think about where that could go one day! – it is a common thread that we see in many antioxidant-rich essential oils. This is especially interesting for clary sage because some claim that it is “estrogenic” due to the sclareol content and should be avoided by estrogen-dominant cancer patients. This, of course, is a myth and I discuss the reasons why at the end of this report.

3 Clary Sage Essential Oil Benefits

Really, you can’t go wrong with anti-inflammatory effects. There are a few benefits of clary sage essential oil that stand out as particularly effective because there is plenty of research to back them up.

1. Antimicrobial Skin Protection

In 2015, researchers in Poland published results of their search for effective treatments for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in vitro. When applied to resistant strains of the Staphylococcus bacteria, clary sage performed better than many of the typically used antibiotics for treating staph infections. (3)

Earlier, in 2012, a blend of essential oils was tested against Staphylococcus bacteria, as well as E. coli and the pervasive Candida fungus. A blend of lavender, clary sage, and ylang ylang was found to be synergistically effective against all three. Studies show clary sage oil has an active effect against bacteria. (4)

2. Stress Relief

Aromatherapy is linked with relaxation and stress relief in many of our minds, even before we become familiar with essential oils. I know that’s all I knew of them at first! But certain oils are more effective than others, and clary stage stands out. In fact, when a group of essential oils was tested for antidepressant abilities in this rat study, clary sage showed far and away the most potential, indicating it as a potential stand-alone treatment thanks to dopamine regulation. (5)

Struggling With Depression? If you are struggling with depression, you are not alone. And, despite what you may feel sometimes, there is hope. Read more about what the bible says about depression, and how essential oils can help support your healing.

3. Women’s Health

Clary sage is most commonly known as an herb and essential oil for women’s health issues, exhibiting benefits in all phases of life. Young women dealing with menstrual pain have found relief, even more so than what acetaminophen could provide. (6) Women with dysmenorrhea found similar relief. This study used aromatherapy in conjunction with massage.

In childbirth, where pain is often exacerbated by anxiety and stress, clary sage and chamomile exhibit strong pain relieving results in a safe, easily administered manner. In fact, when a midwifery practice implemented the use of these oils both topically in a carrier oil and via diffusion, there appeared to be a reduction in the use of opioid medications. (7)

Finally, as women reach menopausal years, the use of antidepressants begins to increase dramatically. Clary sage may help to ease this stressful transition of life, reducing cortisol levels and exhibiting an antidepressant-like effect (8) See more essential oils for menopause here.

For maximum effects, try blending clary sage with oils that have similar properties, like lavender essential oil or chamomile essential oil.

Try One or More of These Recipes Using Clary Sage Essential Oil

 

• Hormone Balancing Essential Oil Serum
• Homemade Body Powder with Essential Oils DIY
• Homemade Cream for Breastfeeding
• Homemade Essential Oil Perfume Roll-On
• Essential Oil Sleep Spray

These are just a handful of the marvelous ways you can use clary sage essential oil in your life!

Is Clary Sage Oil Estrogenic?

The simple answer is, “No.”

There is a myth floating around the cyber world that because clary sage contains sclareol, it mimics the steroid estrogen, but this is simply a poor understanding of the science of phytochemicals. Chemist Robert Pappas, PhD explains it best: (9)

• “First of all sclareol is actually a very minute component of the essential oil of clary sage despite some authors claiming that sclareol is present in clary sage oil at 1.6-7.0%, an utterly ridiculous claim. Almost all steam-distilled clary sage oils on the market (I would say 99.9% of them) have less than 0.5% sclareol content….
• “Secondly, if we look at the structure of sclareol…we will see that it actually has very little in common with the structure of any of the estrogen molecules…Sclareol is not a steroid but what would have to be termed a diterpene diol, not even remotely close to the necessary steroidal backbone.”
• “Sclareol is not a steroidal estrogen, does not mimic the function of any estrogen molecules, does not stimulate estrogen production (why would it?), and would not appear to have any mechanism by which it can “balance hormones” at least not by a pathway that has anything to do with estrogens… I am not saying that it’s impossible that clary sage can have some of the effects that have been claimed, but just be aware that it’s not really possible that the oil can mimic estrogens or that the oil contains estrogen-like molecules.”

In regard to estrogenic breast cancer, essential oil expert Robert Tisserand mimics Pappas’ assertion, “Sclareol does have an interesting anticancer activity, including in vitro action against human breast cancer MCF-7 cells (Dimas et al 2006). An isomer, 13-epi-sclareol, which is also present in clary sage oil, inhibits the growth of breast and uterine cancers in vitro, and was slightly more potent than Tamoxifen, but was not toxic to normal cells (Sashidhara et al 2007). This suggests the possibility that sclareol might actually inhibit estrogen, and might after all have some capacity to interact with estrogen receptor sites. What we do know is that sclareol will not give you breast cancer.” (10)

Have you successfully tried clary sage? If so, what do you think are the best benefits of clary sage essential oil?

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