Cornmint Essential Oil from Natural Health Crafters

Cornmint - The only mint indiginous to the USA.

Cornmint Mentha arvensis growing to some 80cm tall, herbaceous, 4-angled, typically retrorse strigose above and glabrous below, simple to branching, erect, from fibrous roots, often with adventitious roots from lower nodes, hollow. The pubescence of the leaves and stems is variable and some authors, like to separate the species into different varieties and forms. These varieties integrate and are sometimes difficult to tell apart so they will not be mentioned here. This is the only native species of Mentha found in the U.S., the rest are all introduced. This plant is very common and quite tasty in tea, desserts, and other recipes.

Mentha arvensis, cornmint, is primarily grown for production of the oil, and the extraction of menthol, which is used extensively in the food, confectionery and beverage industries. The main commercial production is in China, Brazil, Argentina, India and Vietnam.

The bruised leaves have been applied to the forehead to relieve nervous tension, and in the East it is used to treat rheumatic pains, neuralia, toothache, laryngitis, indigestion, colds and bronchitis. In china it has also been used in the treatment for relieving pain from earache, treating tumours and somme skin conditions.

Traditionally the stems were used for tea by the Okanagon-Coville and Sanpoil, and the leaves were used by the Shuswap for tea. The plant was also used by the Thompson as a insect repellent.

The essential oil is steam distilled from the flowering tops and is often a solid before the menthol is extracted by freezing. The material of commerce comes from China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, India, and Paraguay . Mint oil is used to produce menthol, isolated and purified from the essential oil. The partially dementholated essential oil is official in the pharmacopeias of India, France, and China and approved in the Commission E monographs. In Germany, it is taken internally as a carminative or cholagogue, inhaled as a secretolytic, and applied externally for its cooling property. In the United States, the essential oils of other mints (e.g., peppermint and spearmint) are more commonly used in dietary supplement, health food, and OTC drug products than Japanese mint oil. However, menthol, derived from mint oil, is widely used as an antipruritic component of OTC preparations to treat burns and sunburn, poison ivy rash, athlete's foot, and as a counterirritant in external analgesic preparations. The Commission E approved internal use of mint oil for flatulence, functional gastrointestinal and gallbladder disorders, catarrhs of the upper respiratory tract, and external use for myalgia and neuralgic ailments.

The approved modern therapeutic applications for mint oil are supportable based on its history of clinical use in well established systems of traditional medicine, on phytochemical investigations, and in vitro studies and in vivo pharmacological experiments in animals. Most cormint oil is dementholised but will still contain at least 42% free alcohols (30–45% menthol); 25–40% ketones (17–35% menthone, 5–13% isomenthone); 3–17% esters (2–7% menthyl acetate); 1.5–7% limonene; Modern aromatherapists however use peppermint oil, since it is not fractionated, like cornmint, and it has a more refined fragrance.

Cornmint essential oil is used extensively in the production of soaps, and as a fragrance in many lotions and creams.