About Tea Tree

Tea Tree (Melaleuca Alternifolia) is native to Australia. The leaves have been used by the Aboriginal people of Australia for centuries. They inhaled the oils from the crushed leaves to treat coughs and colds, sprinkled crushed leaves on their wounds and used an infusion of soaked leaves to treat sore throats or skin ailments. However the plant did not receive the name Tea Tree until 1770, when the name was given by British explorer Captain James Cook and his crew. They used the leaves for tea and later mixed them with spruce leaves as a beer.

In the 1920s, Arthur Penfold—a chemist from the Sydney Museum o Technology and Applied Science—began to experiment with extracting oil from the leaves of the Melaleuca alternifolia. He documented its antimicrobial activity in a series of research reports that were published in the early 20th century, which found that Tea Tree oil was 11 times more active than phenol— the most common germicide of the time. It became recognised internationally as a natural antiseptic—gentle on the skin but harmful to germs.

Following the publication of Penfold’s research, Tea Tree oil was commercially harvested and it became known as a ‘First Aid Kit in a bottle’, used by families as a natural antiseptic in the home.

In the 1970s, the establishment of commercial Tea Tree plantations from seeds harvested in the bush allowed Tea Tree oil to be produced on a larger and more affordable scale. The benefits of a natural approach to health also began to be popularised, causing a resurgence in the use of tea tree oil. It is now one of the most researched essential oils in the world, with more than 1200 research papers assessing the effectiveness and safety of the oil in treating a range of ailments, from dandruff to wounds and fungal infections.