Healthy doTERRA oil summit - online conference 2015
doTERRA and Young Living/
19.03.24
Note: since the time of writing some of the distributors may have ceased trading and making their illegal medicinal claims following the warnings from the FDA.
KEY:Blue my comments
Black or yellow outline their statements.
The following reviews of the presentations at this conference are to illustrate how people promoted as experts are often far from it. This conference was targeted at persuading people to believe in unfounded and outrageous medicinal claims for essential oils. That influences some listeners to obtain oils from and seek therapists who know only what multi level marketing companies have taught them.
Anyone who paid to access this conference has been deceived into paying for garbage mostly originating from DoTerra oils and their distributors. The organizers and most speakers were doTerra oil distributors either directly or indirectly via emailed personal recommendations.
This conference was promoted by blog sites as “The Essential Oils Revolution Summit! There's going to be a FANTASTIC line-up of experts on the subject of essential oils”.A few maybe, but most of the speakers are far from being experts on essential oils.
What lets many of the speakers down is they only know what they have read in popular books, on blogs and via multi level essential oil sellers. They then write guidance books to sell on their web sites and blogs. Books packed with gross errors.
Several of the presentations have dangerously incorrect information on their web blogs such as “On top of that, I learned that essential oils don't expire for 10-15 years.”This is a clear indication that the author knows nothing about essential oil safety. That statement is not valid for the vast majority of essential oils.
The style of speaker introduction is classic of the methods used by multi level companies.
1. “Thank God” “Praise God” “Blessings” and similar terms are introduced at every opportunity to manipulate Christian minds. This is a classic selling technique used by DoTerra, Young Living and their distributors. It seems American Christians are easily deceived by these dishonorable marketing techniques and cult builders.
2. Speakers are constantly introduced as “DR”.This can mislead listeners to assume they are medical doctors. In reality most of these speakers are Chiropractors from schools where the quality of tuition on essential oils is clearly appallingly bad.
3. Photographs of the speakers are typical of those seen on multi level distributors web sites with emphasis on the family and well groomed presenters.
A lot of the information in this conference is taken from blog sites. On these sites it is difficult to issue challenges to the authors because they only publish what they like. They are being used to fool the public into buying products of little value as well as presenting a lot of inaccurate information some of which has the potential to cause physical harm.Most of those who run these 'homesteader' type blogs are 'trained' via multi level oil companies and constantly use unverified personal reports to justify their therapeutic use claims. There is nothing wrong with telling others that a particular product helped them or their family. What is wrong is when these unverified anecdotal reports are promoted around the Internet blogs as fact. The authors just do not know enough about the ingredients they promote. Everything is designed to get sales at any cost!
See next review.
A Cancer Survivor’s Story
by Allison Huish
Introduced as “a registered dietician, essential oil educator”
It looks like this lady has been sucked in by the dangerous hype of the multi level distributors sales teams. It is shocking that the unjustified and incorrect claims made for these oils will mislead others to use them for cancers.
Page 5 of the .pdf presentation.
“So as I work with people, and even my own health, I found things that, let's say, for example, your citrus oils, those help break down the fat cells that are in your body. I also found things like peppermint oil curbs your appetite. But I love to teach classes on weight loss where we talk about how to lose weight naturally. I let people know do something like peppermint oil that helps curb your appetite instead of doing something like red bull or something synthetic and processed.” This statement about citrus oil breaking down fat cells in the body has absolutely no foundation and indicates she learnt from a multi level marketing company. Peppermint oil curbs the appetite is also wrong, in fact it is a well known appetite stimulant.
“But I teach people naturally how to lose weight. So peppermint’s a great tip that a lot of people love, just two drops of peppermint in your water three times a day will really just curb your appetite.Or things like your citrus oils, put them on topically is the best cellulite reducer in the world I have ever found”.Peppermint oil in water can be dangerous because essential oils in water do not mix. Undiluted peppermint oil on the mucous membranes of the lips and mouth will irritate and possibly burn them. Citrus oils will do nothing for cellulite, especially applied externally as suggested.
“So if we look at the science of what essential oils do, we’re healing the cells. And by healing the cells, by getting them functioning, by increasing the mitochondria strength, by cleaning the blood, by cleaning the cells, by getting the right amount of lipids around the cells, by getting rid of free radicals and putting in antioxidants, essential oils can do all of those things”.This is just total nonsense. It is also being used by multi level companies and their joke “scientific advisers”.
“And these studies showed how frankincense shrunk tumors. And it actually shrunk cancer cells”. Studies on cells invitro using oil from Young Living - see my article. Most such studies have just used Boswellic acid rather than the whole oil.
“And we did it in several different ways. We started using frankincense on the back of my head. I took it internally. I put it on the reflexology points. But any way that I could get frankincense into me, we did. So we used a lot of frankincense oil. We also did a couple oils like clove oil. That's very oxygenating, also sandalwood oil. But primarily we used a lot of clove oil. Clove oil and then frankincense oil would be the two main oils”.
The only studies that have been ratified are in-vitro on cells. That does not mean consuming Frankincense oil will do the same in the living body. Also, see article on this site about Toluene (a cancer promoter) in this oil. In addition, some of these studies were published by scam medical publication sites who will publish anything in return for payment. Therefore these studies have not been peer reviewed by experts in the field. Clove oil is NOT oxygenating, this is classic multi level marketing hype.
