Clove Oil Benefits: What Each Claim Has Behind It
Clove oil has one benefit with human trial data behind it, and it is a dental one that we will not turn into advice: in small trials, clove preparations applied to the mouth lining before a needle stick scored similarly to benzocaine or other numbing gels. Almost everything else you will read about clove oil is a laboratory dish, an animal, or a review of those. This page sorts the claims by what kind of evidence stands behind them, using our own grading, and says what each study actually put on whom.
Clove Essential Oil
Our own Clove Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
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Shop Now →How we graded, and what the grades mean
This is our own rubric, not a published scale. It grades the type of evidence, not whether clove oil "works":
- A, human trial: a randomised or controlled study in people, for a specific outcome. Even an A here is small and about one preparation.
- B, human review: a systematic or narrative review pooling human studies, with the caveat that its quality depends on what went in.
- C, lab or animal: cells, bacteria in dishes, chemical assays or animals. Interesting; not evidence for what happens on a person.
- D, safety signal: documented harm, which is also evidence and usually better established than the benefits.
The evidence map
| Claim area | Preparation and study form | What was reported | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numbing before a needle (dental) | Alqareer et al., J Dent, 2006: 73 adult volunteers; homemade clove gel, benzocaine 20% gel, and two placebos on the cheek lining; two needle sticks after 5 minutes | Both clove and benzocaine gels had lower mean pain scores than placebo (p=0.005); no significant difference between clove and benzocaine | A, small and short |
| Numbing before a needle (children) | Awasthi et al., Int J Clin Pediatr Dent, 2026: randomised trial in children aged 7 to 10; clove oil vs EMLA 5% vs lignocaine 2% gel | All three reduced pain scores; no significant difference among groups. The authors themselves call it a viable herbal alternative | A, single trial |
| Dental pain generally | Reddy et al., Int J Dent, 2025: systematic review of 21 studies from 2015 to 2025 on plant-derived agents | Clove oil (eugenol) was among the agents with the strongest reported analgesic properties; the authors say preparations are not standardised and larger trials are needed | B |
| Dry socket (alveolar osteitis) | Siriwattanadom et al., Eur J Dent, 2026: narrative review of 8 studies of five herbs, clove among them | Reported improved outcomes; authors call for standard protocols and dose standardisation because bioactive concentration varies | B, weak |
| Antioxidant and antimicrobial | Cortes-Rojas et al., Asian Pac J Trop Biomed, 2014: review of studies of clove and eugenol | Reports antioxidant and antimicrobial activity higher than many fruits, vegetables and other spices in the assays reviewed | C |
| Headache after spinal anaesthesia (inhaled) | Dehghan et al., Health Sci Rep, 2025: 90 patients; clove and lavender aromatherapy vs standard care | Difference between aromatherapy groups and control not statistically significant (p>0.05) | A, negative |
| Skin sensitising and irritant | Case report: Sanchez-Perez and Garcia-Diez, Contact Dermatitis, 1999; oral burn: Sulaksana and Soegyanto, 2022 | Allergic contact dermatitis from eugenol, cinnamon oil and clove oil in a physiotherapist; an oral mucosal burn after applying clove oil to canker sores | D |
Reading the table honestly
The two A-grade dental results are about a numbing gel, not an oil from a bottle. Alqareer's team used a gel they made, in an unstated concentration in the abstract, and tested on healthy volunteers' cheek lining before needle sticks. It does not tell you what happens on a painful tooth, or what an essential oil does. The children's trial compared clove oil with EMLA and lignocaine, and the abstract does not say how the oil was diluted or presented; treat both as signals that dentists and researchers are studying it, not as instructions. We sell aromatic oil labelled for aromatic and cosmetic use, never for the mouth, and will not give a protocol for the mouth. If you have tooth or gum pain, see a dentist; for an over-the-counter numbing product, ask a pharmacist.
Reviews inherit their inputs. The Reddy and Siriwattanadom reviews both end by saying products are not standardised. That matters: "clove oil" in one study can be a diluted gel, in another a dressing, in another a different plant part. Both of our oils are Syzygium aromaticum but bud oil and leaf oil are different materials, and our published bud report gives 73.57% eugenol; the leaf oil has no published report on our site. A 2021 review (Haro-Gonzalez et al., Molecules) puts eugenol at no less than 50% of clove essential oil and lists anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anaesthetic and antinociceptive activity among reported biological activities, drawing mainly on non-human work. Applying any of that to a given bottle is an inference.
The lab results do not become benefits by repetition. An antioxidant assay measures how a molecule behaves in a tube. In the 2025 Bali study (Muderawan et al., Indonesian Journal of Chemical Research), bud oil, leaf oil and eugenol all showed "strong antioxidant activity" in vitro; the abstract does not name the assay. That is useful for chemists. It is not a reason to put the oil on or in your body.
Popular claims this page does not support
Clove oil is promoted for congestion, hair growth, wrinkles, acne, nails and more. We did not cite a human trial for any of these, and the antifungal and antimicrobial results in the reviews above are laboratory findings. We did not search each of those topics to exhaustion here, so the accurate statement is narrower than "no evidence exists": nothing on this page supports those claims, and we make none. Each has, or will have, its own article; start with clove oil for skin, and note that clove is a documented skin sensitiser.
Where this leaves a buyer
Reasoning from the table, the honest benefits of our oils are the ones on our product pages: the aroma. Bud is warm, rich and sweetly spicy; leaf is bolder, smokier and drier. Beyond aroma, the evidence is mixed in size, narrow in preparation and, for the best-studied use, outside what we can advise. Ask whether a claim is a human trial, a review or a dish. If you want to understand the chemistry first, read what eugenol is, the guide to Syzygium aromaticum, our myths and facts post, and side effects. For the mouth specifically, our oral health article sets out what authorities say without a home method.
Clove Essential Oil
Clove Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
From $10.99
Shop Now →Sources & Further Reading
- Alqareer A, Alyahya A, Andersson L, 2006. The effect of clove and benzocaine versus placebo as topical anesthetics. J Dent. PMID 16530911
- Awasthi N et al., 2026. Pain perception following topical clove oil, EMLA 5% and lignocaine gel 2% in children aged 7-10. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent. PMID 42582221
- Reddy MS et al., 2025. Analgesic efficacy of phytotherapeutic agents in dental pain management: a systematic review. Int J Dent. PMID 41322706
- Siriwattanadom S et al., 2026. An update on herbal remedies for alveolar osteitis: a narrative review. Eur J Dent. PMID 41558540
- Cortes-Rojas DF et al., 2014. Clove (Syzygium aromaticum): a precious spice. Asian Pac J Trop Biomed. PMID 25182278
- Haro-Gonzalez JN et al., 2021. Clove essential oil: extraction, chemical composition, food applications, and bioactivity. Molecules. PMID 34770801
- Dehghan M et al., 2025. Aromatherapy with clove and lavender on headache caused by spinal anesthesia. Health Sci Rep. PMID 40012817
- Sanchez-Perez J, Garcia-Diez A, 1999. Occupational allergic contact dermatitis from eugenol, oil of cinnamon and oil of cloves. Contact Dermatitis. PMID 10617221
- Sulaksana SD, Soegyanto AI, 2022. Oral mucosal burn caused by the topical application of a clove oil concentrate. Media Dental Intelektual. jurnal.unissula.ac.id/medali/18635
- Muderawan IW et al., 2025. Clove bud and leaf essential oils from Bali. Indonesian Journal of Chemical Research. ojs3.unpatti.ac.id/ijcr/11336