Herbal Aromatherapy |

by MichelleAllen

As the owner of an aromatherapy company, I get asked all the time: “How do I get started using essential oils? Well, one of the simplest and rewarding ways of doing this is getting into the “aroma” part of aromatherapy — the inhalation and enjoyment of the scent of the oils themselves. This in fact is a gateway to utilizing the whole realm of therapy available from pure essential oils. Once you get familiar with the oils and the way they smell by diffusing their aromas, you’ll be more apt to investigate the powerful medicinal aspects of aromatherapy and its many application techniques.

“Diffusing” an essential oil simply means evaporating it into the air. In aromatherapy, this most often implies the use of a tool or machines to more rapidly release the oil into your environment than if you just left a bottle open in the room or sprinkled a little oil the carpet. Now leaving a bottle open or sprinkling a little oil on a carpet is a perfectly good way of enjoying essential oils! But sometimes you’ll want the smell to be stronger, and for may therapeutic (health-supporting) applications, you’ll want a much higher concentration of essential oils in the air than these methods provide. Here’s where the diffusers come in.

All diffusers will improve the rate of evaporation of essential oils into your surrounding space. It is important to recognize that while this may use your oils faster, there are good reasons to do this: diffusing oils so they can be smelled over a much larger space; diffusing oils in a work environment to eliminate the scents of of other activities; and perhaps the most important is sometimes diffusing high concentrations of oils such that we can absorb more oils through our respiratory systems for our health. The least expensive diffusers will use a small heating element to evaporate the oils, or a small fan which moves air more quickly over the oils for the same effect. These are usually excellent choices for a small bedroom or office. A little more high-tech are the humidifying ultrasonic diffusers, which are actually just small ultrasonic humidifiers. They do a wonderful job in small to medium environments, particularly in dry climates or during the winter with forced-air heat systems.

There are other simple, inexpensive ‘low-tech’ methods of diffusing essential oils. These are as simple as candle warmers — where a candle gently evaporates a few drops of essential oil floating on a small bowl of water above a tea-light candle (don’t forget the water! So many people report these devices burn their oils, but they’ve put them just over the heat!). A Reed Diffuser is also common, which evaporates aromatic oils through bamboo reeds and slowly into the air. Though they do most often use a synthetic dispersion agent called DPG or dipropylene glycol, which most aromatherapists will not recommend using, as at some point the diffusion process requires one breathing in its vapors.

The most advanced aromatherapy diffusers produce a fine, concentrated mist of pure essential oil, without water or heat. In medicinal aromatherapy practices, therapists will sometimes have their clients actually breathe the visible vapor of an oil or oil blend to help them get well. In Europe, one can find an apparatus that looks like an oxygen tent, though instead allows the patient to breathe in oils that are considered highly anti-viral or anti-bacterial. This employs what is called a “nebulizing diffuser” (this is not the same as an “ultrasonic nebulizer” in that no water is used). The nebulizing diffusers are wonderful in that they can be used in both small spaces, just for aromatic needs, or for larger areas where a high concentration of essential oils are desired in the air. At the same time, they can take a little more attending to — needing the occasional cleaning — and typically use precision glass pieces to make the fine mist of essential oil evaporate properly. Even so, the best of these available today are small, quiet, nice looking and easy to maintain.

The essential oil one can diffuse vary as much as the diffusers themselves. If you’re just wanting to make your space smell wonderful, choose a few of your favorite aromas and just go for it! Use small amounts at first to conserve your oils, while you get an idea of how much essential oil diffusing for so long suits your tastes. Some people are more sensitive than others, so take your friends and family into consideration as well. Note that children generally need much less oil to notice and have a response to, so lower your starting volume for the younger ones of your family. Blending oils from the same family is easy to do, and generally results in a very fun scent. To simply bring great cheer to a room, woods and needle oils work especially well, as their scents are broadly loved. Balsam Fir, Pine, Spruce, Black Spruce and Juniper Berry go very well together; the Citrus oils also combine well — you can blend virtually any combination of Lemon, Grapefruit, Orange, Tangerine and Mandarin and make a very uplifting combination. If you like floral aromas, you can try blending your favorites of those as well, though they take a little more close attention to the ratios of each oil so that one does not overwhelm another. When you start, it’s not a bad idea to take notes about how many drops of each oil you’ve used and adjust them to make your favorite combination the next time. There are many pre-made diffuser blends of pure essential oils available as well, so consider giving them a try.

Blend recipes can often be found that are made for specific therapeutic needs — though in many cases, a single oil is called for in a “therapy”. Sleep can be helped for many people through just diffusing a high quality French Lavender essential oil; Memory and concentration can be enhanced by cold pressed Lemon oil or a steam distilled wild Rosemary. Immune system support is often provided by many of the oils from herbs, such as Melissa (Lemon Balm), Hyssop (a highly-regarded anti-viral oil), and Eucalyptus Radiata (recently shown to improve the efficacy of our white blood cells in their immune system action). Without too much work, you can find the right oils for your needs, and blending needn’t be too precise for these actions from a diffuser (though you would want to take care to be more precise with other modalities, like topical application, and in extreme cases, oil ingestion with the guidance of a doctor).

So there is a primer on diffusing essential oils. To recap, first pick the diffuser style that will suit your needs, whether you’ll just like to smell the aromas in a smaller space, or diffuse significant quantities for health reasons. Next, you can blend one oil at a time (diffusers usually do not require one to clean them between oils, nor are the therapeutic effects significantly altered by this), by a pre-blended formula, or create your own diffuser mixture. Just be sure not to include any fixed or carrier oils for diffuser use — many massage formulas can be converted to diffuser use simply by removing the carrier oil. Start slowly, remembering that you’ll generally need less oil than you think to produce the effect you need. And welcome yourself to a whole new world of natural medicine.

About the Author:
The author is a consultant for Ananda Aromatherapy. Find more resources are available on aromatherapy supplies & essential oil formulas through the website.