Essential of Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy Applications

Essential oils are available at your local health food store and via mail order or the internet.  It's fun to experiment with different aromas but, before you buy, remember that essential oils are often quite costly because they're so expensive to produce.  Buy in small quantities.

Keep in mind, too, that while essential oils may be natural, they're also powerful natural chemicals.  A little goes a long way.  Because they have real power to affect your mood, your skin, your energy, and you have to use them in just the right dose.

If you want to be the smartest at-home aromatherapy user, be sure to consult the myriad of books on aromatherapy that can help guide you in terms of how much you use, how you store the oils, and that you use the right base.

There are a number of ways, besides just opening the bottle and sniffing, to enjoy your oils:

• Sleep with it.  You can drizzle some on a cotton ball and place it under your pillow.
• Diffuse it through your room.  A safe way to enjoy aromatherapy is to fragrance a room using an electric vaporizer.  You can also buy a light bulb ring that sit atop a light bulb.  It releases aroma as soon as the bulb heat up. 
• Get Misty.  You can place water and an essential oil in a plastic spray bottle and mist a room.
• Burn it.  During the winter, place rosemary or lavendar on the wood in your fireplace for a relaxing evening at home.

There are dozens of essential oils and hundreds of remedies to choose from.  Aside from following an aromatherapy practitioner's advice, there are a number of things you can try on your own. 

Here are several:

• Stress: Mix 10 to 20 drops of lavendar and rosemary in a full bath.  Soak.
• Colds:  Inhale an infusion of eucalyptus oil in steaming water.  To make an infusion, add 10-15 drops of eucalyptus in a bowl of steaming water.  Close your eyes and inhale the mixture for two to three minutes for up to four times daily.  Eucalyptus cools the body if you have a fever, dries mucous secretions, and shrinks swollen sinuses. 
• Headaches:  Apply a few drops of diluted lavendar, peppermint, or rosemary oil to your temples.  Massage them using deep strokes.  Close your eyes and apply pressure to your forehead, jaw, and temples.
• Indigestion and gas:  Massage either basil and chamomile or fennel and peppermint over your abdomen. (Again, dilute by placing 2 drops of each essential oil in 1 ounce of carrier oil and massage as needed)
  Mouth wash
• Mouthwash:  Place one drop of peppermint or lemon essential oil in 1 half-cup of water.  Gargle and rinse. (Do not swallow the oils)
• Muscle aches:  Prepare a dilution of two drops each of eucalyptus and rosemary or arnica and juniper in 1 ounce of carrier oil.  Mix.  Massage directly only sore muscles.