Stinging nettle or common nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant, native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, and is the best-known member of the netle genus Urtica. Stinging nettle is a dioecious herbaceous perennial, 1 to 2 m tall in the summer and dying down to the ground in winter. It has widely spreading rhizomes and stolons, which are bright yellow as are the roots. The soft green leaves are 3 to 15 cm long and are borne oppositely on an erect wiry green stem. The leaves have a strongly serrated margin, a cordate base and an acuminate tip with a terminal leaf tooth longer than adjacent laterals. It bears small greenish or brownish numerous flowers in dense axillary inflorescences. Extracts from Nettle are widely used in the cosmetics
industries, being marketed as variously having decongestant, astringent, purifying.

Latin name of the plant: Urtica dioica
Plant of material: Leaf
Solubility: Can be produced in both oil-soluble or water-soluble form
Cosmetic applications: For use in every cosmetic formulations