Ylang Ylang Essential Oil: Benefits, Uses, Blends and Safety
By DailyDestiny Editorial Team
Learn to use ylang ylang gently, so this sweet, heady flower oil calms you instead of giving you a headache. Covers the grades from Extra to III, benefits, blends, Venus and sacral chakra lore, and safety for skin, pets and pregnancy.
On this page
What is ylang ylang essential oil and how is it extracted?
Imagine you come home after a day that left your chest tight and your thoughts racing. A friend swears by ylang ylang, so you open the bottle you bought, and the smell nearly knocks you over: sweet, heavy, like bananas and flowers at once. You wonder if you bought the wrong thing, or if you are using it wrong.
The short answer: Ylang ylang essential oil is steam distilled from the fresh yellow flowers of Cananga odorata, and it is one of the strongest scents you can own. In tiny amounts it is a classic choice for a racing mind, a scalp oil and a love oil. In large amounts it gives you a headache. Almost everything good about it comes from using less.
The tree, Cananga odorata var. genuina, belongs to the custard apple family, Annonaceae. Native to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, it is now grown commercially on Nosy Be in Madagascar, in the Comoros, and on Mayotte and Reunion. Its six ribbon-like petals hang down like a small green octopus, turning yellow as they ripen, often with a reddish blush at the base.
Green flowers yield almost nothing, so pickers wait for yellow, harvest early in the morning while volatile content is highest, and distill the same day. Plantation trees are trained to two or three meters to stay in reach; left alone, the species passes twenty meters.
What makes ylang ylang unusual is that it is fractionated. The still runs most of a day, and the distiller draws off the oil in successive cuts. Think of the first, strongest cup from a pot of coffee versus the last, thinner one. That is why a bottle labeled ylang ylang can hold any of five noticeably different products.
The grades are Extra, First, Second, Third and complete.
Extra comes off within roughly the first hour or two, richest in light, sweet esters and ethers such as benzyl acetate and geranyl acetate. It costs several times more and is prized in fine perfumery. This is the one for you if you want a perfume oil that smells like a flower in full bloom.
Third, from the tail of the run, is dominated by sesquiterpenes such as germacrene D and beta-caryophyllene. It smells drier, woodier and more soapy, with the banana note mostly gone, and traditionally goes into soap.
Complete is a single uninterrupted distillation or the fractions blended back together. It carries the whole arc of the scent, so it suits general aromatherapy best. If this is your first bottle, start here.
Cananga oil comes from Cananga odorata var. macrophylla, mostly from Java. It is coarser, greener and cheaper, and it is the most common adulterant sold as ylang ylang. Because the yield is a small percentage of fresh flower weight, a liter of true ylang ylang represents tens of kilos of hand-picked blossom.
How can you tell if ylang ylang essential oil is adulterated?
Genuine ylang ylang names its grade, its variety (var. genuina) and its country of origin, most often Madagascar or the Comoros, and a reputable supplier publishes a GC/MS report. Common tricks are cheaper ylang ylang III sold as Extra, harsher cananga blended in because the botanical names overlap, and synthetic benzyl acetate or p-cresyl methyl ether added to boost the banana. A ylang ylang priced near lavender is not what it claims.
What does ylang ylang essential oil smell like?
If your first sniff felt like too much, here is why.
Ylang ylang smells like a heavy tropical flower with a banana-custard character, jasmine-like indolic warmth, a spicy clove edge and a faintly rubbery, almost solvent-like sharpness at the opening. Most people can name it blind after smelling it once.
The banana comes mainly from p-cresyl methyl ether, a small-percentage component that punches far above its weight, helped by benzyl acetate and methyl benzoate. The same molecule gives the rubbery, narcotic edge, and it fades through the grades. The clove comes from eugenol and isoeugenol. The creamy body comes from linalool, geranyl acetate, benzyl benzoate and benzyl salicylate, and the woody drydown from germacrene D, beta-caryophyllene and farnesene.
