Serai Wangi

Serai wangi has been around for a long time.


But not many people until very recently know that it can be a good mosquito repellent. Planted in masny of my friends' tropical gardens serai wangi can give out an exotic fragrance which I really like . It is not intoxicating to me as it is gentle and soft and in fact it can be really subtle if you don't pay too much attention to it.

A friend claims that it gives her a big headache. But she can wear POISON and doesn't teel the scent overwhelming. I use a teeny drop of lavender scented water just to feel fresh and absolutely feminine. But again once a friend did say that I remind her of her mother's nyonya clothes. Well well...there is no rationale in one's liking for smells. Mark and Spencer's China Blue talcum powder can make feel as confident as if I were wearing Estee Lauder's White Linen.

I know for myself that I only have to smell lavender and I would just be so happy with everything around me.

Serai wangi is like lavender. It has that natural scent that is around you all the time to a strange haunting degree. And then you can bring the scent in your head away.

You can pull a few stems up clean them and cut them into small pieces and place them in your kitchen to enjoy the scent. This was what I did last weekend.




Most of my friends are now growing their own serai wangi in their gardens now.....

More notes:

Serai Wangi Products may now be available throughout Malaysia.

Citronella Grass (Cymbopogon nardus and Cymbopogon winterianus) is like our local lemon grass but instead it has red base stems. Its citronella oil is used in soaps, as an insect repellent in insect sprays and candles, and also in aromatherapy, which is famous in Bintan, Indonesia. The principal chemical constituents of citronella, geraniol and citronellol, are antiseptics, hence their use in household disinfectants and soaps. Besides oil production, citronella grass is also used for culinary purposes, in tea and as a flavoring.

Lemon Grass Oil, used as a pesticide and preservative, is put on the ancient palm-leaf manuscripts found in India as a preservative. It is used at the Oriental Research Institute Mysore, the French Institute of Pondicherry, the Association for the Preservation of the Saint Thomas Christian Heritage in Kerala and many other manuscript collections in India. The lemon grass oil also injects natural fluidity into the brittle palm leaves and the hydrophobic nature of the oil keeps the manuscripts dry so that the text is not lost to decay due to humidity.

Sources :
a. Lam Peng Sam
New Straits Times
05-01-2004
b. wikipedia