Beauty and Skincare with Essential Oils
By Angela England and Erica Mueller
Many of the claims made in this file are typical of those made on the hundreds of blog sites where it is mostly the blind leading the blind, or they are on sites that are marketing oils and other items, but which masquerade as information sites.
HOW TO USE COCONUT OIL FOR NATURAL BEAUTY:
Paragraph 4.
“Try a few drops of some of the citrus oils – grapefruit is energizing and detoxifying, great against cellulite”. Detoxifying and cellulite claims are complete nonsense and are just beauty trade hype.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DIFFERENT SKIN TYPES
Heading 2: “Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) balances sebum production, is antiseptic
and astringent”... Essential oils are not "astringent" they are the opposite.
Heading 5: “Palmarosa (Cympobogon martinii) is hydrating, helps to balance sebum production, stimulates cellular regeneration, and is antiseptic”. No essential oils are "hydrating" it is the cream or fixed oils used which do this. Also, where is the evidence that “palmarosa stimulates cellular regeneration”? This also sounds like hype from some book or course written or taught by a con artist.
Heading 6: “Rose (Rosa centifolia or damascena) is especially good for dry, sensitive or aging skin; has an astringent and tonic effect on the capillaries and can be helpful for thread veins and even couperosa”. Rose hydrosol may have an astringent action but certainly not the essential oil.
SUGGESTED ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DIFFERENT SKIN TYPES
“Jasmine (good for hot, dry or inflamed skin), Lavender and Sandalwood”. Jasmine and Sandalwood oils are widely adulterated and such oils should not be used on damaged skin. Jasmine is almost always an absolute, not an essential oil.
“Stretch mark prevention: Neroli, Mandarin (in a 1% dilution, and add some wheatgerm oil to the base oil blend)”. The essential oil will do nothing for stretch marks. Wheatgerm oil will just make the blend go rancid unless it contains a synthetic antioxidant which is common. Wheatgerm oil is not a natural antioxidant.
“Detoxifying oils, against cellulite or fluid retention: Geranium, Grapefruit, Juniper, Rosemary, Lemon”. This is all total nonsense and beauty trade hype.
“Lavender is a natural antibiotic, antiseptic, antidepressant, sedative, and detoxifier”.
It is not an antibiotic. It is not a detoxifier.
“Tea Tree oil....It has antiviral.....” It is not antiviral, only the water based extract has been shown to have such properties, not the essential oil.
“Peppermint is an excellent digestive aid, great for the respiratory system and circulation along with being an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic...”. Peppermint oil can cause skin burns. The cooling effects are a temporary numbing of the skins sensory nerves, but when that wears off you can get rebound heating and inflammation. This advice is dangerous.
“Eucalyptus oil has numerous properties. It is useful as an anti-inflammatory, an
antiseptic, antibiotic, diuretic, analgesic”. No essential oils are antibiotics. It is also not diuretic unless someone were foolish enough to drink it. I would also question the claim to it being anti-inflammatory, it is more of a skin irritant.
“Thyme oil is an antiviral, antibiotic, antiseptic, and diuretic product that should be used with caution. It is good for discouraging parasites and insects from your home. It should not be overused as it can affect the thyroid gland and lymphatic system”.
It is not antiviral. To cause a diuretic effect it would have to be consumed in dangerous amounts which could damage the kidneys. As to how it effects the thymus gland, that's a mystery to me.
TEN WAYS TO SCENT HOMEMADE SOAP
1. Peppermint
“My basic recipe is 1 teaspoon of peppermint essential oil to one pound of soap base”.
This is typical of most US home soap makers who use weights and measures which make calculating accurate ingredient percentages almost impossible. In my experience many of these soap makers are ignorant of safety issues and use far too much essential oil in their products. As peppermint oil is a known irritant, this formula is suspect to say the least.
2. Chocolate
“and 1 teaspoon vanilla essential oil”. There is no such thing as vanilla essential oil; therefore this indicates someone with a lack of knowledge of what they are using. See other headings where this non existent “oil” is mentioned.
6. Citrus
“add in 1 teaspoon jojoba oil, 1/2 teaspoon bergamot essential oil, 3/4 teaspoon lime essential oil and one teaspoon lemon essential oil”.
No mention of the significant risks of photo sensitization if expressed lime and bergamot were used in the formula.
9. Cinnamon-Chocolate Swirl
“My basic recipe is 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon essential oil and 1/2 teaspoon of chocolate essential oil”. Cinnamon what, bark or leaf? Cinnamon bark oil should never be used in products at this level of use. Chocolate essential oil (if it exists as a natural extract) has never been tested for skin safety.
EASY HOMEMADE SALT SCRUB RECIPE
“and you can add essential oils to hydrate and balance, to energize, or to detoxify.”
Essential oils do not “detoxify” the body. The body has mechanisms to eliminate undesirable metabolites, unless one has major organ damage in which case some oils if consumed could worsen the damage, particularly to the liver.
THE SALT SCRUB RECIPE
“10-15 drops of essential oils – choose from the following or add your own favorite oils.”
This is a dangerous statement as that amount of some oils could damage the skin.
