Positive Health Online

Cloves are often thought of as a seasonal spice, brought out for mulled wine, chai or festive baking. Yet each clove is far more than a flavouring. It is a dried flower bud from the evergreen clove tree, Syzygium aromaticum, with a long history of medicinal use across Ayurvedic, Chinese and Western herbal traditions.

With their pungent, warming and slightly numbing quality, cloves have traditionally been valued for their effects on digestion, oral health and the body’s response to microbes. In recent years, they have also found themselves at the centre of online wellness trends, from clove water to DIY remedies promising sweeping benefits. Understanding what clove is actually known to do in the body requires separating established herbal practice from modern hype.

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Cloves

A Warming Herb Rooted in Traditional Medicine

In herbal medicine, taste and sensation offer important clues. Clove’s strong, spicy warmth reflects its dominant active compound, eugenol, which is responsible for much of its therapeutic action. Traditionally, cloves are described as warming, stimulating and aromatic, making them particularly useful where there is stagnation, coldness or sluggish digestion.

This is why cloves have long featured in herbal formulas designed to support digestive comfort, freshen the breath and ease minor pain. Their use is not about dramatic intervention, but gentle stimulation of the body’s own processes.

Digestive Support and Nausea Relief

One of clove’s most consistent traditional roles is as a digestive aid. As a carminative herb, it helps reduce gas and bloating by encouraging healthy digestive secretions and gut motility. When digestion feels heavy or slow, clove’s warming action can be particularly helpful.

Clove has also been used traditionally to help ease nausea. Taken as part of a herbal tea, tincture or included in food, it can help settle the stomach and reduce queasiness.

However, clove’s potency means moderation is important. Those with gastrointestinal reflux or sensitive stomachs should be cautious with higher intakes, as clove oil in particular can irritate the stomach lining if consumed in excess.

Oral Health and Fresh Breath

Clove’s role in oral health is perhaps its most widely recognised application. Eugenol has mild analgesic and antimicrobial properties, which explains clove’s long-standing use in easing toothache and gum discomfort.

Chewing a whole clove or using a properly diluted clove oil gargle has traditionally been used to help manage bad breath and soothe an inflamed pharynx or larynx. The antimicrobial action helps address odour-causing bacteria, while the warming quality supports circulation to the tissues. This is one of the few areas where clove’s reputation extends comfortably from traditional herbalism into modern practice, with clove derivatives still appearing in dental products today.

Supporting the Body’s Response to Microbes

Cloves have a long history of inclusion in herbal formulas intended to support the body when dealing with unwanted microbes. In traditional Western herbalism, cloves were rarely used alone for this purpose, but combined with other herbs to create balanced, targeted preparations.

When taken internally as a tea or tincture, cloves have historically been used as part of blends designed to support the body in expelling intestinal worms. This is not a casual or trendy use, but a specialist area of herbal medicine that relies on correct combinations and dosing.

For this reason, experienced herbalists tend to prescribe cloves within formulas rather than recommending standalone use, particularly for internal protocols.

Clove Water and Kitchen Cupboard Wellness Trends

Clove water has quietly become a global wellness trend, driven by social media posts and viral videos promising benefits ranging from improved digestion and sleep to hormone balance and hair growth.

From a traditional herbal perspective, clove water is best understood as a light infusion. Steeping a small number of cloves in hot water will extract some aromatic compounds, creating a warming drink that may gently support digestion and help freshen the breath.

What it is unlikely to do is deliver the wide-ranging claims often made online. Clove has no established tradition as a hormone regulator or hair growth remedy when taken alone. Like many kitchen cupboard trends, clove water sits somewhere between a comforting ritual and an over-simplified solution.

For most people, it can be enjoyed occasionally as part of a broader, realistic approach to wellbeing.

Culinary Medicine and Everyday Use

One of clove’s strengths is its ability to function as both food and medicine. Used in baking, savoury dishes, chai tea or mulled wine, cloves offer gentle digestive support while enhancing flavour.

In modern herbal practice, cloves are typically prescribed in three main ways: as part of a tea or tincture mixture for internal use, as an essential oil for dental or topical applications, or incorporated into cooking as part of everyday dietary support.

At G Baldwins & Co, a long-established herbal supplier, cloves are available in a range of forms, including dried whole buds, powdered cloves, clove bud essential oil and clove leaf essential oil. Preparations combining clove with complementary herbs, such as oregano, are also used by some people as part of targeted wellness routines.

Essential Oil: Powerful But not Casual

Clove essential oil deserves particular respect. It is highly concentrated and should never be used neat on the skin or taken internally without professional guidance. When used correctly, it can be very effective for dental discomfort and antimicrobial applications, but incorrect use can cause irritation.

In herbal medicine, essential oils are considered potent tools rather than everyday supplements, and are best used with informed support.

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G Baldwin & Co

The Role of the Medical Herbalist

This is where the role of a medical herbalist becomes important. A medical herbalist is trained to understand how plants affect the body, how different herbs interact, and how to tailor formulations to an individual’s constitution, symptoms and health history.

Rather than offering one-size-fits-all advice, herbalists look at patterns within the body, such as digestion, stress response, immunity and inflammation, and use herbs accordingly. Clove, for example, may be appropriate for one person’s digestion, but unsuitable for another’s reflux.

Baldwins supports this personalised approach by offering 15 minute consultations with trained herbalists. These short sessions provide an opportunity to ask questions, explore whether a herb such as clove is appropriate, and receive guidance on safe and effective use.

A Grounded View of Clove’s Benefits

Clove is neither a fleeting trend nor a miracle cure. Its benefits are well established within traditional herbal medicine: digestive support, oral health, antimicrobial action and warming stimulation of the body.

What it offers is subtle, cumulative support rather than dramatic transformation. Used thoughtfully, whether in food, tea or herbal formulas, cloves can play a valuable role in everyday wellbeing.

As interest grows in spice-based wellness, clove serves as a reminder that effective herbal medicine is about context, moderation and guidance. When supported by knowledgeable practitioners and quality preparations, this small dried flower bud continues to earn its place in both traditional practice and modern life