Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I’m sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 

We’ve been covering a lot of natural and practical homemaking topics lately on the podcast which has been so fun! And one of the questions I keep getting over and over: is about essential oils! How to get started and how to use them. 

So today we are covering essential oils 101! Join along and listen in here: 

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My journey to Essential Oils

I’ve been using essential oils since 2012 and I was a skeptic at first. At the time, essential oils were only barely starting to catch on and most people didn’t use them yet. Even today, with essential oils being widely used, there are still so many who don’t use them yet. 

So when I first started hearing about them, I really wasn’t sure what to think. They seemed like this hippy stuff…how could oils do all these amazing things?! But I had a few friends looking into them and decided to do some searching of my own! 

“Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. They can be both beautifully and powerfully fragrant.” ~ Modern Wellness: What Are Essential Oils

Basically, essential oils are the pure and concentrated oil from that object. Orange oil is  the powerful and concentrated oil from the tree and peel.

” When we peel an orange, walk through a rose garden, or rub a sprig of lavender between our fingers, we are all aware of the special scent of that plant. But what is is that we can smell? Generally speaking, it is essential oils that give spices and herbs their specific scent and flavor, flowers their fruit and perfume.” ~ The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, pg 13.

Ways You Can Use Essential Oils

Knowing how to use essential oils was one of the most confusing things to me about them when I first heard of them. People threw around words like using them “neat”, diluting them in a “carrier oil”, and I wasn’t sure how you actually used the oils – in everyday life!

Here are the 3 main ways that essential oils are used.

Topical

When you apply an oil topically, this is referring to placing the oil on your skin. 

Typically this means you are rubbing the oil on to some part of your body {i.e. the bottoms of your feet, your back, arm, ect}. When you apply the oils directly to your skin {without diluting it first}, this is often called applying it “neat”.

However, most essential oils are so powerful that they should not be put on your skin “neat”. So instead you dilute a couple drops into a teaspoon or tablespoon of a “carrier oil” and then you rub it onto your skin. It might seem that that dilutes the effectiveness of the oil, but actually using a carrier oil can help facilitate the absorption of the oil easier. 

Common carrier oils include fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, olive oil, ect. 

 Aromatic

This is another wonderful way to use essential oils and can have wonderful effects. 

A great way to use oils aromatically is to use a vaporizer, diffusor, or humidifier to easily spread the essential oils throughout the house. There are many essential oils on the market in varying price points. But the one we currently have, and have had for a couple years is Plant Therapy’s AromaFuse diffusers and it’s only $50! It has stood up the test of time and we love it. 

Internal

This way of course is when you ingest essential oils. There are two schools of thought on ingesting oils: the French school of thought on essential oils is that you use oils topically, aromatically, and ingest them. The British school of thought however, focuses only on topical and aromatically. 

Honestly, I land more with the British school of thought. I have never ingested oils and my family never has. That’s not to say that if something drastic happened, I might not try it. But on a regular basis we do not. Essential oils are incredibly potent and there have been many cases of some very serious damage done by ingesting oils when not knowing the proper way to do it. I would only ingest oils with a ton of research first! 

So the two big essential oil companies, DoTerra and Young Living both ascribe to the French view. And I apparently ascribe more to the conservative approach of the British. 

A big note on this: This topic in particular is one that can drastically tear friendships apart. So I want to urge you to be very grace giving on this topic! I have friends who are far more conservative than I am on EO use and I have friends who use it much more liberally and ingest daily. I want to encourage you to do the research for yourself but remember to give grace along the way. 

A Christian Approach to Essential Oils

So of course, along my journey, I had to make sure that essential oils were something that fit in my world view as a Christian. I am a very introspective person, so I ask this question about pretty much everything. Is this worthy of spending our resources on? Should I be spending time on this, etc?

“Essential oils were mankind’s first medicine. From Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese manuscripts, we know that priests and physicians have been using oils derived from aromatic plants for thousands of years. In Egypt, essential oils were used in the embalming process, and well preserved oils were found in alabaster jars in King Tut’s tomb…Additionally, there are 188 references to essential oils (such as frankincense, myrrh, rosemary, ect.) in the Bible.” Modern Essentials, pg 7.

The more that I have spent time studying nutrition, alternative medicine, and natural remedies…the more I’ve come to appreciate how beautifully God has made our world. We have mass epidemics now of superbugs that antibiotics not working on. And you know what? Essential oils are able to penetrate the cell membrane of these super bugs and kill them! God gave us natural antibiotics and resources right in nature. 

It’s truly amazing to see how God has designed our world to work together. And I think we’ve forgotten a lot of that in our western culture. We think we can play god with all of our modern medicine so much so that we forget the amazing gifts that God has given us. And of course, I am not against western medicine! I am very thankful for antibiotics when you truly need them, I am so thankful for the c-section that probably saved my first set of twins life, etc. 

What we use:

Okay I know you are wondering: What oils do we use? At the very beginning of my oil journey, I started using DoTerra oils. And for a long time, I bought into the hype that you could only know for sure that the two big MLM companies were the only safe ones. Because honestly, I just didn’t know where else to look. 

But in recent years, there have been a ton of companies cropping up that sell safe and pure oils as well. I am not against the big companies, especially if you do their reward programs, get bonuses back, etc. If that works for you and you love your company, that’s wonderful!! (Remember that thing about giving each other grace??) 

But after years of research, we landed on Plant Therapy oils. Yes, there are a few others that I would trust as well. But after having some drastic results from trying Plant Therapy oils, I have been hooked. I have had more consistent, better results from PT than the more expensive brands. You can find out more about their quality and their batch testing here (they send EACH and every one of their batches to several third party testers and you can look up the third party results for each and every bottle they sell). 

P.s. I do not sell oils. And I do not thing there is anything wrong with selling oils. Like I said, as a business, it can be fantastic! And if you do the rewards programs and get money back then it can be a great deal! So I just wanted you to know this – I am not invested in any way in what company you order from! In fact, I have oils in my house from both big companies and Plant Therapy 😉 

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