7 Benefits of Grapefruit Essential Oil: Boost Metabolism, Support Detoxification, and More!

The benefits of grapefruit essential oil are extremely versatile and range from helping with sugar cravings to disinfecting surfaces. While the grapefruit’s actual fruit offers tons of health and wellness benefits, the oil extracted from the peel of the plant is where all the magic that we’re going to talk about today happens. 

Properties: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antidepressant, energizing 

Benefits of Grapefruit Essential Oil

Natural Energizer and Mood Booster 

Boost mental focus and energy with grapefruit oil’s clean and refreshing aroma! You can inhale directly from the bottle or diffuse 5 drops to help combat brain fog and fatigue. Because grapefruit oil increases alertness while calming the body and nerves, aromatic use can also help with mood support.  

Citrus oils, like grapefruit, are known to help energize the brain and boost feelings of good! A study found that citrus fragrance made the rats more reactive and alert and less immobile – which we see a lot in those suffering from depression. 

Research also found that grapefruit essential oil inhibits acetylcholinesterase activity and can help improve a person’s mood while also fighting fatigue, stress, and depression.

How to Use: Inhale grapefruit oil to prevent stress-induced immunosuppression and promote a calm demeanor 

Natural Antibacterial 

Grapefruit oil’s antimicrobial and antibacterial properties can help reduce bacteria, both topically and internally. Thi sanitize surfaces reduce bacteria from parasites or contamination in the body.

Research found that grapefruit oil can go up against strong bacterial strains that cause food-borne illnesses like salmonella and E. Coli. This means that grapefruit oil’s internal use may be useful for reducing bacteria from parasites or contamination in the body. 

In addition to fighting internal bacterial growth, grapefruit can also be used topically to inhibit fungus and mold growth on the skin.  

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine published a study that found grapefruit-seed extract showed antibacterial properties against all 67 biotype organisms! 

To use grapefruit essential oil as a natural antibacterial, add 1-2 drops to a veggie capsule with a food-grade oil like EVOO and ingest. For topical use, add 1-2 drops of grapefruit to a carrier oil and apply to the area of concern.  

Reduce Cravings and Support Diet 

A study shows that eating grapefruit and drinking grapefruit juice may help with weight loss – can the essential oil prove to do the same thing? Science says, yes. The primary component of grapefruit oil, limonene, is thought to balance blood sugar levels and reduce appetite. If you are struggling with a diet, you can diffuse grapefruit essential oil to help with motivation and curb sugar cravings. 

Furthermore, a study found that grapefruit oil can affect white adipose (fatty) tissue responsible for lipolysis. When rats inhaled grapefruit oil, they showed an increase in lipolysis resulting in suppression in weight gain. 

You can also take grapefruit oil internally to help boost metabolism. Mix 1-2 drops with a teaspoon of raw honey and add to warm water, or add 1-2 drops of grapefruit oil to a veggie capsule with a little bit of EVOO and ingest (1).

Grapefruit oil may also boost water weight loss due to its diuretic and lymphatic drainage effects. If you think you may have a sluggish lymphatic system, try using grapefruit oil topically to promote lymph flow. Add 1-2 drops to your body cream and apply to the tummy and legs. 

Promote Healthy, Clear Skin 

Grapefruit oil is loved for its powerful cleansing and purifying properties, so adding grapefruit oil to your skincare routine will promote clear clean skin. 

It’s antibacterial and anti-aging properties not only make it an excellent oil for healing wounds, cuts, and bites but also for preventing skin infections. The anti-inflammatory properties in citrus oils, including grapefruit, is what is believed to reduce inflammation and regulate cytokine production. Regulating cytokine production may help reduce stress-related breakouts and inflammation. 

Also, research showed that a combination of grapefruit oil and rosemary oil has photoprotective and anti-aging effects. The combination proved to inhibit UV ray-induced effects and inflammatory markers, allowing the skin to bypass dangerous sun exposure effects. 

Detoxification 

Grapefruit can aid in the detoxification of digestive organs like the bladder, liver, kidneys, and stomach making it a great oil to boost digestive health and clear toxins from the body. 

As we learned above, grapefruit can help reduce fluid retention and act as a diuretic. Combine that with its antimicrobial properties, and it makes the perfect oil for clearing microbes and toxins in the intestines. 

The Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism found that grapefruit juice can promote metabolic detoxification. Although there is no hard evidence, this leads us to believe that taking grapefruit oil internally may help modulate metabolic pathways.  

Helps with Hangover Symptoms 

After a long night of drinking alcohol, you may experience some pretty bad headaches, sluggishness, brain fog, fatigue, and cravings. 

To aid in detoxification and regulate hormones and blood sugar, look to grapefruit essential oil. As a powerful liver and gallbladder stimulant, grapefruit essential oil can increase detoxification and urination, helping to get you back on the right track and kick that dreaded hangover symptoms to the curb. Plus, as a natural mood booster, inhaling the oil may help make you feel mentally better. 

Promotes a Healthy Scalp 

As a powerful antibacterial and antimicrobial agent, grapefruit oil can help cleanse your scalp of any guck that prevents it from growing healthy, luscious hair. Kind of like how grapefruit oil can cut grease on countertops, it can do the same with your scalp. If you struggle with an oily scalp, try adding a drop or two to your shampoo or conditioner right before applying it to your hair. 

In addition, because grapefruit can protect your skin from UV damage when used topically, it may be able to protect colored hair from sunlight damage. Even more, because we learned that rosemary and grapefruit make a killer combo for the skin – we can use this combo on the hair to promote hair growth as well! 

Other Possible Benefits: 

Cancer Preventing 

The primary constituent of grapefruit essential oil is limone, which is known as a tumor-fighting, cancer-preventing phytochemical that can protect against cellular damage. Due to its high antioxidant and phytochemical levels, grapefruit oil can reduce oxidative stress and disease-causing inflammation. 

Research analyzing the anticancer activity of grapefruit essential oil found that the CCK-8 assay of cell proliferation showed an inhibitory effect on the proliferation of HCT116 colon cancer cells and HepG2 liver cancer cells. 

Though there is not enough evidence to support this claim, the research done so far proves promising. 

Who would have thought that such a beautiful fruit can have so many powerful benefits when extracted into an oil?! Now that you have the top benefits and uses of grapefruit essential oil let me know in the comments below what you are most excited to use it for.