“detoxifying:Juniper, Grapefruit, Rosemary, Geranium, Lemon (all these are also great for an anti-cellulite salt scrub)” All of this is just marketing hype - see above.
MAKING YOUR OWN FACE OILS
“Cold-pressed vegetable oils are nourishing to the skin, natural and free of all the preservatives” Most fixed oils have synthetic antioxidants added at point of production because otherwise they go rancid. Most aromatherapy type suppliers have no idea what is in their “organic” cold pressed oils.
“unlike mineral oils that can clog the pores”. Simply not true, fixed oils can and do block the pores, some are worse than mineral oils in that respect.
“Great essential oils for a face oil include:”
“Frankincense (Boswellia carterii): one of the best choices for anti-wrinkle oils”.
There is no such thing as an “anti-wrinkle essential oil”, this is 100 percent beauty trade hype. Healing yes, but wrinkles are only cured by surgery and other physical treatments.
“Palmarosa............but is also hydrating”. No such thing as a hydrating essential oil.
SUNBURN RELIEF SPRAY
This is a water based formula with recommended Lavender oil. You cannot mix essential oils and water unless a surfactant is used. The oil will come out of suspension into globules which means you are spraying undiluted oil onto your skin. This is made even worse by suggesting that Peppermint oil is used which can burn the skin if undiluted.
HOMEMADE DIY FOUNDATION
Suggests using cinnamon but does not say if powder or oil. If someone foolishly used cinnamon bark oil, this could cause irritation or worse a sensitization response.
OILS GOOD FOR AGEING SKIN, FINE LINES, AND WRINKLES
“Frankincense, Lemon, Myrrh, Patchouli”, There is absolutely no evidence that these oils can do anything for aging skin. Indeed Lemon oil is an irritant and the cold pressed oil is a photo sensitizer.
DIRECTIONS TO MAKE HOMEMADE FACE POWDER
Comments same as above.
NATURAL HAIR CONDITIONING TREATMENTS -
Avocado cleansing and strengthening conditioner
This formula contains the classic aromatherapy error of assuming sage essential oil has the same properties as the herb. The herb has an ancient reputation for darkening hair and as a “conditioner”.The essential oil has no such use. What variety of the oil is she suggesting as the chemical profiles are profoundly different from each other? Likewise there is no evidence for using lemon oil in this formula other than for its fragrance.
NOURISHING OIL TREATMENT FOR DRY AND DAMAGED HAIR
“Rosemary oil for dark hair or as a general hair tonic. Chamomile essential oil for blond hair.” Both claims on coloring the hair are corruptions from the use of the herbs. The coloring action has nothing to do with the essential oil content of the plant.
HOMEMADE HAIR GEL
“30 drops essential oils of choice for scent and personal medicinal purposes
(Citrus oils are better and provide preservative effects, too.)” Citrus oils have no preservative properties unless they contain synthetic anti oxidants commonly used at point of production.
CONTRIBUTING BLOGGERS:
“Angela England, Untrained Housewife”. Yes clearly untrained in these subjects but excellent at marketing via these blog sites.
Living the Innovated Life with Essential Oils
By Callie and David Steuer
These people are distributors for doTerra oils. A company disciplined by the FDA for their illegal and outrageous medicinal claims.
“Dr. David: Frankincense is fantastic, wonderfully anti-inflammatory,.........The research going into frankincense is just superb.” It is not superb research - see my article on this.
“Cinnamon, another wonderful one for stabilizing our natural blood sugars”. What cinnamon and oil or powder? Many will assume he means the bark oil, very dangerous. This sounds to me like a veiled suggestion for diabetes!!
No more to say on this one as most of the talk is anecdotal and unverified hype.
Child Safe Essential Oils
Author not given.
TOPICAL USE BABIES 3mo+
“Chamomile, Dill, Lavender, and Yarrow”. They do not say which chamomile and more important is that there is no known skin safety for Yarrow oil. To use an 'untested' oil on such a young baby is shocking.
TOPICAL USE CHILDREN 6yr+
“Fennel, Laurel, Marjoram, Niaouli, Sage”. Do they mean Laurel (Laurus nobilis) or Laurel-Bay (Pimenta racemosa)? Laurel (Laurus nobilis) is a known powerful skin sensitizing oil and should never be used on such a young child. Niaouli has no known skin safety tests.
Natural Essential Oil Pain Remedies
By DaNelle Wolford
The web address given for this speaker shows thatthey are a distributor for doTerra oils. A company recently disciplined by the FDA for their illegal medicinal claims. A company that teach these unfounded claims to distributors just to push sales.
The claims made over her personal health issuesare similar to those made by the late confidence trickster Gary Young. I wonder if anyone has bothered to check their authenticity?
“Peppermint kind of gives that hot ice effect where it gets hot and then it gets cold. But it also can increase circulation, oxygenation to the muscles. Peppermint itself has about 12 different active compounds. The largest compound is menthol. So it actually works as an analgesic. That menthol is really good at kind of numbing the area, but also increasing circulation”. As explained previously, this common error about peppermint oil being a coolant is wrong. The effect is a temporary numbing of the skins sensory nerve cells, but after a time the effect reverses. That is when increased blood flow happens and can result in severe skin irritation. “Peppermint itself has about 12 different active compounds”. That is an indication of someone who has been trained by someone who knows nothing about essential oils. All genuine essential oils contain hundreds of natural chemicals.