The key thing: the smell changes with dilution. Neat or heavily dosed, ylang ylang reads as cloying and can trigger headaches within minutes. Dropped to where you barely register it, the same oil turns warm, skin-like and softly powdery. It is like a singer with a huge voice: thrilling in a concert hall, too much in a small kitchen.
Perfumers treat ylang ylang as a middle to base note with unusual staying power. It is a pillar of the classic floral aldehyde structure and sits in Chanel No. 5, giving jasmine and rose their creamy lift. A fraction of a percent smooths the gap between citrus top notes and a woody base without announcing itself.
You can borrow that trick: one drop of ylang ylang in a blend of ten binds bergamot to sandalwood in a way neither manages alone. If ylang ylang overwhelms you, the problem is usually the proportion, not the oil.
Is ylang ylang a top, middle or base note?
A middle note that behaves like a base note. Its floral heart sits mid-blend, but it lasts like a fixative and is still detectable on a test strip a day later. Treat it as a heart note when choosing partners and as a base note when counting drops.
How long does ylang ylang essential oil last on skin?
Diluted in a carrier, it typically stays detectable for four to eight hours, and traces of its benzyl benzoate and sesquiterpene base last longer on fabric. Citrus oils often vanish within an hour. That staying power makes ylang ylang a natural fixative in homemade perfume oils, and it is why a heavy hand in the morning is still with you at dinner.
What are the main ylang ylang oil benefits?
So what can it actually do for you on a tense evening? The best-supported benefits fall into two groups.
Calm from breathing it in. Small human inhalation trials have reported modest drops in blood pressure and pulse rate, with participants describing themselves as calmer. The same work found reduced alertness and slower reaction times alongside the calm. That is a real effect, not a footnote.
Hair and skin care with centuries behind it. In Southeast Asia, ylang ylang flowers were soaked in coconut oil to make a hair dressing. That became the Macassar oil Victorian men used so freely that households pinned antimacassars to chair backs to protect the upholstery. In skin care it goes into facial oils for combination and oily skin, where practitioners describe it as balancing rather than drying, and into body oils because the scent is sensual and long-lasting.
The third set of benefits is emotional, and here the tradition is clearer than the data. Aromatherapists reach for ylang ylang for anger, jealousy, panic and the tight-chested feeling after a shock. It is described as loosening the grip of an emotion rather than replacing it, like unclenching a fist rather than handing you something new to hold.
It also has a long reputation as an aphrodisiac, reinforced by the Indonesian custom of scattering ylang ylang petals on a newly married couple's bed.
What it is not for: anything needing clarity or stimulation. It will not help you concentrate, does not clear congestion, and has no place in a wake-up morning blend.
Does ylang ylang essential oil lower blood pressure?
Small human inhalation trials have reported modest short-term reductions in systolic blood pressure and pulse rate, often alongside self-reported calm. The effect is small and temporary rather than therapeutic, and ylang ylang is no substitute for medication. The practical point runs the other way: people who already run hypotensive sometimes report lightheadedness after prolonged inhalation and should keep sessions short. If you take blood pressure medication, check with your doctor first.
Is ylang ylang essential oil good for anxiety?
It is a standard aromatherapy choice for acute anxiety, especially the racing-heart, tight-chest kind, and inhalation studies pairing it with lowered pulse support that use. For low-grade rumination, lighter oils suit better. Use one drop on a tissue or two in a diffuser, since too much can itself provoke a headache. If anxiety is shaping your days, an oil can comfort you, but please talk to a doctor or therapist too.
Does ylang ylang essential oil help with sleep?
It suits you if you feel wound up rather than wide awake at bedtime, because the reported drop in alertness works in your favor. Two drops in a bedroom diffuser run for thirty minutes before bed is the usual approach, or one drop of a 1 percent ylang ylang blend rubbed into the chest. The scent lingers faintly for hours.
