Essential Oils

Essential oils or aromatic oils have been used by many cultures for many centuries. They are naturally occurring, aromatic compounds with a volatile nature. Derived from the stems, roots, seeds, bark, flowers and other plant parts - they all have a personality of their own. The essential oils are primarily there to protect plants from predators and environmental threats. Lucky for us however, that we have developed procedures to extract these precious oils, highly concentrate them and benefit from their properties.

Just like us, aromatherapy oils have a unique personality of their own. They can be used individually or layered in a blend. They can be customised based on the season, our mood, the occasion and our health. However, these plant-based gems are used they have the ability to empower you to take control of that bad day, or mitigate that cooking smell, or appease that itchy insect bite. We hope this booklet will inspire you to find a love or nurture an existing one for these amazing essences of life.

Diffusers - are devices which are filled with water with a few drops of essential oil added. When powered they disperse an aromatic vapour which will scent the air. Heated oil burners require little or no water, just the essential oil in a vessel above a lit tea light. The principle is the same, the essence is released into the air. Many oils can be used in this way, however, fruit-based oils, such as wild orange, are sticky and may be troublesome to clean from the diffuser or burner.

Regarding aromatherapy, initial studies have been quite positive. Many have shown that the smell of some essential oils can work alongside traditional therapy to treat anxiety and stress.

Plant infusion - I don’t know if this is the ‘proper’ name for it, but what I mean by this is scenting a candle by using the physical plant in the wax when melting it and making the candle. So leaving dried lavender or rose petals in the melted wax to infuse, or tea leaves. This isn’t an efficient method of scenting a candle, but often adds a nice extra aroma dimension, and is, of course, every bit as natural as a pure essential oil. I won’t consider it individually here as the scent profile is created in the same way as an essential oil, albeit at a far far weaker potency.

Synthetic fragrance/perfume - These are also created entirely artificially. The molecules which make up the fragrance profiles are created in a laboratory, with no organic material involved. The base of these fragrance is frequently a petroleum by product (that definitely sounds like something we want to inhale, right?), and can include phthalates, which help them retain their fragrance for longer. These entirely synthetic scents are generally what enable us to purchase fragrances like ‘cookie dough’ or ‘jelly bean’ candles or soaps.

Before we begin, can I just add the caveat that the word ‘chemical’ is almost unhelpful here. Every single fragrance we are discussing, no matter how natural or artificial, is made up from chemical compounds. So saying things like ‘avoiding chemicals’ is meaningless. What we are interested in is whether those chemical compounds are natural or artificial, and what effect that might have on both the aromatherapy benefits and the potential toxicity of the scent.

I’ll also be completely honest; fully synthetic fragrances alarm me, so you definitely aren’t going to get an unbiased debate here, but I’ll share my reasoning and why I’ve reached this conclusion.

Apart from the fact that synthetic fragrances can be based on petroleum by-products, inclusions such as phthalates, parabens and the other chemical compounds used to preserve synthetic fragrances are controversial at best. No one really knows what the long term implications of these compounds are, but some of the known responses to them include allergic reactions, endocrine disruption and some are even potentially carcinogenic. That’s not a long term experiment I want to be part of.

I feel similarly about ‘nature identical’ fragrances. Yes, they aren’t based on quite such alarming chemical compounds, but we simply have no idea what impact they might have longer term. Remember when everyone thought that trans (unsaturated) fats were amazing, a healthier alternative to animal fats that our bodies would process even more effectively? Then it turned out they were a disaster area? Of course, nature identical fragrances might prove to be every bit as safe as their plant-based counterparts, but again it’s not an experiment I’m willing to partake in without significantly more research based evidence. There is also nothing which forces a manufacturer to tell us whether they have used preservatives or enhancers alongside those nature identical compounds, due to a lack of transparency around fragrance manufacture.