How To Use Essential Oils?
Essential oils give pleasure with their wonderful smells, improve health and well-being with their magic ingredients, and can be used in dozens of ways throughout your home. And no matter how you use them, they don’t need any special equipment or fancy preparation. It can be as simple as unscrewing the bottle and breathing in.
To show what an important part essential oils can play in your life, here are some suggestions for the most beneficial ways of using them.
On The Skin
Smoothing an oil containing a few drops of essential oils into the skin combines the benefits of massage and aromatherapy. As essential oils are so concentrated, they must always be blended with a carrier oil before being used in this way. Never drop them directly onto a baby or young child’s skin, as they can sting and cause irritation.
To dilute an essential oil, add 1-3 drops of the oil to 5 ml of a vegetable oil such as Almond, Avocado, Grapeseed or Wheatgerm. If making a larger quantity, store the unused oil in a tinted bottle and keep in a cool place to preserve its therapeutic benefits.
In The Bath
By using essential oils in the bath your child will benefit from inhaling the vapours and absorbing them through the skin. When adding essential oils to the bath, always dilute them first in a teaspoon of base oil, milk or honey. As young children tend to suck sponges and drink the bath water, this will safeguard against ingesting neat essential oils from the surface. Add the oils to the bath while the hot water is running and swirl the bath water around to disperse the drops. To enjoy the full benefits of an aromatherapy bath your child should stay in the water for at least 10 minutes.
Inhalation Or Vaporization
This is an ideal way of freshening your child’s bedroom and inhibiting the spread of infection through the family.
There are various ways to vaporize essential oils. You can add a few drops to a bowl of steaming hot water so the aroma fills the room. There are electric vaporizers which can be used if your child is mobile and you are worried about leaving a bowl of hot water where they might reach it. Other vaporizers plug directly into a socket and are good for using at night-time in a baby’s bedroom.
Another option is to put a few drops of essential oil onto a ball of dampened cotton wool and placing it on the radiator, or adding a few drops to an atomizer such as a plant spray (5 drops to 8 fl oz/250 ml of water) and spraying around the room.
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Essential Oils for Household Cleaning
Some of the most antiseptic essential oils make excellent natural household cleansers. Pour a few drops on a, damp cloth to, wipe over work surfaces or rubbish bins. Or add to a bucket of warm water to clean floors, bathrooms or kitchens. You’ll find they are inexpensive, non-chemical arid have a better smell than most shop-bought cleansers.
Essential Oils Uses in Room Vaporisers
These provide a way of warming essential oils so that their aromas spread quickly to scent a room. Vaporiers are little pots with a bowl-shaped bottom to hold a candle, and a saucer-shaped top to hold some water enriched with a few drops of essential oil. The candle heats the water and the oil rapidly vaporises and disperses through. the air. You can, achieve the same effect by putting a saucer of warm water on top of a hot radiator and adding a few drops of oil to the water. You can also buy ring burners. They hold a few drops of essential oil and sit around a light-bulb, which heats the liquid and dispersed the oil’s fragrance.
Essential Oils Uses in Massage
Massage is the most common way of using essential oils. Some would say it is the most pleasurable, combining as it does the senses of touch and smell. It is also the most therapeutic method as essential oils are diluted in a carrier oil, like sunflower, and rubbed directly into the skin. Massage has two further bonuses: it stimulates the circulation enabling the oils to disperse rapidly around the body, and the warmth of the skin-on-skin friction makes oils smell stronger, so you get quicker therapeutic benefits to both mind and body.
Essential Oils Uses – Pot-Pourri
To make your own pot-pourri, add a few drops of a broad mix of floral, spicy and citrus essential oils to a bowl of dried flowers, herbs, grasses, or seed pods. Then cover the bowl and leave it for a short time before tossing the dried flowers and stirring them so that they absorb the aromas. The pot-pourri will scent your room up to six weeks.
Here are Some Popular ways to Use Essential Oils
Beauty Treatments
Some essential oils are great skin soothers, some heal skin quickly, others rejuvenate mature complexions or reduce oiliness, and some just smell divine on your face. They make wonderful beauty treatments from cleansers and masks to facials and moisturizers, all of which make you look good and feel good in one go.
Insect Repellent
Some essential oils are powerful natural insecticides. Add a few drops of essential oil to a damp cloth and wipe inside wardrobes, around window frames or apply a few drops of oil directly onto the hems of curtains.
Bedtime Treatments
Apply a few drops of your favorite oil to a tissue before going to bed and leave it beside your pillow so you inhale it while you sleep. You can use oils that relax you, oils with aphrodisiac properties, oils that treat insomnia, colds or headache, and oils that boost confidence or lift bad moods. For daytime, apply to a handkerchief, as the aroma lingers longer on fabric.
Essential Oils Uses
Cold Compresses
Use these to soothe inflammation and reduce fever. Follow the same procedure as for poultices, but use ice-cold water rather than hot.
Deodorizers
Deodorizing essential oils are good at getting rid of bacteria or viruses. To disinfect the air of a sickroom, burn oils in a vaporiser. Leave a few drops on a cotton ball inside your wardrobe and laundry basket, or rub over the insoles pf slides to stop odour. A couple of drops on the inside, underarm seam of shirts or jumpers have the same effect.
Hair Care
Some essential oils work wonders on dull, lifeless or thinning hair. You can add a few drops of oil to a mild; fragrance-free shampoo. Or mix it with olive oil and rub through the scalp as a weekly -conditioning treatment.
