Cloves are native to a remarkably small original range — the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, historically known as the Spice Islands — yet became one of the most globally significant and fought-over trade goods in human history. Chinese court officials were reportedly required to chew cloves before addressing the emperor as early as 200 BCE, an early documented medicinal and practical use for fresh breath and oral comfort.
Cloves' immense value on the medieval and early modern spice trade made the tiny Maluku Islands a focal point of brutal colonial competition — Portuguese, then Dutch, then British forces fought directly over control of clove production for centuries, with the Dutch East India Company at one point deliberately destroying clove trees outside their controlled territories to maintain a monopoly and artificially high prices. Cloves' specific reputation for dental pain relief, independent of this trade history, persisted in parallel across multiple traditional medicine systems.
Cloves have a genuinely solid evidence base for one specific, well-defined use: dental and toothache pain relief, via their primary active compound, eugenol. A 2025 systematic review published in the International Journal of Dentistry assessed eugenol using the GRADE framework — a standard evidence-quality rating system — and assigned it a moderate-certainty rating, ahead of better-known natural options like turmeric and green tea extract for dental pain specifically. Across three separate trials reviewed — following 270, 100, and 92 patients respectively — eugenol performed consistently well, with one trial's researchers recommending it as a first-choice option for the procedure studied.
An older but frequently cited 2006 trial of 91 adults found clove oil performed comparably to benzocaine, a standard topical anesthetic, with both outperforming placebo. The honest caveat, echoed by dental sources reviewing this evidence: eugenol's effect is real but short-lived, providing temporary relief rather than addressing the underlying cause of tooth pain. Given genuine GRADE-moderate-certainty evidence across multiple real clinical trials for a specific, well-defined use, "Moderate" is an accurate, non-inflated rating.
Whole dried buds chewed directly, ground into powder for spice blends, or distilled into essential oil for topical dental use.