“So thyme in itself is really a great anti-inflammatory.” It is NOT in fact the opposite, a skin irritant which is an inflammatory reaction.
“Yeah. I would go with the most popular, which would be like a peppermint oil or wintergreen or maybe a blend”. Wintergreen is NOT a natural essential oil, it is a chemical made from natural materials in a similar way chemicals are made from coal. Much on the market is just synthetic methyl salicylate.
“And the essential oils that I usually choose to take, which are good for reducing inflammation from the inside, is I really like to take marjoram. And I will also do frankincense”. See my article on Toluene found in Frankincense oil. So if her oil comes from the same source as that analyzed in my article, she is consuming a known toxic and carcinogenic chemical. How is Joe public to know what they are using? Trust your supplier, I think not!!
Essential Oil in the Kitchen
A book preview from vintage remedies
While the suggested recipes look fine, when it comes to the use of essential oils as ingredients there is no mention that people need to know if the oil they are using is the real deal. If not they may be ingesting harmful synthetic chemicals. See my article on Frankincense and others.
Essential Oils for Pets and Livestock
Via Homestead Bloggers Network
In general these bloggers do not take into account the significant differences between species. We have formulas from use on chickens, goats, dogs, etc., all using the same essential oils. A common feature is Tea Tree oil which is known to affect dogs differently to other animals and has caused death in dogs.
It is clear to me that most of these US based homesteader style blogs consist of the blind leading the blind. Most have no training in the use of essential oils, or if they have it is via a multi level company whose training is only aimed at selling products.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DOGS
As is often seen on these blog sites, the complete lack of understanding that essential oils and water do not mix. The list of ailments that the suggested oils can help is preposterous. Continued.
To suggest that Peppermint oil on the paws of a dog can fix heart problems is so way out that I cannot figure out where such a crazy idea originated. So the dog licks its paw and get Peppermint oil in its eye. This is animal cruelty!!
GOAT TEAT SPRAY RECIPE
“20 drops grapefruit essential oil, 8 drops tea tree oil, 5 drops lavender oil, 1 drop clove bud oil, 1/4 teaspoon isopropyl alcohol, 2 ounces distilled water.” This is a great example of over-use of essential oils and an individual who has no idea on safety issues or that oils and water do not mix.
MASTITIS UDDER MASSAGE SALVE
Same comments as above.
Essential Oils for Health and Wellness
By Homestead Bloggers Network
SHOULD YOU EVER TAKE ESSENTIAL OILS INTERNALLY?
“in case of a cold or a flu, it is much more effective to give regular massages with a 3% blend of antiviral essential oils, which means you can get quite a lot of oil into the body, than to take the oil internally” Firstly there are very few essential oils with proven antiviral activity in the body. Secondly there is no evidence that massage can get enough oil into the body to have an antiviral action. Massage can relieve some of the side effects of flu but as indirect actions of the oil vapor inhalation and the effects of the massage.
5 ESSENTIAL OILS WE USE EVERY DAY
“Lemon essential oil is cold-pressed from the rind of the lemon and is not the same as lemon juice. It is antiseptic, anti-fungal, antiviral, astringent......”. Cold pressed lemon oil is a known photo sensitizer. It is NOT antiviral, it is NOT an astringent; this is a classic error of taking the actions of the juice and giving the same ones to the essential oil.
“Drink It – 2 to 3 drops of lemon in each glass of water you drink will not only kill the nasties in your tap water but will also provide a gentle detox”. You can't mix oil and water. It is doubtful that lemon oil will kill bugs in tap water at that level of use or indeed at any level of use. The mention of detox is classic beauty/aromatherapy hype and fairy tales.
“Lavender essential oil is......anti-infectious”.What exactly does that mean? If it means using lavender oil reduces the chance of getting an infection, then I know that those involved in the production get just as many colds as anyone else. This sounds just like the kind of illegal nonsense that multi level distributors were using until the FDA stopped them.
“Rub a few drops on the bottom of your kids’ feet at night to help calm them down for bed and promote restful sleep. Put in a diffuser at night to provide a calming atmosphere.”
Why on kids feet? Nothing is absorbed via that route. Suggesting a diffuser is left with a child overnight, without qualifying what kind of diffuser is very dangerous advice. Some might assume they mean a candle heated diffuser and that would be plain crazy.
Peppermint: See comments on that in Beauty and Skincare with Essential Oils.
“Cool It – Peppermint is effective at cooling the body from fevers, hot flashes, over-exertion, or hot weather. Apply a few drops to forehead, back of neck, lower spine and/or bottom of feet”. Peppermint oil does NOT cool fevers. Suggesting adding the oil to the lower spine indicates someone who has learnt from Young Living or one of their distributors. It is total nonsense.
“A Muscle Relief Blend - I used a premade blend consisting of oils that target sore, achy muscles and joint pain. It provides long-lasting, anti-inflammatory relief wintergreen, camphor, peppermint, blue tansy, german chamomile, helichrysum and osmanthus”. Wintergreen is not a natural essential oil, camphor oil is mostly linalool and is a byproduct of camphor production, blue tansy is hyped like crazy but it has no known safety testing.Osmanthus is only obtainable as a perfumery absolute and skin safety is not known.
