Ravintsara is one of the best-selling essential oils in France, and one of the least understood. Confused with ravensara, bought without a glance at the chemotype, used without precaution. Here are the answers we give every week to our customers, to pharmacists and to the practitioners who work with our oil.
Ravintsara or ravensara: what’s the difference?
They are not two spellings, they are two plants. Ravintsara is Cinnamomum camphora, chemotype 1,8-cineole, the camphor tree acclimatised to Madagascar, whose leaves are distilled. Ravensara (Ravensara aromatica) is a different tree, with a different composition, rarer and more delicate to use. The confusion is still found on many labels. At BETSARA, the Latin name and the chemotype appear on every bottle: Cinnamomum camphora ct 1,8-cineole, nothing else.
Why does the 1,8-cineole chemotype matter so much?
The chemotype is the oil’s chemical identity card. The same botanical species can produce very different oils depending on the terroir and the part distilled: the Chinese camphor tree yields an oil rich in camphor, the Madagascan one an oil dominated by 1,8-cineole, with sabinene and alpha-terpineol. This precise profile is what built ravintsara’s reputation. Every BETSARA batch is analysed by gas chromatography and its chemotype is guaranteed.
Why a ravintsara essential oil from Madagascar?
Because ravintsara only truly exists there. Introduced to Madagascar, the camphor tree developed, under the climate of the Highlands, this unique chemotype found nowhere else. Our trees grow on Tahina’s family land in Sahambavy, in the Fianarantsoa region, up on the Highlands. Leaves picked by hand, distillation on site, bottling in France: from leaf to bottle, a single supply chain, with no middleman.
What makes BETSARA oil different from another organic ravintsara oil?
Three things an “organic” label does not tell you. One, we only do ravintsara: no catalogue of 80 oils bought from wholesalers, a single plant, mastered from end to end. Two, our leaves are hand-picked from our own trees, not machine-harvested on anonymous plots. Three, the proof: FR-BIO-15 organic certification, Best Organic Product 2019 and 2022, chemotype analysed and guaranteed on every batch. Organic is the minimum. The rest is terroir and craft.
How do you use ravintsara essential oil day to day?
Three simple gestures, drawn from traditional use: in a diffuser (a few drops, 20 to 30 minutes), applied to the skin diluted in a vegetable oil (wrists, chest, soles of the feet), or by dry inhalation, one drop on a tissue. A few precautions apply to all essential oils: no undiluted use over a large area, not for pregnant or breastfeeding women, not for children under 6 without advice from a healthcare professional, and a skin test in the crook of the elbow before first use. When in doubt, ask your pharmacist or doctor.
Essential oil, hydrosol or herbal tea: which one to choose?
One distillation, three products. The essential oil is the aromatic concentrate: powerful, dosed by the drop. The hydrosol is the distillation water carrying the water-soluble molecules: gentle, needs no dilution, suited to sensitive skin and the whole family, as a mist or a lotion. The herbal tea is the dried leaves from our trees, to drink hot: ravintsara in its simplest form, for an evening or winter ritual. All three come from the same plantation, the same harvest, under the same FR-BIO-15 certification.
A question that isn’t answered here? Write to us, we answer ourselves. And to see what our oil really contains, batch by batch, the gas chromatography analysis of every production run is published on our Transparency & Quality page (in French).