What are the most common ylang ylang oil uses at home?
If you want ylang ylang to feel like a treat instead of a headache, the dose is everything. Think of salt in cooking: a pinch transforms the dish, a spoonful ruins it.
Diffuser. For a 100 ml ultrasonic diffuser, two drops is a full dose and three is generous; run it thirty minutes on and thirty off rather than continuously, because ylang ylang builds in a closed room and the point where it tips from pleasant to headache-inducing arrives without much warning. It is far more assertive than lavender or sweet orange. If anyone gets a headache, cut to one drop or blend it with a citrus.
Scalp. Three to five drops in 30 ml of coconut, jojoba or argan oil, massaged in and left an hour before shampooing, follows the Macassar tradition directly. Never apply ylang ylang neat to the scalp, which is thin-skinned and readily sensitized.
Face. Keep to two or three drops in 30 ml of squalane or jojoba.
Massage. Five drops in 30 ml of sweet almond oil gives a 0.8 percent dilution, the recommended ceiling.
Linen. One drop on a cotton pad tucked at the back of a drawer scents the contents for weeks without touching the fabric. You will notice it when you pull out a pillowcase on a hard night.
The bath. Ylang ylang essential oil does not dissolve in water, so drops added straight to a tub float as a concentrated film and land on the most sensitive skin you own. Disperse three drops in a tablespoon of jojoba, whole milk or unscented liquid castile soap before it goes near the water.
Perfume. A roller that smells balanced in the bottle can be suffocating on warm skin. Build a 5 ml roller at no more than 2 percent total essential oil, about four drops, and let ylang ylang be one of those four rather than all of them.
How do you make a ylang ylang perfume oil?
Fill a 10 ml roller with jojoba, then add eight drops of essential oil total for a 4 percent perfume strength: two drops ylang ylang essential oil, three drops bergamot, two drops sandalwood and one drop vetiver. Cap it, roll it between your palms and leave it a week to marry before you judge it. Keep ylang ylang to roughly a quarter of the blend, since it takes over at any higher share.
How do you dilute ylang ylang essential oil correctly?
If you want to enjoy this oil for years, this part protects that.
Ylang ylang essential oil should be diluted to a maximum of 0.8 percent for anything left on the skin, the dermal limit given in Tisserand and Young's Essential Oil Safety. That limit is set because of sensitization potential, not acute toxicity.
In practical drops, 0.8 percent is about five drops of ylang ylang in 30 ml of carrier oil, or roughly one drop per teaspoon. For facial products, halve that to two or three drops in 30 ml, since facial skin is thinner and gets reapplied product daily. For a rinse-off use such as a scalp treatment or shower oil the constraint is looser, and three to five drops in 30 ml is comfortable. For children over two, keep total essential oil dilution at 0.5 percent and treat ylang ylang as an oil to use sparingly rather than routinely.
Why so low? Ylang ylang contains isoeugenol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl salicylate, benzyl cinnamate and linalool, all on the EU list of fragrance allergens that must be declared on cosmetic labels. Repeated overexposure is how people lose the ability to use ylang ylang at all. It is like a cup slowly filling: you notice nothing until the day it spills over.
Match the carrier to the use. Jojoba, technically a liquid wax, is the most stable and nearly odorless, best for a perfume roller or facial oil. Sweet almond is the standard massage carrier. Squalane suits facial blends on oily or combination skin. Whole coconut oil is the historically correct choice for a hair treatment. Avoid strongly scented carriers such as unrefined hemp or extra virgin olive oil, which fight the floral.
Always patch test a new ylang ylang blend on the inner forearm and wait a full 24 hours. Sensitization reactions frequently appear on the second or twentieth exposure rather than the first, so a clean patch test is a starting point rather than a guarantee, and spreading redness means stop rather than push through.
How many drops of ylang ylang essential oil per ounce of carrier oil?
