Therapeutic Substitutions

For therapeutic substitutions, the rules are quite different from those of aromatic substitutions. The aroma of the substituted oil can be quite different than the original oil as long as the aroma is still pleasing to work with.

Be sure to pay close attention to the desired therapeutic action of the original oil and substitute it for an oil that has the same action but that does not introduce any new contraindications or safety hazards.

The Next Article: Aromatherapy Baths

© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre

Aromatic Substitutions

When substituting an essential oil in a recipe where your goal is strictly for its scent and not for a therapeutic emotional or physical purpose, select an oil from the same family of oils (i.e. citrus, floral, spicy, earthy, etc.) as the oil you are substituting for. An example of this would be substituting the essential oil of mandarin for the essential oil of sweet orange providing a similar aroma. If you need to substitute for rose otto, rose geranium is not perfect, but it can give a suitable result at a substantial price reduction.

Here is a sample list of substitutive essential oils:

• Lemon / Lime
• Tangerine / Sweet Orange
• Neroli / Ylang Ylang
• Peppermint / Spearmint
• Cinnamon / Clove

The Next Article: Therapeutic Substitutions

© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre

Substituting Oils

With over two hundred essential oils, absolutes, resins, CO2s and carrier oils available for aromatherapy work, and taking into consideration that some oils are very expensive, it would be too costly to have every available oil. For this reason it will be necessary to find substitutions for some oils that you may not already have.

Once you have found the aromatherapy recipe where you may not have all the oils that are called for in that recipe, you can try creating the recipe with other oils that you may have. The aroma or therapeutic outcome will not be identical to your original recipe, but you can often get similar results by carefully substituting an oil that you do have on hand.

The Next Article: Aromatic Substitutions

© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre

Therapeutic Blending

Therapeutic blending focuses on creating a recipe that will aid with a particular emotional or physical condition. Therapeutic blending concentrates more on a result than on the aroma of the blend, but all the same, it’s important to marry a therapeutic blend that is also pleasing in aroma.

There are three important points to remember when evaluating the oils to use in therapeutic blending:

1. Select oils for the therapeutic actions they deliver.
2. Make sure that none of the oils that you use have any side effects or safety issues that can affect other aspects of your health. For example, if you create an anti-anxiety blend and you happen to be pregnant, you would want to avoid Rosemary Oil as it is contraindicated in pregnancy.
3. Consider all the therapeutic actions you are seeing and avoid oils that clash with your desired goals. An example of this may be if you wish to create a blend to assist is menstrual cramps using peppermint and cypress, and you wish to use this blend before bedtime. You would tend to avoid these as they have energising effects that may prevent sleep.

To design your blends follow the same basic instructions as the previous chapter for oil blending.

The Next Article: Substituting Oils

© 2004 Aromatherapy and Essential Oil Centre