When I worked in a spa setting, the offering of aromatherapy - with a price tag - was little more than an application of some highly diluted vague smelling oil with a name like Tranquility. Is this what aromatherapy really is?

When you look at the historic roots of aromatherapy it is the use of pure, undiluted, unaltered, essential oils for healing the body, mind, and spirit. After all, the father of modern day aromatherapy, Rene Gattefosse, put his hand in a vat of undiluted lavender oil and his severe burns were healed.  

So how did this wonderful modality that can do everything from heal burns, repair tissues, and clean out receptor sites turn into such a watered down offering? Let’s take a look at how aromatherapy is taught, presented, and represented.

We are taught you must dilute 95% with carrier oils so the oils will do no harm (and this is because….?), you can’t use wintergreen (because synthetic methyl salicylate will kill you), and many other precautions. I agree that precautions are necessary, but it is as if we progressed to a place where before you can go out of the house you have to dilute the air by putting a bubble around you because you might catch a cold, or you might get sunburn, or it might smell bad.

So what would it be like to never feel the sun on your skin - and the vitamin D it delivers - to never smell the pure ocean air -  and the healing negative ions you would breathe in - to never experience the healing benefits of air because you are so afraid of perceived negative side effects of breathing pure air?

Aromatherapy is an ancient healing art that was used by the Egyptians thousands of years ago, by the Biblical peoples, and even further back in Ayurvedic practice in India. Today, undiluted use of pure therapeutic-grade essential oils (see my last post) is being practiced around the world with wonderful results.