Five drops of ylang ylang essential oil in one fluid ounce, about 30 ml, of carrier oil gives roughly 0.8 percent, the recommended maximum dermal level. For facial oils use two to three drops per ounce. In a body oil containing several essential oils, count ylang ylang against that 0.8 percent ceiling separately while keeping the total blend at 2 percent or less.
Can you apply ylang ylang essential oil undiluted?
No. Ylang ylang essential oil should never be applied neat, because its isoeugenol, benzyl benzoate and benzyl salicylate content makes it a recognized skin sensitizer, and undiluted contact is the fastest route to a permanent allergy. It also smells nicer diluted, so neat use wastes an expensive oil. If it reaches skin undiluted, wipe it off with plain vegetable oil rather than water.
Which oils blend well with ylang ylang, and what are the best ylang ylang oil blends?
Blending is where you stop fighting ylang ylang and start enjoying it. The one rule: ylang ylang is almost never the biggest number in the recipe.
Citrus is its most reliable partner. Bergamot is the classic, its bitter-bright top cutting the creaminess without erasing it; sweet orange, grapefruit, lime and mandarin do a lighter version. Ylang ylang in turn gives fast-fading citrus something to hold onto. Use roughly two to three parts citrus to one part ylang ylang, and reach for more citrus whenever a blend feels cloying.
Woods and earth. Sandalwood, vetiver, cedarwood and patchouli anchor it and stretch its life on skin. Vetiver pulls it toward something earthier.
Other florals. Rose, jasmine, neroli and geranium layer comfortably, though jasmine plus ylang ylang can overwhelm fast, so keep the floral load low.
Depth. Clary sage is a well-worn evening partner. Frankincense adds a dry, resinous lift that makes ylang ylang feel more serious. Black pepper, ginger and vanilla or benzoin add warmth and spice.
Start with one part ylang ylang to three or four parts everything else.
Four blends by drop count:
Relaxing evening diffuser: two drops ylang ylang, four drops bergamot, three drops cedarwood.
Sensual massage oil in 30 ml of sweet almond: four drops ylang ylang, six drops sweet orange, four drops sandalwood, two drops black pepper, which lands under 1 percent total.
Scalp treatment in 30 ml of coconut oil: four drops ylang ylang, four drops rosemary, two drops lavender.
Night-time roller in 10 ml of jojoba: two drops ylang ylang, three drops clary sage, two drops vetiver, one drop frankincense.
If a blend smells cloying, add citrus rather than wishing you had used less ylang ylang. You cannot take drops out, but a bright top note rebalances right away.
What blends well with ylang ylang for a romantic diffuser blend?
Try two drops ylang ylang, three drops sweet orange and two drops sandalwood in a 100 ml diffuser. The orange lifts the opening, sandalwood gives skin-like warmth, and ylang ylang carries the sensual heart. Swap sandalwood for patchouli for an earthier, heavier version that suits colder months.
Which oils should you not blend with ylang ylang essential oil?
Avoid sharply camphoraceous oils: eucalyptus, tea tree, ravintsara, camphor and peppermint sit beside it rather than merging, so the blend smells medicinal and tropical at once. Jasmine and tuberose are not a clash but a risk of excess, since together they overwhelm most rooms. Rosemary is a workable exception in functional hair blends.
What are the spiritual and chakra associations of ylang ylang essential oil?
If you are drawn to ylang ylang because you are longing for love, healing after a breakup, or wanting to feel at home in your own body, you are following a very old thread.
In Western magical correspondence, ylang ylang is a Venus oil: element water, planet Venus and by extension Taurus and Libra, Friday as its working day, and the sacral chakra as its main center. Practitioners use it for love, attraction, reconciliation, sensuality, self-worth and softening anger, which fits an intensely sweet flower long tied to marriage and desire where it grows. The Indonesian custom of scattering its petals on newlyweds' beds is cited constantly as the root of that reputation.
