Essential Oils & Aromatherapy

by Marlene Houghton

  Sleep-Inducing Blend

  For a good night’s sleep, try using lavender’s balancing energies. This is an excellent oil to help insomniacs relax their frayed nerves and fall asleep easily. Very often this condition is caused by stress and anxiety, and lavender is ideal to use if you suffer from sleep problems. Other calming, soothing oils like chamomile; sweet, warming, sedative marjoram; and relaxing bergamot mixed in a carrier oil of your choice are a good mix to help send you off into a restful slumber. The oils in this blend work with the body to promote calmness, reduce tension and stress, and help relaxation, which is so essential for a restful night.

  Try sprinkling the oils onto a handkerchief placed near your pillow, or place the handkerchief on the bedside table for about two to three weeks, replenishing the oils as needed for ongoing benefit.

  Room sprays are also a good way to utilize the benefits of these sleep-inducing oils. Used in this way, they may help to reset the body’s sleep patterns, which may be out of balance. To make up a room spray, part-fill a clean spray bottle with water, add about ten drops of the essential oils that are proven sleep aids, then shake and spray the room in each of its four corners. Ready-made blends can be purchased in spray bottles and, when empty, you can use them to refill with your own blends. Sweet dreams!

  Uplifting Blend

  Uplift your spirits with a combination of these wonderful oils: sweet orange, mandarin, petitgrain, or neroli, mixed in a blend of sweet almond and wheatgerm with vitamin E oil. This anti-stress mix will help ease nervous tension, relax the mind, elevate your spirits, and promote positive emotions.

  Feminine Hormonal-Balance Blend

  Lavender, with its comforting aroma, and soothing Roman chamomile oil, mixed in a blend of sweet almond and natural vitamin E oil, is an ultra-relaxing combination. During times of the month when the body may be out of balance or you’re suffering from premenstrual syndrome or menopausal problems, this mix can uplift a low mood, ease depression, and counter that worn-out, run-down feeling.

  “Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed the soul.”

  The Quran

  There are many ways to use essential oils, and you will soon find the methods that suits your lifestyle. With a large variety of oils to choose from, you can treat various conditions or just have a relaxing massage or an aromatic bath, and you can select the appropriate oil for the purpose. Aromatherapy oils work together synergistically. Since these oils contain all the active properties of the plant, they do not have just one use; they have a number of uses over and above their primary function. This is why you will see that one oil—for instance, lavender—will be recommended for a number of conditions and uses. The same applies to all of these therapeutic oils. When you blend the oils with a carrier, you can use up to three oils, depending on which ones are appropriate for your needs. It is best to avoid using more than three oils per blend in any one treatment, as the synergistic effects are less predictable. Add the oils carefully to your blend one at a time.

  For example, if you want to have a fragrant bath, the floral oils can be used to soothe you after a tiring day. Choose the three that you wish to use from the floral group: lavender, rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, or neroli. These lovely flowery oils are not only passive, feminine, cooling, and yielding (yin), but they also give out a heavenly fragrance that is guaranteed to make bath time enjoyable and therapeutic.

  The stimulating oils are active, masculine, and resisting (yang), and these are juniper, myrrh, and peppermint. Due to their rousing and stimulating actions, these oils can speed up a sluggish circulation. If you are taking a quick shower in the morning before setting out for the day, you can saturate a washcloth or sponge with a few drops of your chosen invigorating oil—and you will feel ready to meet the day’s challenges.

  These wonderful oils can be used in inhalations, in diffusers, for massage, and for hand and foot baths. Their use aims to clean and detoxify the body, promote relaxation, and prevent illness by keeping the body’s systems in harmony.

  Aromatherapists are also aware of the toxicity of certain plants, so care must be taken when using these powerful concentrated substances. Dangerous oils are not generally available for sale to the public.

  Tip

  Although I have categorized these oils as being masculine or feminine, today they are usually referred to as unisex.

  Bathing for Health, Beauty, and Relaxation

  Treatments using aromatherapy baths, water as a healing medium and massage, have been used for thousands of years. Employed for therapeutic purposes as well as for pleasure and enjoyment throughout history, today we can use the same method of application in our own home. Water itself has also been used for “water cures”—and advocated by naturopathic doctors as a “cure” for many ailments. Hydrotherapy is known as “taking the waters,” and there is a current revival of interest in this healing system. Expensive health farms provide sauna baths for deep-cleansing—if you are lucky enough to be able to afford a visit. Most people do not have the luxury of staying at an expensive spa, so a bathroom and some tools, essential oils, exfoliators, bristle brushes, and washcloth are all that are needed. This treatment is available to everyone, including those on a tight budget.

  Treatment Bathing and Massage Regimens

  You can also “take the waters” in the privacy of your own home spa.

  Aromatic Treatment Bath and Massage This is the easiest way to use essential oils at home. What better way to wind down after a stressful and tiring day than to run a luxurious bath filled with aromatic oils, especially if your body aches and your joints creak? There are many oils that can be added to the bath water, helping to cleanse, tone, and beautify your skin, promoting relaxation of your whole body, your mind, and your spirit, while you lie back and soak in the scented water. These treatment baths are designed to help clear up minor ailments and get you back into balance.

