What Is An Essential Oil?
If you have ever smelled a rose and the scent that is produced, you have smelled an essential oil. In this post, I’d like to answer the question, “What is an essential oil?”.
We’ve decided that the essential oils are giving off smells from the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. This is a natural aromatic protection that nature presents. For instance, when you smell a lavender bush, you’re getting the benefit of that smell.
Some of the benefits of lavender are amazing!
So in my quest to explain what is an essential oil, I found this definition on dictionary.com
This says that the fragrance is different for each species of plant. The smell can also differ based on the method of extraction.
The oil can change its smell which in turn may even be something that may change its potency. Mostly, you’ll find this happening when you go to a store that sells generic brands for that store.
How Does An Essential Oil Interact With It’s Surrounding?
When in its natural state, essential oils play a part of pollinating plants. Outside of this, essential oils have long been used for food preparation, beauty treatment, and health-care practices.
Essential oils are also volatile. What this means is that it can change forms very quickly. For instance, if you put them in a diffuser they can change from a liquid to a vapor form. This would be how you can affect your surrounding area without having to place the oil on your skin.
I hope this gave you a little introduction to what an essential oil is and how to use them.
Another interesting factoid about essential oils is that most of the pharmaceuticals that are created are created from essential oils or a form of an essential oil. The reason being is that a natural resource cannot be copyrighted, so they take a small part out of the natural resource and use it to make the drug.
When using essential oils for things such as cleaning, you’ll want to remember that oil and water do not mix. In these cases, putting the mixture in a spray bottle will be the best solution to apply to surfaces after a really good shake of the bottle. One of the best examples that I can use would be the creation of a hand sanitizer bottle using essential oils.
How Can Essential Oils Be Used?
There are basically 3 different ways to use an essential oil.
Aromatic
Basically, this method refers to using the essential oil by use of a diffuser of some sort. Whether you’re allowing the oil to escape from the bottle or you put the EO into a machine that will diffuse the oil. My favorite diffuser is one made by DoTERRA, which is basic yet easy to operate.
Topical
The methods which you can use essential oils are pretty straightforward. Topical however might be 80% straightforward. There are some oils that are considered to be “hot” oils and should not be used on certain areas of your skin. One example of this would be the essential oil Oregano. This would be a bad oil to put on your toes or near them.
I did this once and the whole room smelled like pizza and my feet were on fire. Now, you can imagine other places that wouldn’t be good to have any sort of ‘hot’ oil placed on certain parts of your body. The 2 oils that come to mind right now are Oregano, Deep Blue blend, and Cinnamon. Just be very wise with your choice of placement with these essential oils.
Sensitive Areas To Avoid
- Broken skin
- Eyes
- Inside ears
- Between Toes
Internal
There are many opinions out there regarding whether you should or should not be using essential oils internally. All you have to do is type in that search and you’ll come up with every different iteration of why you should or shouldn’t ingest essential oils.
There are some that are probably not good to put inside of your body to digest internally. However, DoTERRA has a system that is in place that will tell you if you are safe in ingesting each oil. It’s important to know the basics and be able to answer questions when sharing essential oils. This labeling system will help you as you learn more.
Both my wife and I will use essential oils in all three methods and we believe in them because they really do what they are intended to do.
So now you know the answer to “What is an essential oil?”. If you are ready to change your health and finances, we are looking to help a few more people get educated on essential oils and help them build a team of DoTerra Freedom Flyers!
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