Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Essential Oils
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New to essential oils? Check out this ultimate beginner’s guide to essential oils to discover everything you need to know about essential oils! Learn what essential oils are, how they work, how to use them, and more.
Beginner’s Guide To Essential Oils
Before I jump into this beginner’s guide to essential oils, I just wanted to preface this guide by saying I am not a doctor nor am I an aromatherapist.
I am just a girl who wanted to live a healthier, toxin-free life and fell in love with essential oils because they helped me to do just that.
So although I am not a doctor, I want to point out that essential oils are considered alternative medicine and most conventional doctors receive little to no essential oil education.
I’ve been using essential oils for over 10 years and I have read countless books and I have done countless hours of research about essential oils.
And I definitely think 10 years of research and hands-on experience should count for something!
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s get started!
Beginner’s Guide to Essential Oils
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 plant’s 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 lifeblood of the plant.
Essential oils have been used for thousands of years to promote healing and wellness. They’ve also been used to flavor foods and they have also been used in beauty and cleaning products, and so 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 was created to benefit our entire body.
How Do Essential Oils Work?
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!
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 5ml of rose oil. This is why some essential oils can be very expensive.
How to Use Essential Oils?
The most important part of this beginner’s guide to essential oils is learning how to use them. 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.
How to Use Essential Oils Aromatically?
To use essential oils aromatically you can inhale the essential oil directly from the bottle or you can add the oil to a diffuser (my favorite way).
Diffusing essential oils is an extremely simple process. All you have to do is add water and a few drops of essential oil to your diffuser and turn it on.
If you want to learn more about diffusing essential oils I recommend reading this post – how to use an essential oil diffuser.
It will teach you everything you need to know about diffusing essential oils.
Diffusing essential oils is a great way to fill your home with the amazing therapeutic benefits of essential oils. Diffusing essential oils is also a great alternative to toxic candles and air fresheners.
You can check out some of my favorite essential oil diffuser blends below.