Caraway essential oil
- Type
- Essential oil
- Botanical name
- Carum carvi
How the oil is made
The oil is steam-distilled from the dried, crushed ripe fruits. It is sold as crude or natural oil, the direct distillate, and as double-rectified or redistilled oil, which is colourless or very pale and smells stronger and less fatty.[2]
Composition and scent
The main components are carvone and limonene, but traces of other substances decide the characteristic scent of true caraway oil. Crude oil has a strong, peculiar scent typical of the fruit, with a fatty-harsh undertone and often an unpleasant first note that redistilled oil does not have. Spearmint oil also consists mainly of carvone, but in the mirror-image form.[2]
Uses
Caraway oil is used mainly in flavours: for bread, cheese, meat, pickles, sauces and seasonings, and it is the main flavour of Scandinavian caraway spirits and German kümmel. It is also used in mouthwashes, gargles, toothpastes, chewing gum and sweets and to mask bad-tasting medicines. In perfumery it is little used, mostly to scent soap.[2]
Herbal medicine
Taken by mouth, or applied to the skin in ointments, caraway oil is traditionally used for digestive problems such as bloating and flatulence; this rests on long experience, not on clinical trials. The oral medicines are not recommended under 18 years, and symptoms that last more than two weeks need a doctor.[1] Health Canada's monograph covers the oil taken by mouth for similar purposes, up to 600 microlitres a day for adults, with smaller doses for children from 6 months. It advises asking a doctor first in acute abdominal pain, pregnancy or breastfeeding.[3]
Quality and adulteration
In the 1960s caraway oil was increasingly adulterated with synthetic carvone and limonene, and sometimes with caraway chaff oil, distilled from the waste of threshing, which contains more terpenes and less carvone.[2]
Safety
Caraway oil irritates the mucous membranes, the moist linings of the body. In a bath it should therefore be used only when well diluted in a dispersant.[4] People allergic to caraway or to other plants of the carrot family should not use caraway oil medicines. Such plants include fennel, anise, celery, coriander and dill.[1]
Products containing it
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 European Medicines Agency, Carvi aetheroleum: herbal medicinal product. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Steffen Arctander, Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin, Elizabeth, NJ, 1960: Caraway Oil.
- ↑ Health Canada, Caraway – Carum carvi. Natural Health Products monograph, 31 January 2025.
- ↑ National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA), Safety. Retrieved 8 November 2026.