On the chakra map it belongs to svadhisthana, the orange sacral center below the navel, linked with pleasure, creativity and emotional flow. A second placement is anahata, the heart, for grief, jealousy and the guardedness left after heartbreak. For the upper chakras, practitioners reach for frankincense or sandalwood instead.
Ylang ylang is added to Venus oils and love-drawing blends with rose, jasmine and patchouli, usually as the smallest part. It anoints pink or green candles for love and reconciliation, and red ones for passion. It goes into sachets and mojo bags for attraction, often with rose petals, cinnamon and a lodestone. Some practitioners wear it as a 0.5 percent body oil on Fridays.
Self-love work is where many practitioners feel it does its clearest work. A single drop goes into a bath dispersant on a Friday, or the body oil is applied slowly, as an act of attention rather than a routine. When did you last touch your own skin with that kind of care?
The instruction practitioners repeat is one drop rather than several. Ylang ylang is understood to amplify whatever intention it is given, so be clear about what you are asking for before you light the candle.
What planet rules ylang ylang essential oil?
Venus, with water as its element and Friday as its traditional working day. That groups it with rose, geranium and vervain for love, beauty, reconciliation and self-worth, and makes it a natural choice for work under Taurus or Libra. Some practitioners add a lunar association because the flower's fragrance is strongest at night.
Is ylang ylang essential oil used in meditation?
Yes, for meditation centered on the body, emotion and the heart, rather than clarity, since its reported lowering of alertness works against concentration. Practitioners pair it with grounding vetiver or cedarwood for sacral and heart work, and choose frankincense or rosemary for breathwork or study meditation instead.
What are the ylang ylang oil safety cautions?
You can use ylang ylang safely for years, and these few cautions are how.
The core issues are skin sensitization, headaches and nausea from overexposure, a mild blood-pressure-lowering effect, and real toxicity risk to cats, dogs and birds.
Sensitization leads. Ylang ylang contains isoeugenol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl salicylate, benzyl cinnamate and linalool, all declarable EU fragrance allergens, and it is restricted in leave-on cosmetics for that reason. Tisserand and Young's Essential Oil Safety gives 0.8 percent as the maximum dermal use level.
Headaches are part of its reputation: the oil is so tenacious and so sweet that overdosing a room produces a heavy, nauseated headache within twenty to forty minutes, and the fix is ventilation rather than more oil.
Blood pressure and alertness. Anyone with low blood pressure should keep inhalation sessions short. Ylang ylang essential oil should not be used before driving or any task needing sharp reactions, since inhalation studies have reported reduced alertness alongside the calming effect.
Ylang ylang essential oil is not phototoxic. It contains no furocoumarins, the bergapten-type compounds responsible for photosensitivity in expressed citrus oils such as bergamot, lime and cold-pressed lemon, and steam distillation would leave them behind in any case. You can wear a diluted ylang ylang blend in sunlight without the burn risk a bergamot blend carries.
That said, oxidized ylang ylang is more sensitizing than fresh, so a bottle you have owned for six years and used down to the last quarter is a worse candidate for skin application than a new one. Store it capped tight, cool and dark, decant into smaller bottles as you use it, and write the date of opening on the label.
If you develop redness, itching or small bumps where a ylang ylang blend was applied, stop using it entirely rather than reducing the dilution, because sensitization does not resolve with lower doses.
Is ylang ylang essential oil safe during pregnancy?
Ylang ylang essential oil is not contraindicated in pregnancy in the standard safety references and is commonly used diluted for massage in the second and third trimesters. The practical cautions are that pregnancy heightens sensitivity to smell and ylang ylang frequently triggers nausea and headache, and that it can nudge blood pressure downward. Keep dilution at or below 0.5 percent, keep diffusion brief, and clear it with your midwife first.
Is ylang ylang essential oil safe for cats and dogs?
