How Far One Bottle of Litsea Cubeba Oil Goes

The best first bottle is the smallest one that covers the batches you will actually make before the oil has had time to age, not the best-looking size on the page. Litsea cubeba is potent, a few drops go a long way, and we say it typically keeps for one to two years when tightly capped in a cool, dark place. A little arithmetic turns that into a size.

Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil bottle

Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil

Our own Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $12.99

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Drops by bottle

The Certificate of Analysis we publish for one batch gives a relative density of 0.883 at 20 C, so 1 ml weighs about 0.883 g. At the usual rough convention of 20 drops per ml, a drop is about 44 mg, which gives about 591 drops in 1 oz and about 296 in half an ounce. Droppers vary, so weigh on a gram scale when it matters. Our skin guidance is 0.5% to 2% in a carrier, which is roughly 3 to 12 drops per ounce of carrier.

BottleDrops (about)1 oz skin batches at 3 drops1 oz skin batches at 12 drops
0.5 oz296about 99about 25
1 oz591about 197about 49
2 oz1,182about 394about 98
4 oz2,364about 788about 197

If you want to try it on skin

Order the smallest bottle. Even at 12 drops per ounce, 0.5 oz makes about 25 one-ounce batches, and most first projects need one or two. EFSA's panel considered litsea oil an irritant to skin and eyes and a skin and respiratory sensitiser, so a bottle you will use a few drops from is a better fit than a big one.

The dilution numbers deserve a closer look. The IFRA Standard for Citral caps citral at 0.15% in the finished product for body lotions and creams. If an oil is roughly 66% to 87% citral, which is the spread between EFSA's commercial batches and a study of eight Chinese fruit samples, that allows an oil share of about 0.17% to 0.23%, or around one drop per ounce. Our 0.5% is about two to three times that figure, and 2% is nine to twelve times. The IFRA caps govern products made for sale, not home use, but the gap is why we start at the low end of our range, why we do not call 2% safe, and why we always suggest a patch test. Our skin basics article covers it, and a dermatologist is the right person to ask if your skin is reactive.

If you make soap by the kilo

For soap the relevant ceiling is the 1.2% citral cap for Categories 9 and 10A. Divided by the citral fraction, that is about 1.37% to 1.82% oil, or 13.7 to 18.2 g in a 1 kg batch of finished soap, about 15.5 to 20.6 ml. A single 1 oz bottle (about 26 g) therefore covers a kilogram run at the cap with a little left, which makes 1 oz a sensible first bottle and 4 oz the choice if you plan several runs in the one to two years the oil keeps. Citral from every ingredient counts toward the same cap, so if you add lemongrass or lemon myrtle to the litsea, recalculate. Our substitutes article shows how to convert by citral weight rather than by drops.

If you are making candles, sprays or diffuser blends

The same standard lists no citral restriction for candles (Category 12), and much lower figures for some other categories (0.051% in Categories 8, 11A and 11B, for example), so confirm the category for your product before you size up. The fragrance load comes from your wax maker's data sheet. Take their percentage, work out grams, divide by 0.883 for millilitres, and size your bottle to your first few pours. For wax melts and reed diffusers, see our reed diffuser article, which does the arithmetic.

If you are evaluating for a business

Order a sample bottle and try it in your own product before committing, which is what our wholesale page invites. A sample tells you how the oil smells and behaves in your base. For the citral percentage, origin or allergen profile of a larger lot, ask us in writing through our contact page before ordering and keep the answer; the certificate we publish is for one batch (LICQGCLCCNC003A) and lists density, refractive index and optical rotation.

Keeping what you buy

Store the oil tightly closed in a cool, dark place. For larger containers we suggest decanting working amounts into smaller airtight bottles so the main supply is opened less often. A bottle you open weekly for two years sees more air than a small one you open a few times, so choose a size you will finish. Keep the oil away from eyes, children and pets, and never take it internally; we make no medical claims for it. For routines, see our storage article. Prices are on the shop page and change from time to time, so look there for the current picture; the table above is your plan in drops.

Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil bottle

Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil

Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $12.99

Shop Now →

Sources & Further Reading