  Agitate the water before immersing yourself so that the oils can spread evenly. Add up to five drops of your chosen oil to the warm bath water. Make sure you choose oils that do not irritate the skin. If your skin is very dry, dilute the essential oil you wish to use in 2 teaspoons (10ml) of massage base oil before adding to the water for a moisturizing bath.

  Stimulating Treatment Bath and Massage Rosemary is a stimulating morning bath additive—invigorating and penetrative. It is good for women’s health problems; for example, if you are experiencing menstrual pains, use this oil blended with a carrier of your choice in a morning bath. Follow up with a therapeutic rub, diluting the oil and massaging this mixture over the abdomen, or use it while you are in the bath. This will soothe the pain and will help you get through the day without physical discomfort.

  Relaxing Treatment Bath and Massage At the end of a long and stressful day, when you feel tired and washed out, a comforting bath with a few drops of chamomile oil added to the water will help promote relaxation before bedtime. The earthy green fragrance of this delightful oil will guarantee a good night’s sleep. It is especially useful for anyone who suffers from insomnia, which is often a stress-related condition.

  Lavender, with its familiar floral fragrance, is another useful oil to help you drift off to sleep, as is marjoram, with its herbaceous scent. Alternatively, you can use restoring neroli oil and warming, toning, and relaxing clary sage blended into a softening cold-pressed oil of your choice. Good for de-stressing, these two oils blend their energies harmoniously and are good for use at the end of the day to help you unwind. Simply add the blend that you have mixed into the warm running bath water and lie back, relaxing for about fifteen minutes to allow the oils to penetrate your body tissues and to take effect. What could be a more perfect end to a hectic day? Finish off with a body massage using an unperfumed body lotion or cream into which you add a drop or two of lavender or any other floral oil.

  Once a week use a body scrub made up of almond oil and sea salt in order to stimulate the circulation, rev up the lymphatic system, and slough off dead skin ce
lls. This will make your skin glow. Follow up with a massage using an unperfumed body lotion to which you have added a few drops of your favorite essential oils. Your skin will thank you for it!

  It is best to always blend the oils you have chosen to use with a carrier oil. Make sure you do not use any of the oils that are known irritants, particularly if your skin is sensitive.

  Special Care Zones—Feet and Hands

  There is nothing more relaxing than a foot soak in a bowl full of warm water and an oil mix of your favorite blend added to it. Tired feet will feel energized after a ten-minute soak in a therapeutic foot bath. The cooling oil of peppermint is particularly therapeutic for hot, aching feet.

  Therapeutic Foot Baths If, however, you want to address foot problems, a healing foot bath can help.

  Feet take a lot of punishment, and regular foot baths can help to revive your entire system, not just your feet. If you have bunions or inflamed joints, use foot baths regularly to help strengthen and heal the feet; add essential oil of thyme to the blend. When used in massage blends and foot baths, this oil helps to ease stiffness in rheumatic and arthritic joints. Massaging the painful toe-joint called a bunion daily will help alleviate the soreness and swelling.

  If you have dry, cracked skin, start off with a preliminary massage using a foot oil blended with a base oil such as almond or avocado. Use a warming, stimulating, and relaxing blend of marjoram, black pepper, and rosemary. After this massage, your feet will already feel much better. Then immerse your feet into a basin of warm water and leave them to soak for about fifteen minutes. Remove your feet and dry them well, then give them another massage using the mixture you made up for the pre-soak blend.

  Always combine the oils in an amber-colored glass bottle that is airtight. To emulsify the mixture, shake it vigorously.

  Healing Foot Baths If you have a fungal infection such as athlete’s foot, you can soak your feet in warm water into which a few drops of the excellent antifungal tea tree oil have been added. This oil is also useful for treating corns and calluses. After a fifteen-minute soak, rinse your feet in a basin of cold water to which you have added some cider vinegar; this has strong cleansing, healing, and germ-fighting properties.

  Dry your feet thoroughly, as the fungus that causes athlete’s foot thrives in damp areas, and use a new, clean towel every time to reduce the risk of reinfection. Follow up with a therapeutic massage base that blends tea tree with lavender, pine, or rosemary.

  Comforting Foot Baths If your feet continually ache and cause pain even though there is no medical problem, use this massage oil blend regularly. After a soak in a foot bath with a few drops of rosemary oil, dry your feet and massage them using a blend of wheatgerm, almond oil, and five drops of rosemary, a penetrating oil that relieves muscle fatigue. Five drops each of black pepper, which relaxes tired muscles, and ginger essential oil are useful as a fortifying tonic for tired, strained muscles. This comforting and soothing regimen of foot baths and massages, carried out as often as time permits, should help alleviate the constant aches and pains many people experience due to the amount of weight the feet have to carry.

