Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea L.) Essential Oil

Clary sage is sometimes classed as a biennial herb, sometimes as a perennial.
The essential oil is extracted from the flowering tops and leaves (Lawless 1995). It has very distinctive odour – sweet, warm, herbal and tea-like (Williams 2000). Chemically, it is complex, containing over 250 constituents. The dominant constituents are monoterpene alcohols, notably linalool at up to 26 per cent, and esters, especially linalyl acetate, at up to 75 per cent (Price and Price 2007).
These are also the dominant constituents of true lavender essential oil. However,
clary sage also contains an unusual constituent – sclareol, a diterpene alcohol – a larger molecule with 20 carbon atoms and two hydroxyl functional groups. Molecules of this size are not common in essential oils as they are often too big, and insufficiently volatile, to distil over in the essential oil.

Clary sage is a type of herb that is native to the Mediterranean region, but is now widely grown and cultivated around the world for its fragrant essential oil. The essential oil is extracted from the flowers and leaves of the clary sage plant, and has a sweet, herbaceous scent with notes of lavender and nutmeg.