Healing with Essential Oils
By Alexandria Powell
What are essential oils?
Photo courtesy of Alexandria Powell
Essential oils are extracts taken from certain parts of plants, such as roots, leaves, seeds, or petals. Each one has different composites, making their uses all different. Some are used to assist in physical types of healing (ie; stomachaches, headaches, infections), while others are used for help with emotional healing (ie; relaxation, stress relief).
What is the history of essential oils?
For over 6,000 years, people have been using essential oils as a way to help heal themselves both physically and emotionally. They’ve been used in cosmetics, perfumes, and drugs by the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, and many other varieties of cultures. Essential oils are known as the original medicine and as time has gone on, people have started to realize their true healing tendencies. It wasn’t until the 1980’s when oils became popular in the United States and their popularity is growing like a wildfire.
How can oils be used?
Oils can be used in three main ways; topically, internally, and aromatically. Topically, oils can be used to help things like rashes, skin irritations, and things of those sorts. Internally, oils can be used to help things like stomachaches, headaches, colds, and other illnesses. And finally, aromatically, oils can be used to help things like emotional issues such as stress, focus, and sleeping problems.
What are the grades of essential oils?
There are two basic grades of essential oils which include perfume and therapeutic. Perfume grade essential oils hold no healing powers and only the scent of oils. Therapeutic oils are able to help heal the body, and certain therapeutic oils are safe for internal use. The cost of therapeutic oils is often much higher than those of other oils because it takes a higher quality of materials used, including the land in which the plants are produced from, the tools to harvest the plants, and the distillation process machinery. For example, therapeutic grade rose oil takes the petals of 30 to 60 real roses, which is quite costly, while perfume grade oils are just chemical make ups from cheaply man-made compounds.
How do you choose the right essential oil company?
It is essential to pick the right company to get your oils from to ensure that you are getting all possible healing properties. The number one thing you can do to pick the right company is research, research, research. Check to see what their distillation process is versus other companies, check to see if they ensure that each plant is only used once, check to see that the plants are grown in their natural environments, check to see that their oils are truly 100% pure (most companies only have 5% pure oil, which is all they need to claim they are 100% pure), and check to see that the overall company has the message of holistic healing in the most positive way.
Want to know more about what you can do with essential oils?
There are so many uses for essentials oils and pretty much any issue you can think of can be helped by the use of essential oils. For ideas on how to use them, check out younglivingwithlexi.com, where you will learn about Young Living Essential Oils, their pureness, and how they can be used in everyday life with families and pets.