“Protective Blend – Boost your immune system with powerful protective blend of essential oils. One of my favorites is a combination of wild orange, clove, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary. It’s antiviral, antibacterial, anti-fungal, antiseptic, anti-infectious, and an immune stimulant”. This formula is plain crazy. It contains cinnamon bark oil which is a well known skin sensitizer (in the REAL essential oils trade) and worse can burn the skin if too much is used. There is not a scrap of evidence that this formula can boost the immune system. This is all based on unevaluated anecdotal hype.
WHAT IS OIL PULLING… AND WHY SHOULD I DO IT?
“Simply put, oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic practice”. Ayurvedic therapists did not use essential oils in Ancient times. Fixed oils yes, but not the essential oils suggested in later paragraphs. They certainly never used Melaleuca oil. Oil pulling - what a stupid term!
SHOULD I ADD ESSENTIAL OILS?
This whole section is 100 percent modern invention with no sound evidence.
BATH BLENDS FOR THE FLU SEASON
“Many essential oils are antiviral........” Not true, very few have invivo antiviral activity.
“If you start to sweat profusely, you know that the treatment is working” That is complete nonsense, a high temperature is the body doing its job and is not related to the use of any essential oils in the bath. High temperatures in young children may be dangerous and thus if this advice were followed, it could have dangerous implications.
TWO RELAXING ANTI-FLU EVENING BATHS
“Ravensara (Ravensara aromatica) is one of the best essential oils for the flu season: it is immunostimulant, anti-viral, and anti-microbial, as well as expectorant –........It is non-toxic and non-sensitizing”. The safety of Ravensara oil is not known. Also, it is frequently a fake oil made from fractions of eucalyptus. Therefore, I have always advised against its use. I know that most of the therapeutic uses were 'invented' by two therapists from France whose work has never been evaluated by experts. As far as I am aware there is no evidence that the genuine oil has antiviral activity.
“Tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) is antiviral”. It is not, the only tests for that activity were done on a water based extract. This type of corruption of scientific research is common in aromatherapy, especially by multi level companies.
“Eucalyptus (globulus or radiata) is antibacterial, antiviral”. Same as above.
A BATH TO BRING DOWN FEVER
“Use Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) and/or Peppermint (Mentha piperita) as both oils can help to bring down fever”. There is no evidence to back this claim, particularly as Bergamot oil is not an anti viral agent. It sounds again like a corruption of the traditional use of herb teas to help reduce a fever by their antiviral action.
“Disclaimer: You can use this method for bringing down fever even if you take medicines and support your body’s natural healing systems”. Clearly the author has no idea that a fever is the bodies natural healing mechanism. It should only be reduced in young children or those suffering from other conditions. To reduce this reaction prematurely allows viral infections to proliferate.
ESSENTIAL OILS: NATURAL COLD REMEDIES
“Eucalyptus is antiviral”.As in the last page, it is not antiviral.
“Tea tree essential oil.....is one of the most effective anti-viral oils,” It is not.
“The closely related niaouli (Melaleuca viridiflora)”. As with Ravensara there has been no safety testing of this oil and as with Ravensara it is dead easy to synthesize it.
ANTIMICROBIAL SPRAY FOR FLU SEASON
Wow at last, someone who understands the need for alcohol to dilute essential oils in. This formula would reduce the cheap vodka to around 23 percent strength which is too low for some essential oils, but the lighter ones it will work for. Congratulations Schneider Peeps
DO NATURAL INSECT REPELLENTS WORK?
Again we are back to adding essential oils to plain water. An important factor nearly always missed on these anti insect formulas is that insects are highly specific in what fragrance molecules attract or repel them. There are masses of trials that have been conducted into the olfactory preferences of numerous insects. Therefore to claim a formula is “anti insect” is misleading. You need to know will it deter mosquitoes such as catnip oil does, or will they be attracted to the oils used? For example, lavender is often promoted as “anti insect”, yet some insects are attracted to it and will lay their eggs in lavender plants.
A HOMEMADE NATURAL INSECT REPELLENT WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
“Eucalyptus essential oil deters mosquitoes and other insects,” So in areas where Eucalyptus grows they have no insects? In hot places such as Australia the air is full of Eucalyptus oil vapors, yet the Australians have to be utra careful not to let insect hosting raw materials through customs.
“Fresh lavender flowers are known to keep moths away from bed linens and other household textiles”. Just one more frequently quoted fairy tale. I had several clothing items in a wardrobe destroyed by moths. They were hatching from dried lavender placed in paper bags. A mistake never repeated and after that I put all my herbs into containers.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR A HOMEMADE BUG REPELLENT
“This blend can be sprayed on the skin,....” This formula includes Manuka oil the skin safety of which is not known.
ANTI-ITCH CREAM
“Clove EO – One of nature’s best pain relievers”,Not true. Diluted it may work for an infected aching tooth, even then it can kill the gum cells causing an ulcer. The most potent pain killers from plants are alkaloids which are only soluble in water other solvents.
“clove is also anti-inflammatory,” Not true it causes irritation/inflammation.
