Lavender Oil and Headaches: What the Trials Tested

Lavender is one of the most popular scents people reach for when a head is pounding, so it is fair to ask what the research behind that habit looks like. It is a short list: a handful of small trials, run mostly in hospitals, where patients breathed lavender for fifteen minutes and then scored their own pain. Here is what those trials did, what they found, and where a bottle of lavender oil fits.

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Start with the headache itself

Before any scent, the headache deserves a once-over. The NHS lists the signs that mean calling 999 or going to A&E: a headache that starts suddenly and is extremely painful, one that comes with numbness or weakness in the face or body, difficulty speaking, confusion, loss of vision, a seizure, a head injury in the last three months, or a high temperature with a stiff neck. It asks for an urgent GP appointment or NHS 111 if a headache comes with vision problems, is triggered by coughing or bending, or comes with vomiting, and says to see a GP if headaches are frequent or are not getting better (NHS, Headaches). Working out what a headache is, and what to do about it, belongs to a doctor or pharmacist, and everything below is background reading, not guidance for treating one.

The migraine trial everyone cites

The study that gets quoted most is a 2012 trial of 47 people with diagnosed migraine. Some inhaled lavender essential oil for 15 minutes and the others inhaled liquid paraffin. They recorded how bad the headache was every half hour for two hours. Severity dropped by an average of 3.6 points on a visual analogue pain scale in the lavender group and 1.6 in the paraffin group, and the authors concluded that inhaling lavender "may be" an effective option for acute migraine (Sasannejad et al., Lavender essential oil in the treatment of migraine headache: a placebo-controlled clinical trial).

That is an encouraging headline, and it is worth reading with a few things in mind. It was a small study with a two-hour window, and the outcome was each person's own rating of pain. Liquid paraffin has no smell, so a person who knows what lavender smells like can guess which group they are in, which matters when the result depends on how you feel about the experience. None of that makes the result meaningless. It makes it a promising early signal that has not been followed by a large confirming trial.

Headaches that follow a procedure

Most of the other trials are about headaches with a known cause. In 50 patients with a headache after spinal anesthesia, 15 minutes of lavender and liquid paraffin were compared. Lavender scored better immediately after the inhalation, but the difference faded at the later checks, and the authors noted the study was probably too small to be conclusive (Nasiri et al., Effects of Aromatherapy with Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia MILL) on Post-Dural Puncture Headache: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial). In a trial of 90 patients, a lavender and clove aromatherapy group and a control group all improved over time, and the authors called for more research (Dehghan et al., The Effects of Aromatherapy With Clove and Lavender on Headache Caused by Spinal Anesthesia in Patients Undergoing Urological Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial Study).

So the fair reading is mixed: a few small positive signals, a few flat results, and settings that look very different from an ordinary afternoon at a desk. Our take is that lavender is a lovely thing to have in the room, and the evidence is not yet strong enough to promise anything beyond that.

A scent can also be a trigger

One more point comes from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which says aromatherapy with lavender oil is considered possibly safe but "may cause headache or coughing" (NCCIH, Lavender: Usefulness and Safety, updated February 2025). Plenty of people with migraine know that some smells set things off. If a scent seems to bring a headache on, the practical move is to stop using it and mention it to your doctor.

Your own nose is the best guide

Smell is personal. Some people find lavender soothing company, and others find any strong scent hard to be near. If you are curious about a scent in your own space, start small: open the bottle in a well-ventilated room for a moment, and notice how it sits with you before you diffuse anything. The soft angustifolia and the sharp, camphor-like spike are not the same experience, so a scent that bothers you in one form may be perfectly pleasant in another. If a smell is not welcome, you are allowed to put the cap back on and leave it.

Which lavender, and what we sell

We sell four lavender-family oils: true lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), lavandin grosso, spike lavender and a trade-grade 40/42 whose species our page does not state. They smell different from one another, from the soft and floral angustifolia to the sharper, camphor-edged spike. The studies above generally say "lavender oil" or name Lavandula angustifolia, with no composition we could compare to a retail bottle, so we would not claim that any of ours matches a study material. Our oils are aromatic oils sold neat, not headache products, and if you ever put one on skin it needs diluting; our dilution guide walks through the arithmetic, and our research map and lavender versus peppermint give more context. If you get frequent or severe headaches, a GP is the right first call.

Keep the bottle capped and out of reach when it is not in use, and you will have a small, agreeable luxury that does not need to do any more than smell lovely.

For many people the pleasure of lavender is simply the smell: a clean, floral note that makes a room feel looked after. That is a perfectly good reason to enjoy it.