An Essential Oil, Even By The Same Name, Is NOT The Same!
Essential oils are a part of my everyday practice thus, consequently, my everyday life. For hours a day I apply these oils to body after body, taking in the aroma and reaping the rewards of absorption through my own hands. As with any substance that is voluntary introduced to my own skin I make it my business to know what I am getting in to. In a world full of environmental, free floating toxins I do my best to avoid adding any others if I can help it. And, of course, if it’s not good enough to go on my own person it sure isn’t good enough to go on the skin of my clients, those who trust me with the care of their body.
Essential oils are much more than just a scent! Therapeutic grade essential oils (TGEO) have the power to affect our bodies on a molecular level. Unfortunately, the oils you are likely to find sitting on the shelves of your favorite health food stores being sold at a ‘reasonable’ price are not these high powered, high quality essential oils, but instead they are perfume grade, which requires less expensive methods of extraction, often times with the use of noxious chemicals (hexane & ethanol) that will leave traces of the solvents in the very oils you intent to put on your skin. Even the act of smelling these lower quality oils will introduce these toxic molecules into your sinus passages where then can be absorbed through the mucous membrane. And, did you know, that due to the miniscule size of the essential oil molecules they can cross the blood brain barrier?!? That adds a whole new layer to how important it is to choose wisely the oils you put on/ in your person.
This leads me to why I choose to invest in Young Living Essential Oils, the highest quality therapeutic grade, 100% pure, organic essential oils you can find. Gary Young, founder of Young Living, has lead the way in the bringing the manufacturing of these oils up to the European standards of processing, which is higher than the U.S. standards. Of course these are the most expensive methods of extraction as it takes much more care & a greater amount of testing to ensure their quality. Steam distilled, or by using carbon dioxide instead of water, to separate the oil from it’s source is the safest way and that is how Young Living does it! Guaranteed!
Here is an article that explains some of the science & benefit of these little ‘smell goods’:
How Therapeutic-Grade Essential Oils Heal our Bodies, Minds, and Spirits
by Alina Piccone LMT, ICA, CHC & Robert Ridpath LMT, ICA, CNWC
Therapeutic-grade essential oils, not to be confused with the perfume grade oils available in health food stores, truly have the ability to affect our bodies on a molecular level to induce healing. Phytotherapy (plant therapy) has been used medicinally for thousands of years in nearly every culture of the world for the past 6,000 years. Essential oils have been found in King Tut’s tomb and in ancient distilleries in the Southern Arabian Peninsula – the land of the Frankincense trail. Ancient Chinese scripts contain the recipes for thousands of plant-based remedies for illness and disease. Our ancestors knew the secrets of the living resources growing around them and they sagely took advantage of their healing properties. As Internationally Certified Aromatherapists, it just makes sense to us! Most people either believe in a deity who created man along with all of the plants and animals for us to use, or that we evolved and thus evolved along with the plants and animals – either way, these medicinal plants have been provided for us to use in order to heal our wounds, cure our illnesses, and prevent disease. Below are six of the main ways in which therapeutic-grade essential oils (TGEOs) work in our bodies (for a more detailed look, please visit our website www.EssentialLifeSolutions.com).
Oils as Universal Medicines
Inside plants, essential oils perform many duties. Some examples include: regulating plant growth (not unlike hormones in our bodies), aiding in metabolism, (such as our own enzymes), and also providing the basis for the plant’s immune system – warding off undesirable viruses, bacteria, microbes, fungi, parasites, and insects. When a plant is cut, it bleeds an oleo-gum-resin into the wound which initiates healing. In our own bodies, plant oils can support and balance our endocrine, circulatory, digestive, nervous, and reproductive systems. They can help us metabolize our nutrients, minerals and vitamins. Importantly, they can also boost the natural defenses of our immune systems in order to fight off disease by our own abilities. A very unique and interesting characteristic of TGEOs is that while they are friendly to us, they can be hostile to bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi and thus are able to attack invading offenders directly while protecting our healthy bacteria and cells a quality not found in pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics.
