How To Use Essential Oils In Your Home
The essential oils industry is big business, and that’s because they make big promises: better sleep, reduced anxiety, improved overall well-being.
Who doesn’t want better sleep reduced anxiety, and improved well-being? Sign me up!
But the reality is there’s a lot of controversy and confusion around everything essential oils. If they aren’t used properly, they can be dangerous.
Here’s your crash course on essential oils, in under 15 minutes.
What’s an essential oil?
An essential oil is not quite a perfume and not quite a medicine.
Instead, it’s an extremely potent compound extracted from a plant that retains the natural smell and flavor, or “essence,” of their source.
Essential oils can be expensive, and that’s because it takes an awful lot of plants to create its essential oil. (Just one drop of rose oil requires fifty rose flowers!)
How are essential oils used in the home?
They can be inhaled, diffused into the air, applied to the skin, or used in household cleaning..
They’re most often used for aromatherapy, as proponents say essential oils are effective in:
- reducing stress and anxiety
- reducing the severity of headaches and migraines
- improving sleep quality
- reducing the effects of nausea
- and reducing menstrual pain.
Different oils are best for different purposes: while tea tree oil, for example, is excellent at killing bacteria and is therefore often used in cleaning, lavender oil is relaxing and is often used in aromatherapy.
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How do essential oils fit into a sustainable minimalist lifestyle?
Essential oils are natural, made from renewable resources (plants), and are packaged in glass containers.
Essential oils can help replace conventional products.
Perhaps you add a few drops of essential oil to your dryer ball to infuse a nice scent into your laundry. Doing so will eliminate the need for those pesky, single-use dryer sheets.
Or perhaps you diffuse an oil in your living room instead of burning a candle that’s made from paraffin and pollutes your indoor air.
They can also give a pleasant fragrance without harmful health effects.
Sustainable Minimalism offers countless DIY ideas, and many of them contain the option of adding an oil for fragrance. Body lotion is just one example: Mix shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, and a few drops of your preferred essential oil if you’d like a scent.
What To Look For Before Buying
Choose high-quality oils by keeping in mind the following characteristics:
Purity
Find an oil that contains only aromatic plant compounds, without additives or synthetic oils. Pure oils usually list the plant’s botanical name (such as Lavandula officinalis) rather than terms like “essential oil of lavender.”
Don’t forget that essential oils are a product, and all products are subject to marketing schemes.
The FDA does not regulate labels such as “therapeutic grade,” “pharmaceutical grade” and “medical grade”, so they are essentially meaningless.
Quality
True essential oils have been changed the least by the extraction process. Choose a chemical-free essential oil that has been extracted through distillation (not cold-pressed!).
Reputation
Purchase a brand with a reputation for producing high-quality products.
If you see a product at a big box store or a drug store, it probably has a lot of added chemicals within.
Price
One way to separate real oils from synthetics is price.
Essential oils are difficult and expensive to produce and often require large amounts of plants. If you see an essential oil being sold for just $6 on Amazon, think twice before buying.
What About The Controversies?
Aromatherapy is an ancient practice, but even still: Essential oils haven’t been rigorously empirically studied, and so it’s impossible to say with certainty not only whether essential oils are safe but also whether they provide solutions to what ails us.
They’re also unregulated by the FDA, so when a company or an essential oils salesperson makes grandiose claims about an oil’s benefits, they’re probably unsubstantiated.
Another controversy comes with the fact that many essential oils companies are actually multilevel marketing companies (or MLM companies) that hire untrained “wellness advocates” to pitch you products.
You know the oil you’re eyeing comes from an MLM company if a family member or a friend you haven’t seen since high school slides into your DMs to tell you about their amazing new business.
While not all MLM companies are bad and some are worse than others, consider purchasing essential oils from a reputable company that’s not an MLM.
If you’re interested in learning more about the problems associated with MLMs, this article does a good job.
Safety Precautions
Perhaps you assume that because essential oils are derived from plants they must be safe, but that’s not necessarily the case.
They are incredibly potent, so keep out of reach of children and pets.
Don’t ingest them or mix them with water.
If you’re pregnant, talk to your doctor first. Remember they aren’t a magic fix.
Dilute an essential oil first with a carrier oil (such as coconut oil) before putting it on your skin.
If you’re going to diffuse an oil into the air, look for an ultrasonic diffuser which mists a mixture of water and oils into the air. Don’t leave it on all day, as overexposure can give you a headache and spike your heart rate. (I use this diffuser in my home and love it because it holds more water than the competitors and has a robust, 12-month warrantee.)
Perhaps consider consulting with a certified aromatherapist (not your friend from high school!), as certified aromatherapists have completed 200 hours of coursework and can give you informed guidance.
How are essential oils used in your home? Let us know in the comments below!
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