Essential Oils Uses and Properties

Your essential oils giude

Use them for pain relief, depression, cleaning, skin care and a hundred other things. (Try making some of the recipes here - it's easy, fun and very rewarding!)

When making aromatherapy recipes, it's important to know about essential oils uses, properties and cautions.

Overview - Uses for Essential Oils

1. They kill viruses, bacteria and fungi in the air and on your skin, helping you stay healthy and germ-free.
2. They help reduce pain, inflammation and swelling, easing your aching muscles and joints.
3. They sedate your nervous system, relaxing and loosening tight, tense muscles, calming your nerves and quieting your mind.

For example... Lemon, Tea Tree and Cinnamon are powerful antiseptics (germ killers) and are perfect for use in home cleaning products.

Rosewood, Frankincense and Ylang Ylang rejuvenate skin and help reduce wrinkles - perfect in formulas for aging or devitalized skin.

Check out the Essential Oil Use Chart, which gives you the best essential oils for problems ranging from acne to weight loss, plus aromatherapy recipes.

Essential Oil Safety

The one exception to this rule is lavender - it's safe to apply lavender 'neat' (undiluted) in the case of cuts, burns, scrapes, bug bites and such.

Pregnant women need to be careful about using essential oils. Only some essential oils are considered to be safe when used in small, well-diluted amounts: cardamom, coriander, geranium, ginger, grapefruit, lavender, lemon, lemon verbena (also called melissa,) lime, neroli, palmarosa, petitgrain, spearmint and ylang ylang.

If you're highly allergic or have extremely sensitive skin, do a spot test before using essential oils.

• Put 1 drop of the essential oil into 15 drops of carrier oil (rice bran oil is probably your best bet) and rub it into your upper chest.
• If you show no reaction after 12 hours, it's likely safe to use it.

Essential Oils Uses and Properties

Orange

Palmarosa

Patchouli

Peppermint

Petitgrain

Rose

Rosemary

Rosewood

Sandalwood

Tea Tree

Thyme

Vanilla

Vetiver

Ylang Ylang

Go to Aromatherapy Recipes Homepage from Essential Oils Uses and Properties