A lot of information is out there about essential oils, but let’s take a moment to just look at some essential oil basics.
What are essential oils?
Essential oils are the aromatic liquids extracted from flowers, trees, shrubs, roots, seeds, and many different parts of plants through steam distillation, cold pressing, and resin tapping.
How long have essential oils been around?
Essential oils have been used for medical remedies, prescriptions, and spiritual rituals for over 4000 years.
The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were some of the first to incorporate essential oils into all aspects of their lives. Over the years, hieroglyphics and scrolls have been found with recipes for medical treatments, perfumes, purifying temples, embalming, and other uses.
Archeologists discovered The Ebers Papyrus in 1817, which is an Egyptian medical document dating around 1550 BC. The Ebers Papyrus contains over 800 recipes for using essential oils for medical purposes.
What are the benefits to using essential oils?
- Essential oils are natural ways to support the many systems in our bodies, including our endocrine, respiratory, digestive, muscular, skeletal, circulatory and immune systems.
- Essential oils are non-toxic alternatives to many of our everyday products.
Not all essential oils are created equally.
Only 5% of what is in an essential oil bottle is required to be the actual pure essential oil in order for the bottle to be marked 100% pure. Some companies will include carrier oils, alcohol, synthetics and even pesticides in their oils; and is why it is very important to know where your essential oil has come from and how it has been processed.
This is why I love Young Living essential oils! Young Living has strict standards they refer to as their Seed to Seal promise. Young Living maintains control of the entire process from the seed through to the time it is sealed, packaged, and shipped. They also continue to thoroughly research the best methods, processing, and timing for planting, harvesting, and distillation.
Learn more about the entire Seed to Seal promise here.
How to use essential oils?
- Aromatically – Place 3-5 drops of oils in your diffuser or inhale directly from the bottle. Breathing in essential oils especially helps to support our emotional and respiratory systems.
- Topically – Rub 2-3 drops of oils directly on your skin, dilute as needed. Our skin is our largest organ; therefore, the oils are absorbed quickly and can show effects within 30 minutes of application.
- Internally – Add 1-2 drops of Young Living’s Vitality essential oils to a glass of water, in recipes, or in gelatin capsules. (This is one area why is extremely important to know where your oils come from.)