aromaWHAT

Read on aromatherapy enthusiasts...

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Brought up Mar 18, 2011

Part 1: Aromatherapy Basics

So you’re interested in aromatherapy, but not too sure what it’s all about?

“Aromatherapy can be defined as the diligent use of essential oils to promote or improve human health, hygiene and wellbeing. The term is applied to personal care products containing essential oils that impart skin-active and/or “feel good” properties. Essential oils are often found as ingredients in over-the-counter preparations for respiratory health or muscular pain, and there are a number of oral medications that contain essential oils as their active ingredients, although the chances are that your family doctor is not familiar with any of them.”

http://roberttisserand.com/aromatherapy/

Well, let me tell you a bit about what you’d normally use in aromatherapy. It’s really as easy as one, two, and three…

One...Essential Oils (my shortened version – EO)

Plants contain essences in their oil glands. These oil glands are located within bark, the entire plant, flowers, fruit peel, leaves, roots, stems and wood of plants or trees. When the essences are extracted from the various parts of the plant, we get essential oils.

The more oil glands in a plant, the higher the amount of essence can be extracted, therefore, less plants are used…and low and behold…the price of the essential oil is less expensive!

A plant that produces an essence often produces in only one of its parts i.e rose essential oils is extracted from the flowers. Nonetheless, there are instances when more than one part of the plant is used to obtain essential oil e.g. the bitter orange tree flowers produce neroli essential oil, leaves produce petitgrain essential oil and the fruit peel produces bitter orange essential oil.

The bottle sizes that essential oils come in generally range from 5ml to 15ml. This is because the essential oils are VERY concentrated, highly aromatic and should be used sparingly. Need a little more insight? Next week I’ll be posting how to use aromatherapy oils.

It’s difficult to say exactly what an EOs shelf life will be, as each EO is different and storage conditions will vary and make a significant difference.

Another thing to note is that not all essential oils are equal is aroma, colour, price, etc. Some reasons for this are because of:

• Ecological variables e.g. climate, type of soil used to grow the plant, what type of chemicals or fertilisers are used, etc.

• Genetics refers to which family the plant belongs to. A lot of plants have subspecies and EOs extracted from these may vary in chemical constituents.

• Chemotype relates to the location of where a plant is grown. For instance, rosemary, from the same botanical species, grown in two different locations e.g. South Africa and Europe, will most definitely have different chemical compositions to each other.

• Extraction method involves how essences are removed from the plant. I will get to this in a later article.

• Harvesting time is exactly that – when the plant is harvested e.g. the season in which plants are harvested, if the plants are harvested before or after flowering, etc.

Two…Carrier oils (aka vegetable oils)

These oils are generally extracted from kernels, nuts and seeds, although there are a few exceptions to this generalisation. They normally have a very faint, nutty, sweet aroma. Carrier oils are commonly used as a base for essential oils to be mixed into.

So why not use plain water, why carrier oils? Well, EOs are hydrophobic (water-hating) and are drawn to lipids (fat), so they will not mix with the water (I will delve into this another time). Try it. When you put a few drops of EO into water, all it does is form a layer on the top, whereas if you mix EO into carrier oil, it dilutes immediately.

However, carrier oils don’t just serve as a base for EOs…In many cultures, carrier oils are traditionally used as beauty treatments (lip balms, moisturising skincare products, bath oils, etc.) food supplements and medicine. They contain vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, most of which help to improve skin condition and are highly nourishing and moisturising.

A word of caution to nut-allergy sufferers…Don’t use carrier oils that are nut-based, because instead of a therapeutic massage, you might end up in an emergency room!

Three…Vegetable Butters

Vegetable butters are solid (or semi-solid) at room temperature and are becoming more widely incorporated into cosmetics and skin care products as they are rich in beneficial nutrients and are highly moisturising. In warmer climates, the butters may melt, so it’s suggested to keep them refrigerated.

When we use butters in aromatherapy, it’s great to mix butters with each other, but to make them more liquid, combining them with carrier oils does wonders. And remember the old saying, “A little goes a LONG way!”

So just a quick recap on some of the main differences…