“can help pull infection from tissues”. Where the heck does that crazy idea come from?
ITCH RELIEF CREAM WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
45 drops of clove oil is about 2.5 ml. That volume in this formula combined with peppermint oil is likely to cause more irritation than it cures. These volumes are typical of home formulators who do not have the first clue about safety issues.
ECZEMA SKIN SALVE INGREDIENTS
While most advice in this section is fine, the use of Thyme essential oil in this formula is unwise as it is likely to cause irritation of the damaged epidermis. I can see no logical reason for its inclusion.
DIY HAND SANITIZER FOR THE FLU SEASON
“My oils of choice were an immune support blend that included clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary essential oils. I used about 20 drops total of this blend and 10 drops of Oregano Oil. Both are known to be antibacterial/antibiotic/antiviral.” Classic multi level marketing hype. There are no specific essential oils that are proven to boost the immune system, it can be any fragrance that the individual likes, even chocolate.
HOW TO DO A STEAM INHALATION WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
Originally Published on 'Untrained Housewife'
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR STEAM INHALATIONS
Colds: Several oils claimed to be “antiviral” but there is no evidence for that.
“The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils by Julia Lawless is a good guide to using essential oils at home”. It is not, much of the information is taken from the use of herbs rather than known uses of the same plants essential oil.
FABULOUS SLEEP SALVE
Originally Published on Fabulous Farm Girl
FABULOUS SLEEP SALVE WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
These volumes of essential oils in this salve are far higher than recommended safety levels.
FABULOUS VAPOR RUB
Originally Published on Fabulous Farm Girl
FABULOUS VAPOR RUB WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
These volumes of essential oils in this salve are far higher than recommended safety levels. Also, Laurel leaf oil can be a skin photo sensitizer.
ESSENTIAL HERB OILS FOR ASTHMA
Originally Published at The Go Mamas
SINGLE OILS:
“Wintergreen (her favorite)” Wintergreen is not a natural essential oil because it does not occur in the plant. Most on the market is 100 percent synthetic.
“Apply the oils neat 2-4 drops on the soles of feet 2-3 x daily”. This is classic of someone educated by multi level selling distributors. There is not a shred of evidence that essential oils can get into the body via the thick skin of the feet.
“IMPORTANT: Smells may bring an attack on for someone else. So please do not have them inhale an essentials oil ever. Essential oils should NOT be inhaled for asthma-related problems. The oils should be applied to the soles of their feet”. This is crazy, it shows a total lack of knowledge of what essential oils are. They are volatile substances and no matter where they are put on the skin they will turn to vapors and you inhale them.
SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL READING
Patricia Davis: Aromatherapy, an A-Z (Random House, UK, 2004). A book primarily describing what herbal medicine does as internal medicine rather than the essential oil applied externally. It contains numerous errors and lots of beauty therapy hype.
Essential oils in the Home
NATURAL CLEANING SOLUTIONS WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
Originally published on Untrained Housewife
HOW TO USE ESSENTIAL OILS FOR CLEANING
As usual the same wrong information about diluting essential oils in water and the failure to understand fundamental issues that this cannot be done without an additive.
“Don’t use essential oils without diluting them – neat essential oil could damage some surfaces”. The failure to understand that when you add essential oils to water they are NOT diluted. Any initial dispersion will separate into oil and water within a minute or so depending on which oils are used. Heavy oils such as vetiver, myrrh, etc., will never disperse in water.
5 NATURAL HOME FLEA REMEDIES THAT ACTUALLY WORK
Originally published on Untrained Housewife
“The main issue with these (chemical flea killers) is that they often make cats very sick and caused liver problems, kidney diseases, and immune disorders,” So can essential oils if the wrong ones are used on pets. In addition there are major differences between species such as cats and dogs in how they metabolize essential oils.
“The essential oils are all either poisonous to insects or repel them. (However, all are harmless to pets and humans except for the salt.)”Fundamental error as some oils are known to be badly tolerated by some dogs, for example tea tree oil has several cases recorded of harm to dogs. The same applies to humans as there are cases recorded of toxicological effects and hundreds of reports on adverse effects on the skin. Clearly this author knows nothing about safety issues.
LAWN AND GARDEN
"Plant your garden with marigold, lavender, rosemary, and lemon geranium (citronella)", Since when has geranium been Citronella?
“Lavender and marigold kill fleas and their larva while rosemary and lemon geranium deter them”. As someone who has years of experience growing and processing herbs, I know that lavender is loved by moths in the garden. They lay their eggs in it and these can even survive the plants being dried.
“There is no need to worry about having to protect your skin from them or worry about the essential oils hurting lungs or eyes”. This is shocking, clearly this individual knows nothing about the skin problems that overuse of essential oils can cause and that in the eyes they can be agonizing and cause conjunctival damage.
10 ESSENTIAL OILS FOR YOUR EMERGENCY KIT
Originally published on Mom Prepares
Really this information is so poor I can't be bothered spending time going through each item. You are advised to ignore it all.
Essential Oils in the Kitchen
by Homestead Bloggers Network
Contains several recipes which are fine except when it comes to:
ESSENTIAL OIL PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
This recipe contains Cassia and Clove oil as well as Cinnamon powder. As the taste of Cinnamon powder is far superior to Cassia oil, it seems pointless in adding that oil, especially in view of the dangers associated with using essential oils which can be and often are adulterated with fragrance chemicals.
