Aromatherapy

The heart of aromatherapy is learning the art of incorporating essential oils into YOUR daily life. Including these gifts of nature in your world is an important part of why this website has been created. We want to provide an opportunity for the casual user to easily incorporate aromatherapy. And, for those who are manual therapists and want to provide essential oil enhancements for their clients, we have included assorted blends to easily do this.

About Essential Oils and their use:

Essential oils are fragrant, highly concentrated, volatile extracts from plants. They are found in such varied parts of the plant as the leaves, spices, fruits, woods, roots, seeds and flowers. Each oil contains individual benefits to which the body and mind respond. Since the use of essential oils, incense and perfumes began, it has been believed that they could heal the body, alter moods, stir memories, and generally improve the quality of life. Essential oils are the concentrated essences of plants, often referred to as the soul of the plant and, at one time, were actually thought to be waste store. It has since been found that essential oils are part of the plant's own immune system with the plant producing more essence under stress. An essential oil contains the life force of the plant from which it comes. They work in harmony with the body and give a sense of balance and well being. Essential oils are complete in themselves. They contain all of the active ingredients and all of the buffers.

Almost everybody can benefit by using essential oils. Essential oils are nature based. Unlike the synthetic odors we surround ourselves with daily, everyone can benefit from the true smell of pine trees, oranges or the delicate scent of night blooming jasmine. There is an essential oil for everybody, each evoking different memories that can have an effect on physical, emotional and psychological levels. The oil affecting these states may change daily, giving you many choices when it comes to usage.

Whenever you breathe the fragrance of essential oils, the fine oil particles are carried by the air and penetrate deep within the lungs. It is here that they enter the blood stream. This is why breathing essential oils continuously over several hours is the equivalent of taking an internal dose. According to chemist Kurt Schnaubelt, essential oils enter the bloodstream very quickly changing the electrical conductivity (and it is presumed, the Ph) instantly at the spot where it enters the first capillary. This causes an electrical charge to immediately travel through the body, hence aromatherapy's often remarkably fast results. Another highly penetrable area is the bottom of the foot. If you stand on a clove of garlic, very shortly, your breath will smell of garlic. This is also true of essential oils. The advantage of applying essential oils to the soles of the feet is the fact that the skin is much thicker and concentrations can be stronger as the skin here will not react to some of the more anti-infectious oils that might normally produce skin irritations. (This is why we offer reflexology blends for use on the feet.)

Combining essential oils with massage is a wonderful application technique. Many of these concentrated essences have a fine molecular structure that can easily penetrate the outer layers of the skin, pores and the olfactory system carrying vital information to the blood, organs, tissues, memory and emotional centers of the body. The skin's condition greatly affects the degree to which oils are absorbed. After a hot bath, the skin is very hydrated and more penetrable. Damaged skin is also more permeable and essential oils should be applied cautiously or not at all.

Reference: LabofFlowers.com

Look through the store on this site; or contact Maren Good at info@scentandsoundworks.com for a consultation on how to effectively utilize aromatherapy in your daily life or as part of your bodywork practice.