Wild Carrot A Precious Plant and Essential Oil

Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) is in the Apiaceae family. This plant's dried fruit (seeds) are steam distilled, creating lovely yellow or amber-colored essential oil. Its light earthy smell creates a warming sensation when inhaled. Carrot Seed essential oil is mainly produced in France.

Wild Carrot, or Queen Anne's lace, is a biennial herb with dense umbels. It is a white flowering plant with solid stems producing tripinnate leaves and fine hairs covering the green stems and leaves. Its majestic umbel-shaped flower occasionally will create a single dark red flower in the center of the umbel, and as the plant ages, it turns dark purple. Its white root is tiny and tough, smells of carrots when crushed, and considered inedible. 

It is my go-to essential oil when working with dry aging skin, hoof issues, and needing an overall tonic to the body's system. It is noted to be anthelmintic, antiseptic, carminative, depurative, diuretic, emmenagogue, hepatic, stimulant, tonic, vasodilatory, and smooth muscle relaxant. 

For me, this essential oil cleanses the mind, helping relieve stress and exhaustion. Its depurative and hepatic properties make it an excellent blood purifier due to its toning and detoxifying effect on the liver. It is believed to help with arthritis, gout, edema, rheumatism, colic, indigestion, and liver congestion. Carrot seed relieves skin problems such as dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, and rashes. Its stimulating effect on red blood cells improves the complexion and brings tone and elasticity to the skin. I find it to be an overall tonic to the body's system. Dogs and horses often choose this oil when they are feeling lethargic or when their immune system is sluggish. 

I have experienced incredible results using carrot seed essential oil. For example, I created Facial Gel when I first moved to Colorado to help my face adapt and stay healthy in the dry environment I was now living in. Carrot Seed was the main essential oil that helped rehabilitate three horses with traumatic rattlesnake bites; note this was after the veterinarian came and gave them the proper treatment for rattlesnake bites. Another example was with my horse, Pete, who suffered from a quarter crack below his coronary band. I created a hoof ointment with carrot seed essential oil and got his hoof to grow within two weeks. It is now called Bo's Hoof Ointment. 

Folklore:

The name Carrot comes from the French word "carotte," Daucus is an ancient Greek name for this plant. In ancient times Wild Carrot was much valued for its medicinal properties. Such as:

"An infusion of the whole herb is considered an active and valuable remedy for dropsy, chronic kidney diseases and affections of the bladder."(1) 

"The seeds are a carminative, stimulant and very useful for flautulence, chronic coughs, etc" (2) 

"Old writers tell us that a poultice made of the roots has been found to mitigate the pain of cancerous ulcers and that the leaves applied with honey cleanse running sores and ulcers. An infusion of the root was also used as an aperient." (3)

(1),(2) and (3): A Modern Herbal, Mrs. M. Grieve, Vulume One A-H, Dover Publication 1971, pages 165-166.