COLD & FLU TEA
“Lemon Essential Oil – this antiviral is effective in dealing with colds and flu and provides support in relieving coughs, sore throats and fevers.” Lemon oil is NOT antiviral. This formula would do absolutely nothing to cure the flu, all it might do is act as a soothing agent for a sore throat. If it had been Lemon juice that might have been far more effective.
In addition, the suggestion that “1 tbsp. coconut oil is added to hot water” is ludicrous because it will not mix and will be a sticky mess to drink.
Cancer and Essential Oils
by Dr. Eric Zielinski
Page 4. 3rd and 4th paragraphs.
“Essential oils won’t cure you of anything. And that is super important to recognize. The essential oil works with the chemistry of the body so the body will kill, for example, cancer.”
If that is not an underhand way of saying that essential oils can help the body cure cancer I don't know what is. Absolutely shocking and absolutely unproven.
Page 5 and 6. A lot about the quality of essential oils and finding “the good stuff”. Of course and who do you get it from, from his wife of course who is a distributor of doTerra oils!!! Both Zielinski and his wife run websites with the biggest heap of quack medicine claims imaginable, slightly reduced since the FDA intervened, but still using misleading scientific research to prove their misleading claims.
Page after page of references to God, the Devil and Satan targeted at manipulating the mind of Christians.
Page 13: “Essential oils will help with the side effects of chemotherapy. They will actually make chemotherapy more effective because..”. No research references to justify this and which side effects as there are many?.
Page 14: “Frankincense and Sandalwood internally, can help the chemo work better.” Who says so? I can't think of any research on humans to justify that, just invitro lab trials. Also please read my article about the carcinogenic chemical Toluene in the oil used in some of these highly suspect trials.
Page 16: “But with that, we have oils. And for those of you who want to take a list, I put together a nice list in my cancer protocol. These six oils are just fantastic for cytotoxic and apoptotic effects. Basically, they produce that natural body’s resistance towards cancer. And the body will then kill cancer through clove, cinnamon, frankincense, lemongrass, Melissa, sandalwood, and thyme.…....... We’re talking breast, colon, prostate, all sorts of different things”. These statements confirm my opinion that this guy is a con artist par excellence and a dangerous and uncaring quack!
“Now women, there’s a lot—and men, too, because men do get breast cancer—there’s a lot of research, a lot more. And some others included in that list, we add oregano and black pepper, cardamom, fennel, clary sage, helichrysum, peppermint, and rosemary. These are oils that have all been done in clinical trials regarding not only producing that apoptotic affect within the body they can kill cancer, but also with side effects”. So where are the research references to trials on humans?
Page 19: “And also one key a lot of people don’t recognize is lemon is fantastic for
inflammation”. So if you accidentally get Lemon oil in the eye it does not cause instant burning and inflammation?
Summary: If this is the kind of quack being produced by American Chiropractic schools beware. Check what school your practitioner trained at.
Why Every Prepper Needs Essential Oils
By Erica Mueller
Page 3, Paragraph 5. “essential oils pretty much have no expiration date”. Clearly someone who knows nothing about essential oil safety. This sounds like the kind of trash that multi level distributors tell people. It is wrong and dangerous. The same wrong information is in the next paragraph.
“I really like SurvivalatHome.com”. A blog site that is auto connecting you to dozens of other sites as well as dumping dozens of spying cookies on your hard drive. A site that gives links to Young Living and DoTerra from where I guess the owner got all his wrong information on essential oils.
“Well, I love what you do on Mom Prepares. And for those of you who haven’t gone, MomPrepares.com, it’s just fabulous”. Just another homesteaders blog set up to sell doTerra essential oils along with all their wrong and dangerous information”
Page 7: “Erica: Yeah. So Angela owns UntrainedHousewife.com”. Yet another blog site providing wrong information on essential oils probably gleaned from multi level oil sellers. I think the title of the site says it all!! I don't have a problem with untrained people using essential oils if done correctly, but I have a big problem with those who are too lazy to equip themselves with sound information but instead parrot garbage to their readers.
Page 13: “I used to be a barrister”. One would expect a barrister to be a seeker of the truth and never to accept unverified hype. Clearly not the case with this presenter.
Page 14: “we get out our essential oils and we start to make our own immunity blend with some oregano and some citrus and clove and different things. And we start rubbing it on the bottom of the kids’ feet diluted, of course”. Rubbing oil on the feet is a typical tactic of multi level distributors because they learn this garbage from the teachers of the multi level companies. There is absolutely no evidence that essential oils can penetrate through the thick skin of the feet. There is absolutely no sound evidence that these oils used that way can enhance the immune system.
Page 20. "But, in general, I am allergic to every synthetic scent out there. I cannot walk
down the laundry soap aisle at the store or the candle aisle or be around someone who’s wearing a perfume because I’m allergic to all of that stuff". This is uneducated misleading hype. It is near impossible to be allergic to ALL synthetic fragrances. A perfume allergy is to specific chemicals in the perfume. Chemicals extracted from essential oils can form part of a fragrance blend, particularly the high end perfumes. Therefore, if someone was allergic to citronellol extracted from lemongrass oil and added to a perfume, then one would also be allergic to lemongrass oil itself as well as any other oils that citronellol occurs in. Allergic reactions to pure essential oils are well documented.
