Using Your Essential Oils
Bringing essential oils into your life can be fun and rewarding. Listed below is a guide to the use of essential oils in everyday life. Remember this is only a guide and careful attention to the safe use of essential oils must be adhered to at all times.
- Basic Inhalation – Add 2-4 drops of essential oil on a tissue. Place the tissue under your nose and inhale. Initially, use only one drop to ensure that you do not have a sensitivity or reaction to the oil.
- Steam Inhalation – Boil 1 cup of water. Add 3-7 drops of oil. Lean over the bowl and breathe in deeply. If you notice any irritation, stop immediately. Steam inhalation is good with colds and chest-related ailments. Depending upon the blend, therapeutic benefits can be used day or night.
- Oil Burner Diffusion – Add around 5 drops of oil or blend into the oil dish, fill the balance with warm water. Light a candle that sits below and allow the candle to warm the bowl, slowly heating the blend and thus dispersing the essence within the room. Remember if you leave the room for an extended period extinguish the candle. Also place the burner in a safe place, away from flammable material. Essential oils are highly flammable, so great care must taken.
- Lamp Ring Diffusers are a terra-cotta ring that sets directly onto a light bulb. It has a grooved lip that goes all the way around it. This lip holds essential oil. The heat from a light bulb heats the essential oil in the Lamp Ring and the oil is then gently diffused into the room.
- Clay Pot Diffusers resemble small terra-cotta pots. They also can be found in many small shapes. A clay pot diffuser contains an opening for adding essential oils. Usually a cork is the method by which the opening is closed. The oils permeate through the pot and then diffuse out into the room. The intensity of the aroma depends on how much essential oil is added to the clay pot.
- Candle Diffusers utilizes a tea light or other candle to gently heat the essential promote diffusion into a room. A candle diffuser may be ceramic, glass or metal.
- Fan Diffusers come in a variety of sizes and styles. It uses a fan to blow the essential oils into the air when placed them onto a disposable absorbent pad or into a tray.
- Electric Heat Diffusers are similar to a fan diffuser. They use heat and a fan to gently heat the oil and disperse the aroma into a room.
- A Nebulizer is a device that takes essential oils and breaks them into separate molecules before dispersing the smaller molecules into the room. It is said that these smaller molecules can be more readily absorbed by the lungs and thus create greater therapeutic value than by use of other diffusion methods.
- Scenting your room – Use the steam method, with up to 10 drops of oil or blend to 2 cups of water and place the bowl in your room. Using of an Aromatherapy diffuser or lamp scent ring will provide the most effective diffusion of your oil blend.
- General Household Freshening – Add a few drops of oil to your rubbish bin, laundry wash, drain, vacuum bag filter, or on a tissue for placement in your drawers.
- Insect Repellent – Many essential oils including citronella, lavender, and peppermint act as a natural insect repellent. Use a diluted oil and massage onto skin like suntan oil or add an essential oil blended with water in a spray bottle and spray onto skin like insect spray. You can also add a blended oil to your burner to scent the air and keep the insects away. Be sure to read all safety data on the oils you use as some oils may not be suitable for use around pets. Be careful not to apply the essential oil directly onto delicate surfaces.
- Massage - Add up to 20 drops of essential oil to 1-ounce carrier oil such as sweet almond oil and massage onto yourself or partner. Keep away from eyes and genital areas. Do not apply essential oils to the skin without first diluting them.
- Bath - Add 5-7 drops essential oil to 1-ounce carrier oil. Add this blend to your running bath water and mix well before getting into the tub. Conversely you can add 5-7 drops directly to the running water. Close the door to the bathroom whilst the bath is filling so that when you enter the room is filled with essential oil steam as you soak. Be sure to read the safety data for the essential oils you choose to use.
Other Uses
Essential oils can be used in making homemade lotions, facial toners, shampoos, perfumes, soaps, shower gels, and other natural products. Additionally, essential oils are often blended for their therapeutic synergistic abilities. Factories provide some blends to help you get started but the fun of Aromatherapy is creating your own blends.
The Next Article: Aromatherapy Tips for Beginners
© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre
Aromatherapy Tips for Beginners
Don’t buy perfumed or fragranced oils thinking they are the same as essential oils as perfumed oils do not offer the therapeutic benefits of essential oils.
It is not wise to purchase oils from stalls at street fairs, craft shows, or other limited-time events if you wish to purchase quality products.