  Therapeutic Hand Baths Hands are as important as feet—and they are always on show. They work very hard and the skin can become dry, sore and cracked. If they are not looked after, they tend to show your age very quickly. Soak your hands for ten minutes in a bowl of hot water to which you have added a few drops of cleansing and refreshing geranium or rose oil, with its delicious fragrance. Dry them thoroughly, then massage them with lashings of a therapeutic hand lotion made up of almond oil and a few drops of sweet, soothing chamomile oil. This will soften and beautify your hands and strengthen your nails.

  WHEATGERM-OIL HAND CONDITIONER

  • 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of wheatgerm oil or a rich base oil of your choice

  • 2 drops of orange essential oil, good for the treatment of eczema and dermatitis

  • 1 drop of frankincense oil, one of the most important oils for improving skin tone

  Mix the oils together in a small bowl, and then decant them into a dark bottle and store in the fridge.

  If your hands are very dry or you have eczema or dermatitis and patches on your hands, this rich mixture will give these areas a chance to heal. Use this homemade hand cream overnight, by spreading it over your hands and then putting on thin cotton gloves. When you wake up in the morning, rinse your hands thoroughly and massage any remaining oil into your hands. Use this therapeutic treatment overnight until the skin heals.

  Compresses

  A compress is made by placing a cotton cloth into water to which you have added an essential oil, making sure that the essential oil is absorbed by the cloth. Squeeze out the excess water from the cloth, and use the compress to cover the area to be treated. Compresses can be used either hot or cold.

  Hot Compress This type of compress draws out poisons from skin infections or eases aches and muscular pains. Hot compresses are good for wherever there is some sort of pain or discomfort.

  Most, but not all, conditions that are a type of “ache”—for example, backache, earache, and so on—tend to benefit from hot compresses.

  Headaches and migraine do not follow this rule; tension headaches benefit from cold compresses. Use a hot compress before an attack of migraine as a preventative, but not during an attack, because people who experience these become hypersensitive during a migraine.

  To make a hot compress, fill a bowl with hot water and add two or three drops of the essential oil of your choice. A good pain reliever is lavender, with its mild analgesic properties, or marjoram, with proven analgesic qualities. Place a thin cloth over the surface of the water to soak up the essential oil, wring out the cloth, and apply it to the area that requires treatment. Leave the compress on for about fifteen to twenty minutes, or until it cools down.

  Cold Compress This type of compress will ease the pain of sprains, sports injuries, and certain types of headaches as mentioned. Using ice-cold water is best for these types of areas. If the area feels hot and inflamed, a cold compress is ideal. Conditions such as fever and sunburn also benefit from cold compresses.

  With experience, you will be able to judge which compress is best to use for the particular injury or condition.

  There are also conditions that benefit from alternate hot/cold treatment. Start with a cold compress then alternate with a hot one. Varicose veins benefit from the hot/cold treatment.

  Diffusers

  Oil Burner/Vaporizer Fill the top of your burner with water and then add an essential oil(s). Light the candle to heat the oil until it evaporates into the atmosphere. The water prevents the oil from overheating, and a few drops of the essential oil of your choice will float on top.

  Ultrasonic Diffusers These operate without heat and produce a fine mist with the full quantity of essential oils.

  Inhalation This does not require anything elaborate, just a basin with hot water, the essential oils of your choice, and a towel to drape over your head. Inhalation is an instant treatment that can be arranged quickly and easily, for example, if you need to clear airway passages to make breathing easier.

  Lightbulb Rings The ceramic rings sit on a lightbulb and heat up. Sprinkle four drops of essential oil of your choice onto the rings to fragrance a room.

  Massage This is an active method used to get an essential oil blend into the skin. Professional aromatherapists use various techniques when massaging a client, depending on the client’s problem or condition. If your budget allows it, a visit to a qualified aromatherapist would be a real treat.

  Room Sprays These help to purify the air, repel insects, and clear a stuffy nose.

  Shower This is a quick and easy way to use essential oils when time is limited.

  “The sense of smell is imagination itself.”

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Experience the benefits of this healing art as part of your everyday aromatherapy routine. This regimen will help improve your health, emotions, and gen
eral well-being. Outlined below are daily bathing and shower rituals for specific moods. Use the oils suggested or the oils of your choice morning and evening. In this way, you will experience how these valuable oils can help improve health physically, mentally, and emotionally on a daily basis. The value of these therapeutic oils is that they can be used in ways that suit your lifestyle, whatever your age or budget. Keep in mind that most are not designed to cure any condition, but are used as preventatives, working on the mind, emotions, and spirit. Enjoy an aroma-soak or shower every day with this daily routine:

  Set the tone for the day with a morning shower that will start you off feeling positive and ready to face the day. Or at the end of a tiring day, create a relaxing, calming ambience to help you unwind with an evening bath. Make it a daily ritual to use aromatherapy oils every day in the shower and bath and for massage. These oils will keep you in balance and improve your health and general well-being. If you need to perk up a daily routine, which may have become a little dull, try an enlivening oil first thing in the morning, when you take your shower.