Aroma Therapy - what exactly is it?

In a way it's a real pity that aromatherapy uses fragrant extracts.

Over the last few months I've been spending quite a lot of time trying to source good quality essential oils. For therapeutic purposes, it's important to use 100% pure essential oils, and though this might not seem too difficult the problem is that there are so many companies who seem to be under the illusion that it's the fragrance that's important, and not the purity. This couldn't be further from the truth.

And this is the problem. A large proportion of the oils sold as "aromatherapy oils" or "essential oils" are really nothing of the sort. They are fragrances which are oil based, and that's about as far as it goes.

But AromaTherapy is not just pleasant smells that make you feel good. It's not woowoo. It's a healing therapy that happens to use oils which are naturally fragrant.

Essential oils - real essential oils, I mean, which are extracted correctly and 100% pure, not adulterated with other things to make them smell nice, cheaply - are plant extracts. Yes, many of them smell absolutely delicious, but their properties aren't contained in the scent, as such. Those healing properties are in the components which make up the oil, which come from the plant, and may or may not be directly involved in producing the scent.

If you're using essential oils for aroma therapy, you should regard the scent as more of a mnemonic than anything else. Just as ancient herbalists used to associate the look of plants with their properties (and ignorant modern day doctors assume that they decided the properties by the look, rather than vice versa), just as Every Good Boy Deserves Fun doesn't mean that only obedient children should practise their scales, the scent is an incidental property (which can serve to remind us of the purposes to which a particular oil can be put) not the whole thing.

Candles and tarts (flameless candles), reed diffusers and joss sticks cannot be relied on to provide healing. They may smell nice, but they are unlikely to do more than scare away a few insects, make your bathroom smell more savory or lift your mood. They are not therapeutic items.

Aromatherapy has become a bit of a minefield because of profiteers and plain ignorance. If you're serious about using essential oils for healing, you need to bear this in mind.

OK. Rant over. You can go back to what you were doing now.  :-)