Does Litsea Cubeba Lift the Mood? Two Small Studies
Sniff litsea cubeba and “uplifting” is the word that arrives first. Whether the oil changes how anyone actually feels is a separate question, and two small studies have looked at it. Both are worth knowing about, and both make more sense once you see how they were run.
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil
Our own Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
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Shop Now →Fifteen volunteers and a diffuser
The first study, from Chiang Mai University (Chaiyasut and colleagues, 2020), involved 15 healthy volunteers. Each breathed distilled-water vapour from a diffuser for 15 minutes, rested, then breathed litsea oil vapour for another 15. Afterwards the volunteers filled in a standard mood questionnaire and gave saliva samples for cortisol, a stress hormone. After the oil, overall mood disturbance scores were lower, confusion was reduced, and cortisol was lower. The authors suggested the findings warrant further study.
The design deserves a second look. Water always came first and litsea second, so time, settling in and expectation are all tangled up with the oil. Cortisol, for instance, had already fallen from 1.49 to 1.04 ng/ml during the water phase, most of the way to the figure after litsea (0.79). There was no separate control group, and the paper does not report how concentrated the vapour was. It is a charming pilot, and it is exactly the kind of study that makes the next, better-controlled one worth doing.
Scent studies are tricky to design for a simple reason: a smell people enjoy can affect how they feel whether or not the particular oil matters. That is why a comparison with plain water vapour or an odourless carrier is so valuable, and why the water phase in this study tells us as much as the litsea phase does.
Brain waves and filter paper
The second study, from Walailak University in Thailand (Sattayakhom and colleagues, 2021), recorded resting brain activity by EEG in 30 healthy female students around 21 years old. Litsea cubeba oil, garlic oil and turmeric oil were each presented on filter paper held near the nose, at several dilutions. With litsea, alpha and beta wave power fell, mainly at the front and sides of the head, a pattern the authors describe as sedative. When the volunteers rated their own mood afterwards, litsea and turmeric scored better on positive moods than garlic.
Notice what is being compared: three oils against each other, not an oil against no smell at all. And a change in EEG power is a measurement of brain activity, not a verdict on how anyone feels in the middle of a Tuesday. The oils in the two studies were also different samples, so neither describes the batch we sell, whose Certificate of Analysis lists physical constants only.
What to take from them
Put the two together and you get a pleasant, early, hopeful picture and not a conclusion. Neither study says what the oil does in daily life, and neither converts to a number of drops in a home diffuser, since one did not report its concentration and the other held filter paper to the nose. That is why we describe litsea cubeba by what we can stand behind, which is its aroma: sweet, lemon-bright, a top note with a soft fruity roundness. We make no medical claim for it, and we do not describe it as treating or easing any state of mind.
If you enjoy it in a diffuser, enjoy it lightly. Litsea oil is a recognised skin sensitiser and, per the European Food Safety Authority, an irritant to skin and eyes, so a little goes a long way, and it is not for internal use. Anyone who is struggling with anxiety or low mood is best served by a physician or mental-health professional, not a bottle.
For scent ideas, our uses article and the water diffuser article cover litsea as a fragrance, the citral article explains where the lemon comes from, and the FAQ covers handling.
Good aromas are worth enjoying for their own sake, and litsea cubeba is a good one.
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
- Chaiyasut C et al., 2020. Effects of Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Persoon Essential Oil Aromatherapy on Mood States and Salivary Cortisol Levels in Healthy Volunteers. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
- Sattayakhom A et al., 2021. Effects of Thai Local Ingredient Odorants, Litsea cubeba and Garlic Essential Oils, on Brainwaves and Moods. Molecules.
- EFSA FEEDAP Panel, 2021. Safety and efficacy of a feed additive consisting of an essential oil from the fruits of Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers. (litsea berry oil) for use in all animal species (FEFANA asbl). EFSA Journal.