2: Blending Guidelines For Making Safe and Effective Aromatherapy Products

Guidelines and Dilutions for Making Safe and  Effective Aromatherapy Products

Liz Fulcher:  Hello and welcome to the Aromatic Wisdom Podcast! I want to say thank you first and foremost for those of you that listened to episode number one.  I got such great support and feedback from everyone and a lot of positive comments on the show notes page on the website. I know how valuable time is for everyone and to have taken the time to listen and give me feedback on what did and didn’t work was incredibly generous. So thank you very much. 

Let's jump right into the fun, fun topic of essential oil blending and proper dilutions so that you can make your own aromatherapy products that are safe and effective. 

Essential Oil Blending and Correct, Safe Dilutions
One of the most fun aspects of working with essential oils is blending and in particular blending them into a carrier and making your own products.   You can do something as simple as taking lavender essential oil, blending it into cream and having a body lotion ; and that IS a product!  Anything you create with essential oils and a carrier I would consider an aromatherapy product. 

Essential oil beginners are often intimidated by the concept of blending, but it's really not that difficult. You have to master a few basic principles and once you get those under your belt, you can really let your creativity shine in making aromatherapy products. The sky is the limit with what you can do. You can make everything from salt scrubs, face creams, massage oils. You can make balms and ointments for pain and inflammation and aromatherapy. The only limit is your imagination and creativity, as long as you keep within the parameters of safety, and making aromatherapy products is a great way to create a nice revenue stream. 

The bottom line that I’m like to stress is that if you are going to use essential oils on the skin, you will need to dilute them in a carrier.  Why is that? Why can you just use them from the bottle and straight onto the skin?  Because if essential oils are applied to the skin straight from the bottle, they can cause irritation or an allergic reaction.  Very often, this reaction does not show up straight away. There’s a phenomenon called “sensitization” where if you use an essential oil straight on your skin over and over again, over a long period of time, you eventually can potentially develop an allergy to that oil because it’s so concentrated.  Honestly, I can’t think of anything sadder than loving an essential oil very much, using it, using it, using it, developing an allergy to it and then you can’t use it anymore.  So the best way to avoid that is just to start diluting all your essential oils in carriers before you add them to the skin. So the next question is, “What is a carrier? What actually