What are Essential Oils & How Do They Work?

What are Essential Oils?

The magical plant juice we call essential oils are the vital fluids of a plant, shrub, root, herb, flower, seed or tree. They are a highly concentrated form of the natural oils in a plant. The oil inside of a plant operates as the plants immune system. They help protect the plant against predators and disease and they also aid in plant pollination. The oil is essential to the life and health of the plant. Think of essential oils as the life blood of the plant.

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Essential oils have been used for thousands of years to promote healing and wellness. They’ve also been used to flavor foods and also in beauty and cleaning products and sooo much more! They have enhanced so many lives over the years by offering a variety of benefits. These benefits are not just physical but also spiritual and emotional. Essential oils are truly a gift from God that were created to benefit our entire body.

How are Essential Oils Extracted?

Essential oils are extracted by steam distillation, resin tapping, and cold pressing that involves every part of the plant, including roots, leaves, stems, flowers, and bark, resulting in an oil containing the fragrance and healing properties of the plant. Extracting essential oils is a very careful process that ensures all the important, therapeutic, and health-giving constituents of the oil remain intact.

Extracting just one bottle of essential oil requires an incredibly large amount of plant material. For example, it takes approximately 3 pounds of lavender flowers to distill just 15ml of lavender essential oil. It takes about 242,000 rose petals to distill approximately 5 ml of rose oil. This is why some essential oils can be very pricey.

How to use Essential oils?

Essential oils can be used in many ways. When using them to promote health and wellness and overall well being they can be used aromatically, topically or internally.

To use aromatically you can inhale the essential oil directly from the bottle or you can add the oil to a diffuser (my favorite way). Here are some diffusers I love and recommend.

To use topically the oil can be applied directly to the skin. Some oils need to be diluted with a carrier oil so please do your research. Some of my favorite places to apply oils are my feet, abdomen, chest and neck.

Ingesting essential oils is a bit of a controversial topic. I personally use them internally and do recommend it as long as you are using high quality, 100% pure essential oils that are safe for consumption.

Essential oils can also be used to create DIY beauty and cleaning products. So many of the products we use in our homes and on our bodies on a daily basis are full of nasty toxins. I recommend downloading the T hink Dirty app and scanning just a few of your favorite products.

You’ll be shocked to discover how many toxins and carcinogens you’re exposing yourself to and also your family to everyday. It’s quite frightening. Essential oils are a no brainer way to start ditching those nasty products and switching to toxic free, immune boosting, life giving household and beauty products instead.

How do Essential Oils Work?

Essential oils can be used to balance hormones, boost immunity, support digestion, improve brain function and sooo much more. Any ailment or issue you have I can almost guarantee that there’s an oil for that 😉

Essential oils contain various natural components that impact the body such as terpins, esters, oxides, alcohols, phenols, ketones and aldehydes. Some essential oils contain as many as 300 components! Their small molecular size means essential oils can be absorbed fast and easily into the bloodstream when applied to the skin, taken internally or inhaled. It only takes 2 minutes for oil molecules to hit the bloodstream, and only 20 minutes to affect every cell in your body!

With all that being said essential oils are very powerful and should be used with great care. Some oils should not be taken internally and some need to be diluted before applying to the skin. So please do your research before using your oils!

Which Essential Oil Brand is Best?

As essential oils have become increasingly popular over the years they’ve also become much easier to obtain. But do not be deceived. Not all oils are created equal. Many oils being sold today are synthetic. Your body processes synthetic oils as a toxin which does not help your body but actually works against it. So please do your research before purchasing essential oils.

With that being said I’m not necessarily loyal to just one brand. I used to use Young Living oils exclusively. That was until I discovered other companies that sold high quality, 100% pure essential oils at much more affordable prices. I still use my Young Living oils but I find myself purchasing more and more from Plant Therapy, Eden’s garden and Florihana.

Plant Therapy and Eden’s Garden have amazing blends that can be easily purchased from Amazon. And Florihana is my go to for single oils.

You can read my full Florihana essential oils review here and discover why I love them so much!

The only regret I have about using essential oils is that I didn’t start sooner. To be honest, I was a major skeptic. But like they say better late than never!

Essential oils have impacted my life greatly. I was a hot mess before beginning my oily journey. I had so many health issues. Depression, anxiety and insomnia were taking over my life. I visited doctor after doctor never actually finding the answers I needed (I was eventually diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2018).

All of this helped me to realize that if I wanted to get better and change my life I had to become my own health advocate.

I started to research the benefits of essential oils and thought what do I have to lose? So I invested in the Premium Starter Kit from Young living and it was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’m no longer a distributor with Young Living but I still love their oils!

Don’t get me wrong, essential oils are not a cure all. But they can help you eliminate many toxins in your home that are wreaking havoc on your health. Essential oils can also support your body in many different ways.

If you’re ready to begin your oily journey I highly recommend you read this post. It’s all about essential oils for beginners.

If you would like to learn more about essential oils, some books I recommend on the subject are The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Wormwood and Essential Oils Natural Remedies: The Complete A-Z Reference of Essential Oils for Health and Healing.

If you have any questions or comments about essential oils please share below!

What are Essential Oils & How Do They Work?