You've heard about aromatherapy and that it can play an important roll in your quest for a natural health and wellness solution.  And, you know that aromatherapy involves the use of essential oils.  But, just exactly what are essential oils, anyway?

What essential oils are not

To understand this, you first have to understand what they are not.

→ Essential oils are not merely a scented oil

First of all, it's very important that you understand that essential oils are not merely scented oils — what you get with Glade^® PlugIns^® Scented Oil.  Real essential oils are not made by mixing chemicals into an oil base to create a specific fragrance.  They're natural substances, carefully distilled from organic plant materials, and are naturally both lipid and fragrant.

Unfortunately, most oils sold on the market today don't match that definition.  They're either synthetically fabricated, poorly distilled, cut or chemically adulterated.  They're essentially toxic substances with no therapeutic value.

If your goal is a natural health and wellness solution that will improve the quality of your life, these will not do.  They may be fragrant — they may even smell great (to an untrained, chemically-oriented nose) — but they lack the therapeutic properties of a quality oil.  No chemist has ever been able to duplicate the healing power of a therapeutic-grade essential oil.

→ Essential oils are not a vegetable oil or essential fatty acid

You also need to know that essential oils are not the same as essential fatty acids (EFAs).  They are not fish or vegetable oils — such as flax seed oil, corn oil, peanut oil or olive oil — and are not a source of the omega fatty acids.

Essential oils have significant differences from vegetable oils:

• First of all, they are not greasy, and do not clog the pores like vegetable oils can.
• Secondly, they have a much more complex chemical structure, giving them many therapeutic properties not found in vegetable oils.

→ Essential oils are not the same as flower essences

Nor should essential oils be confused with flower essences — such as the Bach Flower Remedies.  Flower essences are extremely dilute, and work mainly through the flower's essential energy, on an emotional level.  Essential oils, on the other hand, are extremely concentrated and, while working partly through the energy of the plant material, they have the added benefits of a complex chemistry, a deep and complex aroma, and a potent frequency, all of which powerfully influence your health at every level: mentally, emotionally and physically.

→ Essential oils are not drugs

And lastly, essential oils are not drugs.  They don't have FDA approval, and specific health claims can't be made about them.  However, there are a few important points to consider about this:

• Essential oils have a long and distinguished history of safe and effective medical use, both in Europe and elsewhere; and a growing number of medical doctors in North America and elsewhere are turning to them.  They have made great strides in recent years from spas to professional health clinics and even hospitals.  There's also a great body of clinical study and scientific research attesting to the safety and effectiveness of therapeutic-grade essential oils for a wide range of conditions, as well as countless anecdotal references.
• FDA approval is nothing like a serious indication of either safety or effectiveness.  FDA-approved drugs, taken as prescribed by qualified doctors, are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.  Iatrogenic (that is: induced by doctors) events are the leading cause of death in America — more than cancer, more than heart disease.  That's just dealing with deaths.  It's equivalent to a fully-loaded 747 Jumbo Jet falling out of the sky every day of the year — and considering it business as usual; nothing to be concerned about.
• About 40% of all hospital occupancy is the direct result of FDA-approved medications.
• Even the effectiveness of these medications is over-stated.  With the leading SSRI medications, about 70% of those taking them still have symptoms, and many drugs (including the SSRIs) often cause the very problems they're prescribed to help.  The statistics generated during the FDA approval process, while sounding impressive, might not be any better in actual results than a sugar pill.  It's very clear that FDA-approval is no guarantee of either safety or effectiveness.

It's also important to bear in mind that, unlike drugs, there is no one-to-one connection between a health issue and an oil.  Aromatherapy is part of a holistic approach to health and wellness, which may require changes over the totality of your life to be truly effective.

One reason for this difference from drugs is that, while a drug may provide a powerful correction of a symptom, it does so by pushing your system out of balance — like a crutch — to compensate for a weakness in the body.  Essential oils work to bring the body into balance, so things work as they should.  You can only get so far with this if your life is filled with other things that are pulling your body out of balance.

So, just what are essential oils?

Most basically, essential oils represent the essence of the plant.  They are its life-force, corresponding to the xi (or chi) in acupuncture, xigong or tai chi chuan.  As noted above, they're natural substances, carefully distilled from organic plant materials.