Essential Oils Uses in Baths
The most relaxing way to use essential oils is to add them to your bath. You only need a few drops of oil in a tub of hot water to get the full benefits. The two main ones are that you have steam and warmth to evaporate the oils and intensify the aroma, and water to soften skin and speed up oil absorption. All you have to do is lie back and soak for 15 minutes.
Inhaling essential oils is one of the best ways to treat coughs or colds. Add a few drops of oil to a bowl of boiling water, cover your head with a towel, bend over the bowl and inhale deeply for several minutes. Steam also opens the pores and lets oils enter the skin, so it is a good way to enjoy a facial to deep-cleanse, moisturize or to brighten a dull complexion.
Essential Oils Uses – Footbaths
For the most sensual footbath, add a few drops of essential oil to a basin of water then sit back and. soak your toes. You can add oils for their smell alone, or oils that will refresh tired feet, boost the circulation of cold feet, soothe aches, or help reduce perspiration. .
Essential Oils Uses – Room Sprays
For a therapeutic air freshener using your own favourite fragrances, mix a few drops of essential oil with water in a pump-action spray bottle. Shake well before each use.
Essential Oils Uses as Body Moisturizers
Essential oils penetrate skin so rapidly and deeply they make excellent, inexpensive and indulgent body moisturisers . You can mix them in any combination, for their aroma, their treatment effect, or both, and add them to a rich carrier oil, such as apricot, jojoba or peach. Or simply add a few drops of essential oil to the cheapest, simplest body moisturising lotion you can buy.
How To Use Essential Oils? – Wood Fires
Pour a few drops of your favorite essential oil onto wood about 15 minutes before lighting the fire. The heat will release the fragrance throughout the room. This is particularly good at Christmas and other family occasions if you use something special like orange, ginger and sandalwood.
Essential Oils Uses as Air Purifier
One of the easiest ways to scent your whole house is to add your favorite essential oil to the dust bag of your vacuum cleaner As air is blown out, the oil will scent the room you are cleaning. If you want to use different aromas regularly, place the drops of oil on a cotton-wool ball beside the internal exit filter of your cleaner. This makes it easier to change fragrances.
How To Use Essential Oils? – Hot Poultices
This is an ideal way to use essential oils to relieve muscular pain and reduce chest congestion. Add a few drops of essential oil to a bowl of very hot water and, wearing rubber gloves, dip in. a folded cotton cloth or flannel. Then squeeze out excess water and place it over the effected area until it has cooled to blood temperature. Reheat and repeat the process.
Ways To Use Essential Oils
In aromatherapy, the benefits of essential oils are experienced two ways – through inhalation or topical application to skin. Essential oils are not ingested in self-therapy, especially by a layman, and only in rare cares under the direction of a licensed medical practitioner.
Inhaling an essential oil increases brain frequency, balances right and left brain activities, and signals the release of hormones to specific areas of the body. Applied to the skin, essential oils enter the blood stream and are drawn to specific body parts that need healing. Essential oils are guided to a particular hormone, body part or system with which it is most compatible and effective. ne specific oil might be effective with muscle tissue, another might be drawn toward bone marrow. It’s as if the aroma molecules are soldiers marching toward a precise target, ready to strike when and where needed.
Ways To Use Essential Oils
Inhalation Methods
• The simplest and fastest way to inhale aroma molecules of essential oil is to sniff directly from an open vial, or to wear essential oil mixed with a carrier as a perfume.
• A more intense delivery to the brain is achieved by placing a few drops of oil in the palm, cupping hands over the nose and inhaling and exhaling slowly and deeply through the nose, keeping the mouth closed.
• Diffusing oil into the air is the most thorough method of inhalation. A wide variety of diffusers range from a pottery bowl heated by a candle underneath to an electrically heated bowl. There also is a nebulizer, vaporizer, humidifier, wick inhaler, plug-in atomizer with wick refills, room spray, potpourri, pillow or linen sachet, and the newest trend, a multi-reed diffuser. With every diffusion method, only a few drops of oil, combined with stream or water, are all that is needed to reap therapeutic benefits.
Ways To Use Essential Oils
Topical Application
• A full body massage, with properly diluted essential oil, is the most popular way to apply essential oil to the skin. Targeted relief can be achieved by applying essential oils to reflexology points on soles of the feet and palms. With headache, oils can be massaged into the temples. For abdominal relief, a localized massage relaxes muscles used in digestion and elimination.
• A leisurely soak in bath water treated with essential oil or scented bath salts is the perfect ending to a massage or a leisurely healing on its own. Diluted essential oil can be added to a hot tub or Jacuzzi, or splashed on sauna rocks.
• Essential oils added to shampoo, conditioner, soap, face cleanser, lotions and moisturizers are a wise addition to face and hair beauty regimens.
Ways To Use Essential Oils
Diluting
Generally, three to five drops of oil, added one by one, to one teaspoon of carrier oil or lotion is a good ratio; use less in skin care products for the face. For tub water, first dissolve essential oil in honey, vegetable oil, half-&-half, powdered or liquid milk; this will disperse oil throughout tub and prevent it collecting in one spot.
Ways To Use Essential Oils
Blending
• When creating a blend, the main thing to remember is ‘the nose knows.’ Based on your research, choose 3 oils that will do what you want them to do. Experiment with them on swabs to determine your unique ‘recipe’ and the quantities you want to incorporate into a particular blend. Using only 3 ingredients, plus carrier or base oil, mistakes can be corrected easily. With experience, add or subtract additional oils one at a time, for a maximum of 5.
• Keep it simple.
• Remember to exhale…and enjoy!