Read as much as you can on Aromatherapy, which is what you are doing right now! It is very easy to get started with Aromatherapy, but there are safety issues that you need to be aware of.
Be selective of where you purchase your essential oils.
Learn to compare apples to apples when shopping for oils. Anise, Lavender, Bay, Cedarwood, and Eucalyptus are examples of the common names of plants used to create essential oils. There, however, are different varieties of each of these plants. To differentiate these varieties, the botanical name (also referred to as the Latin name) is used to tell them apart. For instance, two different oils are referred to as “Bay essential oil,” yet they come from two different plants. The properties and aroma of each oil do differ, as does the general cost between the two. It, therefore, is important to pay attention to the botanical name. In the case of Bay, the common botanical names for the two oils used in this example are Pimenta racemosa and Laurus nobilis.
It is also helpful to note the country of origin for the oil. The best suppliers always lists the origins, botanical name and country of origin for all oils we supply.
The quality of the oil is vital in Aromatherapy. Many oils sold by health food shops, retail stores and the like may be of questionable quality and thus useless in Aromatherapy. Always make sure the oil you buy is of premium quality and pure.
Always store your oils in dark glass (amber or cobalt blue) and in a cool, dark place. We store our oils in a small wooden cabinet that looks great and hold 40-50 oils. Any wooden box can be used and are especially good when transporting your oils.
Always make sure you understand the safety precautions for each of the oils you choose to use as some oils may have some effects if used undiluted, on pregnant women or on those with sensitivity of allergic reactions to some oils. Some oils are photosensitive and should not be used before going out into the sun. Suppliers provide some safety precautions but please research more if you have any concern about the essential oils you use especially if you have any medical condition or are pregnant.
The Next Article: Diffusion Aromatherapy and Essential Oils
© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre
Diffusion Aromatherapy and Essential Oils
Filling your room with the natural fragrance of an essential oil or blend is known as diffusion. There are many ways to diffuse oils into your room, from the simple to the elaborate. Most of the methods can be done with things you probably already have in your house.
The Next Article: The Art of Perfume Blending
© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre
The Art of Perfume Blending
Aromatic blending is like cooking, some cooks follow the recipe and never deviate from the ingredients, whilst other cooks prefer to adlib or substitute ingredients to make their meal their own. Still other cooks never open the book and create from their own imagination. Aromatherapy blending is the same. Most create blends for the sheer pleasure of the aroma as well as for creativity and science. When using a blend primarily for its fragrance, often a therapeutic benefit can also occur. The focus of the blend, however, is on the final aroma, not its therapeutic properties.
It is important to note that most modern perfumes contain synthetic, chemically based copies of essential oil fragrance. Most modern perfumers consider it impossible to design good perfume without them. They use chemicals to impart lift, diffusion and radiance to the scent. Most perfumes can contain over 100 different chemicals and compounds to achieve the final essence.
Although it would be impossible to match the 100 ingredients contained in these fragrances, the fact is that it is not necessary to have this many ingredients. This is due to the fact that unlike chemical clones, essential oils are already a combination of constituents. An example of this is rose oil, which contains over 300 constituents. When combining Rose with, say Jasmine essential oil, your blend may constitute over 400 constituents that a chemist would be required to synthesize! This is why it is impossible to identically copy essential rose oil.
Lastly, many people may be sensitive to some of the chemicals used in the manufacture that may not exist in natural essential oil.
Safety precautions should be followed for any type of blending, including for aromatic blending. For instance, you would still want to be extremely careful when using Bergamot because of its phototoxic properties and still avoid using all hazardous oils and all oils that are contraindicated for conditions that you have.
Perfumers working for fragrance houses study all their life mastering the art and science of perfumery. Many perfumer’s utilize essential oils but also use synthesized chemicals that copy the natural essence of essential oils and other natural ingredients. Synthesized chemicals and chemicals extracted from essential oils are often used because they are cheaper than using pure essential oils as well as being more stable and long lasting providing a more consistent aroma.
In aromatherapy blending, only natural ingredients are used including essential oils, absolutes, CO2s, alcohol, carrier oils, herbs and water. As aromatherapy blending requires and benefits from the use of unsynthesised chemicals, you shouldn’t expect to perfectly duplicate your favorite commercial fragrances.
The Next Article: Blending Basics
© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre