Tea Tree Oil is an
essential oil extracted from the leaves of the
Melaleuca Alternifolia, a species of Tea Tree Oil Tree. The Tea Tree Oil is extracted using
a chemical free process called steam distillation which is a particularly pure
form of extraction. It is important when buying any Tea Tree product to ensure
that it uses oil derived only from the Melaleuca Alternifolia species because
this is the one for which all the scientific data applies. All products marketed
as Tea Tree Oil are not necessarily the genuine article.
Although first discovered in 1925 the current renewal of interest in Tea Tree Oil
did not begin until the sixties when people began to question widespread use
of chemical pollutants and the side effects caused by some prescribed drugs.
The result of this was that natural products including Tea Tree Oil became
fashionable again.
There is now a large and growing body of clinical evidence to support the
anecdotal claims made over fifty years of the therapeutic virtues of Tea Tree Oil.