More specifically, essential oils are subtle, volatile, aromatic liquids distilled from shrubs, flowers, trees, roots, bushes and seeds.  They're what give flowers their scent, and herbs and spices their flavor and aroma.

If you take the rind of an orange and squeeze it, a fine mist will spray out.  That's the essential oil of the orange.

Basic characteristics of essential oils

There are a few basic characteristics that all essential oils have in common.  These include:

• the ability to penetrate cell membranes, and diffuse throughout the blood and tissues.  The unique, lipid-soluble structure of essential oils is very similar to the makeup of our cell membranes, allowing them to travel trans-cellularly (that is: directly through the cells) into the interstitial fluids of the body.
• molecules that are also relatively small, enhancing their ability to easily penetrate into the cells.  When topically applied to the feet, or elsewhere, essential oils can travel throughout the body, reaching every cell in the body within 20 minutes, often producing their effect within three seconds of application.

When distilled and used in aromatherapy, essential oils provide the user with many health-enhancing benefits.  They literally have the capacity to transform your life.

What is the make-up of an essential oil?

Essential oils are far from simple substances.  In fact, very few people appreciate how chemically complex they really are.  An essential oil might contain hundreds — even thousands — of chemical constituents, each having a synergistic impact on the therapeutic effects of the oil.

Another important component of the oils is glycosides, glyco-nutrients which are converted into glyco-proteins, and promote cell-to-cell communication.  These glyco-nutrients are also essential to the production of ATP (the high-octane fuel of the body) within the cells.

And, being aromatic, essential oils also contain oxygenating molecules, which act as catalysts, transporting oxygen and nutrients to the cells.  However, they do more than merely transport these substances to the cell.  Without oxygen, nutrients cannot penetrate the cell membrane, and therefore, cannot be assimilated.  But, the oxygenating molecules in the oils actually increase the delivery of nutrients into the cells, and can help the body receive and assimilate nutrients, to maintain optimum health.

Essential Oils and Frequency

However, one of the most interesting — and maybe most over-rated — aspects of essential oils is their frequency.

The connection of the essential oils in the plant to chi — as in acupuncture and tai chi chuan — is significant.  The tai chi masters and acupuncturists often speak of the chi in plants, selecting herbs and foods on the basis of the electro-energy contained in them.  It's this electro-frequency in the herbs and foods that make them beneficial for particular ailments, or for the support of specific body systems.

The same is true of essential oils.

Gary Young, the man who has done more than anyone else to bring the therapeutic benefits of essential oils to the attention of Americans, first became interested in essential oils as a way to raise the frequency in his patients' systems, without the use of unnatural means — like electrical stimulation, as is used by many chiropractors who do acupuncture in their practices.  He saw a report on some research being done by a doctor, and was intrigued by the implications of what he read.  He started working with the oils, and found that essential oils really do have the ability to raise the frequency — or chi — of a person, helping him/her to regain and/or maintain optimal health.  I have found this to be true in my personal use of the oils, as well.  Applying the oils topically has the same capacity to raise my energy levels as doing a round of tai chi.

However, the idea of frequency in essential oils is often misunderstood and misrepresented.

Rather than thinking of this frequency as an electrical buzz — as one might assume from using the oils as an alternative to electrical stimulation therapies — it would be better to think of it as a "fundamental harmonic" (see Dr David Stewart's book, The Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple: God's Love Manifest in Molecules.)  It is something like a guitar string: plucking the string will give you a base note; but above that note, there are many harmonic tones that are also stirred.  Combine the guitar string with the resonant qualities of the guitar, and you create sympathetic vibrations, or vibrational energy transfer.  Essential oils work in something like this manner to restore harmony and balance to body systems, the mind and the emotions.

Conclusion

And so, from this we see that essential oils are chemically complex, subtle aromatic liquids distilled from plant sources that bring benefits to the human body through the actions of their fragrance, individual chemical constituents, through their aromatic, oxygenating molecules and by the enhancement of our body frequencies.  Their actions are normalizing and balancing to the whole person: physically, mentally and emotionally.

Although not approved by the FDA, the potential of essential oils to enhance every aspect of life are impossible to imagine, if you've never tried them.  They are life-transforming.  I can't imagine life without them.