Antioxidants
As if the above were not enough to demonstrate the amazing abundance of healing properties of essential oils, they are also the world’s most powerful antioxidants! The ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity) assay is a laboratory procedure developed in 1992 at the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) in Silver Springs, Maryland. The ORAC scale has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) who, in cooperation with scientists at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, has recently applied the ORAC assay to measure the antioxidant capacities of many foods, juices, and oils. The higher the ORAC score, the more capable that particular food or oil is of destroying free radicals, thus retarding the aging process and preventing cancers and other diseases.
Antioxidant (ORAC) Scores (μmTE/100gm)*
For Selected Fruits and Vegetables
Carrots……………………………..210
Oranges…………………………….750
Raspberries……………………….1,220
Strawberries………………………1,540
Blueberries………………………. 2,400
Wolfberries……………………….25,300
Antioxidant (ORAC) Scores (μmTE/100gm)*
For Selected Essential Oils
Frankincense……………………… 630
Cinnamon…………………………..10,340
Spikenard …………………………..54,800
Myrrh…………………………………379,800
Clove…………………………………1,078,700
Therapeutic-grade essential oils have the highest ORAC scores of all the substances in the world. While eating foods high in antioxidants is a desirable and very healthy thing to do, learning to use essential oils in your daily life can potentially be even more desirable and health producing. The exceptionally high ORAC scores of TGEOs partially explains why living with them in your daily environment -breathing, eating, and applying them to your body – can support all of your body systems and contribute towards long healthful living.
pH
One of the benefits of incorporating essential oils into one’s daily life is that they increase the alkalinity of the body, not because oils are alkaline, but because of how they respond to acids. While an acidic condition in the body will destroy essential oil molecules, during the destruction process there are benefits gained by the person. The aggressive
parts of an acid are the free hydrogen ions (H+) that cause bodily damage wherever they circulate. When a therapeutic-grade oil enters the body, its molecules willingly sacrifice themselves to the acid, engulfing and neutralizing the H+ ions so that you don’t have to suffer their mischief any more. With a reduction of H+ ions in the body, pH is raised toward a healthier alkaline state.
Emotions
One of the most powerful healing aspects of TGEOs is their ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. The molecules in these oils are so minute that when you breathe them in, they travel up the back passages of your nose, then head straight to the central part of the brain called the amygdala (or diencephalon). This is the headquarters of the limbic system, where all of your emotional experiences are stored and organized. What is truly amazing is that the tiny molecules in essential oils are the only way we can stimulate this part of our brain – it does not respond to words and cannot be communicated to with spoken or written language. Scent is the only sense that is able to trigger our emotional brain. Hence, essential oils provide a powerful means to contact that non-verbal portion of our brain which stores our feelings and emotions.
Frequency
Therapeutic-grade essential oils have the highest, most coherent measured electromagnetic frequencies of any natural substance. To maintain a healthy fundamental electromagnetic frequency, one must eat a balanced diet of mostly fresh produce, strive to have a positive outlook on life because negative thoughts lower frequency, and integrate TGEOs into your everyday life. They measure anywhere from 52-320 MHz, with Rose oil boasting the highest frequency, (compared to our 62-68 MHz) and thus should be applied regularly to the body in order to keep us healthy.
PMS (it’s not what you think!)
The big triple punch combination of “PMS” – Phenols, Monoterpenes, and Sesquiterpenes – found in TGEOs is probably one of the major aspects responsible for their therapeutic power. Many oils containing PMS have been found to be useful in addressing many illnesses, injuries and disease conditions. One hypothesis is that this combination offers the following actions:
1) Phenols clean receptor sites of cells (which re-establishes proper cell communication) 2) Sesquiterpenes wipe out wrong information in the cell’s DNA (ie: viruses, cancers etc) 3) Monoterpenes reprogram original information in the cell’s DNA (like restoring a computer)
These three classes of chemical components may be why essential oils sometimes affect a healing that is virtually instant and also permanent. What they simply do is to restore the body back to its natural state of balance and health at the most basic and fundamental levels within the cells.
I hope you found this information to be insightful, offering you more options when dealing with physical illness & emotional struggles while also giving you more to consider for making educated decisions in your essential oil purchases.
Yours in health,
Cheryl L GreatHouse, LMT
*** On a side note… Were you aware that I am a distributor for Young Living Essential Oils??? And, that I make an order the 5th of every month??? Just thought you should know! 
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