How to Use Essential Oils

Aromatherapy is a fairly new field, having gotten its modern start in the 1920′ s in France, and only being really scientifically studied for the past 40 years. Many people have simply assumed that the same benefits and hazards of the herb will apply to the essential oil as well, and that has caused a lot of confusion and misinformation in the industry. Perhaps the best-known and most trustworthy person to listen to in this area is a man named Martin Watt. If you are interested in serious, detailed facts about essential oils, search him out. He’ s located in the United Kingdom, but very easy to find on the Internet.

Having used essential oils for easily 15 years, and having sifted through mountains of journal articles and online forums on the subject, I think it is safe to say that you can use essential oils in your home, safely, if you follow a few common sense guidelines.

• First, be cautious. Don’t trust everyone on the Internet, especially if they are selling you something. Find a trusted merchant, and stick with that person.
• Second, and here I disagree with Martin Watt and others: do try to source out organic oils. At the moment, they are hard to come by, and very poorly regulated, but in my opinion, it is a start. Don’t only think of the benefits to you, think of the people harvesting the crops. Do you really want to be a part of an industry that may be subjecting its workers to cancerous pesticides and herbicides, just so you can have fresh smelling laundry? It’ s a bit Marie Antoinette, isn’ t it? So I do suggest searching out oils which come from organically grown plants. They do exist.
• Third, for home use, use only those oils that have been studied and have been proven safe and effective.
• Other oils can be safely used at home, but all oils need to be treated like you treat any potentially dangerous substance & keep them away from children and pets, and always use caution. There have been cases of children drinking oils and dying. These oils are potent. Part of the reason I like to use them so much is that I can buy a very small amount and use it in skin care, laundry, house cleaning, for minor aches and pains & all in a 5ml bottle. They are extremely economical and effective, but, and here is where we sometimes have a bit of cognitive dissonance: they work & sometimes better than their synthetic counterparts. That means they are powerful, and need to be treated with respect.

Even oils like lemon oil and orange oil, which have been proven so effective that hospitals use them for cleaning, are not entirely safe. They can be irritating to the skin, and should not be used internally, unless guided by a highly trained aromatherapist.

• Always, always, always dilute the oils. Dilute them a lot. You often need 2-3 drops in a bottle of carrier oil. This is one of the benefits, because it makes them economical, but never get lazy about this. One hazard of this, which may not appear at first, is a sensitization. Slowly you may become allergic to the oil and this can result in skin rashes.
• Lastly, if you want to use essential oils for medical or health reasons, only use them with the guidance of a highly trained aromatherapist. There are some exciting areas of research right now, in things like preventing the spread of certain viruses in hospitals using essential oils, but there is much more out there that is just so much hype. What is disturbing is how, in this virtually unregulated field, there will be people who prey on the desperation of people, suffering from the ineptitude of our current medical system, who reach out for the false kindness and seeming easy cure of what some describe as modern snake oil salesmen.




If you have been helped by something harmless but unproven, wonderful! Who cares, really, if the method itself worked or if it was the proven, but often unreported (because you can’ t profit from it) placebo effect.

But, of all the possible hazards, I think one of the saddest is how often sick and suffering people are taken advantage of, whether by the pharmaceutical industry or the  natural health care industry in their time of greatest need.

Please take care, especially if you are suffering, to be vigilant. If you’ d like more information on the power of the placebo effect, please look up the work of Mario Beauregard, author of the Spiritual Brain, and professor of neuroscience at the University of Montreal.