Oil of the Day: May Chang, the Lemon-Sherbet Note for a Monday Lift

Some mornings do not need calm. They need a clean, bright window thrown open. That is May Chang: lemon sherbet with the edges smoothed off, the scent of a kitchen full of sunlight before anyone has spoken.

May Chang: The Lemon-Sherbet Note Hiding in a Tiny Fruit

May Chang, known botanically as Litsea cubeba, is steam-distilled from the tiny pepper-sized fruits of a small tree in the laurel family, native to the mountains of China and Southeast Asia. The name “cubeba” nods to those little berry-like fruits. In the bottle it smells like the brightest, roundest lemon you have ever met, with a soft sweetness underneath that ordinary lemon oil never quite reaches.

Here is the detail worth keeping. May Chang is one of the richest natural sources of citral, the aroma molecule behind that sherbet-bright lift, often making up 70 to 85 percent of the oil. Citral is what gives lemongrass and lemon myrtle their punch too, but May Chang carries it in a rounder, less grassy form. And because this oil is steam-distilled from fruit rather than cold-pressed from peel, it does not carry the furocoumarins that make some citrus oils sun-sensitizing. As a top note, it is happiest in the air, where its brightness truly belongs.

For a Monday that needs momentum, try it on its own. Add 6 to 8 drops to a Nebulizing Diffuser® as you sit down to work. Because nebulizing diffusion uses no water and no heat, it lifts that delicate citral into the room whole, so you get the full sherbet-bright top note instead of the flat, cooked lemon that warm methods can leave behind. When you want a little more shape, May Chang loves a few drops of bergamot or a whisper of rosemary. On its own, though, it is simply a window opening.

However your week begins, may the first thing you breathe be light. Warmly, Chad.