No. Cananga odorata appears on veterinary poison-control lists of species toxic to both cats and dogs, and cats are especially vulnerable because they lack the glucuronidation pathway needed to clear these compounds. Diffused ylang ylang settles on fur and is swallowed during grooming. Do not diffuse it in rooms pets can access, do not apply it where an animal might lick it, and give birds no exposure at all.
Questions people ask
What is ylang ylang essential oil used for?
Four things: inhaled to slow a racing mind (small human inhalation trials have reported modest drops in blood pressure and pulse alongside self-rated calm), in scalp and facial oils for combination skin as a descendant of Macassar hair oil, as a floral heart in perfumery including Chanel No. 5, and as a Venus oil for love and reconciliation. In all four, a little goes a long way.
Can you put ylang ylang essential oil directly on your skin?
No, ylang ylang essential oil should not be applied neat. It contains isoeugenol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl salicylate and linalool, all recognized fragrance allergens, and repeated undiluted contact is a reliable way to sensitize yourself to a material you may want to keep using for decades. Tisserand and Young's Essential Oil Safety gives a maximum dermal use level of 0.8 percent, roughly five drops in 30 ml of carrier oil. Patch test any new ylang ylang blend on the inner forearm for 24 hours, since sensitization often appears on a later exposure rather than the first.
What does ylang ylang essential oil smell like?
A creamy tropical flower with a banana-custard note (from p-cresyl methyl ether and benzyl acetate), jasmine-like warmth, a clove edge (eugenol and isoeugenol) and a faintly rubbery top, over a floral body of linalool, geranyl acetate and benzyl benzoate. Extra is the sweetest grade, III the driest and most soapy. Well diluted, it turns warm and faintly powdery.
Is ylang ylang essential oil safe to diffuse around cats?
Ylang ylang essential oil is not considered safe around cats and should be kept out of any room a cat shares. Cananga odorata appears on veterinary poison-control lists of plants and oils toxic to cats and dogs, and cats clear phenolic and terpene compounds poorly because they lack the glucuronidation pathway other mammals rely on. Diffused droplets settle on fur and get swallowed during grooming, turning an airborne exposure into an oral one. Diffuse only in a closed room the cat cannot enter, ventilate afterward, and give birds no exposure at all.
What is the difference between ylang ylang Extra and ylang ylang complete?
Extra is the first fraction, taken within roughly the first hour or two: the sweetest, most floral and most expensive grade, rich in light esters and ethers, and the perfumer's choice. Complete is one uninterrupted distillation or the fractions recombined, spanning bright top to heavy sesquiterpene base. It lasts longer and feels fuller, so it is the better general aromatherapy oil.
Does ylang ylang essential oil expire?
It generally keeps three to five years in a full, tightly closed amber bottle stored cool and dark, aging more slowly than citrus because it has no furocoumarins and little monoterpene content. Sesquiterpene-rich ylang ylang III ages best; Extra loses its brightest notes first. An old oil smells flat and waxy, the banana gone. Decant into smaller bottles as you use it down, because oxidized constituents are more sensitizing than fresh ones.
Which chakra does ylang ylang essential oil work with?
Mainly the sacral chakra, svadhisthana, the orange center below the navel linked with pleasure, creativity, sensuality and emotional flow. Practitioners place it there because of its long tie to desire, marriage and fertility in Southeast Asian custom, and because its scent wraps around you rather than clearing your head. A second placement is the heart chakra, anahata, for grief, jealousy and guardedness after heartbreak. For the upper chakras, lighter oils such as frankincense and sandalwood are preferred.
What does today hold for you?
Pop in your birthday. Your reading shows up right here. No email, no account.
Try it for yourself, free
Related topics: ylang ylang essential oil, ylang ylang oil benefits, ylang ylang oil uses, ylang ylang oil blends, ylang ylang oil safety, cananga odorata essential oil, ylang ylang extra
