Lemongrass

A natural history

Lemongrass is a fragrant tropical grass of South and Southeast Asia, plain to look at with its long slender blades, yet releasing a profuse, bright, lemony scent at the lightest touch. It has been beloved for ages in cooking and traditional care, a staple of Thai kitchens where its stalks are pounded into fragrant curry pastes.

Here is the charm of it: lemongrass smells vividly of lemon without being a citrus at all. Its fresh scent comes from a natural compound called citral, the same lively note found in lemon peel, which gives this humble grass its clean, uplifting, unmistakable character.

What it does for your skin

Lemongrass is a fresh, toning aromatic. In laboratory study, lemongrass oil, rich in citral, showed antimicrobial activity, the clarifying quality behind its long traditional use.^[1] A further study confirmed its citral rich character and, reassuringly, found the oil gentle to human skin cells in testing.^[2] In a formula, used in gentle measure, lemongrass lends a fresh, toning, clarifying touch to oily or congested looking skin. That fresh, clarifying character is documented in laboratory studies of its citral, found gentle to skin cells in testing.

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