Natural Essential Oil Stress Remedies
By Hayley Hobson
Claiming to take supplements containing essential oils indicates someone who is a multi level company follower. Her web site confirms, she is a distributor of doTerra oils.
Page 11, paragraph 2. “And I also use the oil frankincense, which is really great for inflammation and also is really well known for anxiety and stress. And I put a drop of that underneath of my tongue. I also use a blend—a metabolic blend—that has oils like grapefruit and cinnamon and other oils in there that help with blood sugar stabilization”. See my article on frankincense and the dangerous levels of toluene in some oils. Also there is not a shred of evidence to back the claims for the metabolic blend. This is typical multi level company hype.
In the next paragraph once again mention about putting oils on the feet. That is a strong indication of someone who has learned from DoTerra, Young Living or their distributors.
Homemade Beauty Essentials
Making Your Own Natural Body Products
by Jessica E. Lane
While many of the given formulas contain more essential oils than accepted safe levels. One that sticks out is on page 29, “Bouquet. 8 ml Rose Absolute Essential Oil” This level of use is way above accepted limits and more worrying is that there is no such thing as “Rose Absolute Essential Oil”. Rose is either an essential oil or an absolute. In addition, that volume of rose oil or absolute would be prohibitively expensive and therefore I would question what she is actually using. Could she have been misled by a scammer supplier and is using a synthetic Rose? On the other hand the 8 ml could be a typo but if so the conference organizers should have corrected it.
Dirt Lovin’ contains 8.75 mls of essential oil way above recommended volumes for soaps.
Essential Oil Blend Balm contains 15-20 drops Essential Oil(s). This is much too high a volume depending on which essential oils are being used. I do not see any warnings over which oils should not be used in such a product.
Using Essential Oils for High Performance Health
Dr. Isaac and Erica Jones
There is an awful amount of rhetoric in this talk so I will just select a few bits that are wrong or misleading.
“And a little bit about both of them is that Dr. Isaac and Erica are the founders of Designer Health Centers, which are actually certified through the United Nations. And they’ve actually have received the certification for the Excellence in Healthcare Award”. Try searching the UN for this award, I can't find it!!
Page 8. “There’s been over 100,000 new toxins and chemicals brought on the market since World War II. And none of them really have been properly tested for their effects on the human organ systems”. That statement is just ludicrous. Certainly all new fragrance chemicals are tested before being allowed into commerce. “100,000 new toxins”, I very much doubt that, the statement is designed to mislead.
Page 9. “Essential oils act as antioxidants”. Another laughable statement. In fact most Citrus oils oxidize swiftly unless antioxidants are added. Many other essential oils will oxidize in variable amounts of time, even Lavender does. Such a statement shows ignorance of the real facts about essential oils.
Page 11. Paragraph 5. “So one of the things that I do to boost digestive support, one is consume ginger essential oil. It’s anti-inflammatory”. Crazy, Ginger oil is a well acknowledged rubifacient which is the opposite of anti-inflammatory.
“And I just do that by adding a couple drops to 4 to 8 ounces of water. And I just sip that throughout the day”. Ginger oil in water forms droplets, it does not mix and therefore you will be consuming the undiluted oil which can irritate the mouth and esophagus.
Page 12. Paragraph 3. If there were any sound evidence for these claims about perfumes they would be banned. Most of the information on the Internet is scare mongering and often bad science. For example, the widely circulated trash about Lavender oil and gynaecomastica in a boy. Long dismissed as lousy research but still out there.
Page 17. Paragraph 2. “But ultimately, if you want to really decrease inflammation, not just in the skin, but in the body, then the consumption of essential oils is really important. Frankincense is probably one of the best anti-inflammatory essential oils that you could consume and that you could put on your skin. And it also boosts your immunity. And it’s just really good at reducing inflammation on a cellular level”. Sounds just like a Young Living seminar, from a Doctor? where is the evidence please?
“What’s so amazing about essential oils is that they penetrate right into the cells of the body”. Clearly been miseducated by YL or DT. Not true on any level.
“Essentially, what I mean is that essential oils affect your genome. They will affect the positive expression of your genes to create more health and gene expression on a very positive level”. One hundred percent utter trash!!
DIY Natural Beauty Products
by Jackie Ritz
Yet another DoTerra oils distributor with presumably their trash education and hype on essential oils. The talk itself is not worth me making notes on.
Essential Oils for Animals
by Dr. Janet Roark
Yet another DoTerra oils distributor with presumably their trash education and hype on essential oils. At least this individual is a qualified veterinarian, but that does not make her an expert on essential oils.
Page 4: “And you do six drops along their spine, going from tail to head, and then six drops”. Sounds a bit like the trash taught by Young Living some of which spilled over to DoTerra when the Directors left YL and took some of Gary Young's trash with them.
“There's a couple of companies that are really good that test their oils.” Now I wonder who that could be? In reality most of the large distributors test their oils, but these are NOT aromatherapy companies. They are the large wholesalers who have been selling essential oils by the ton long before aromatherapy was even invented.
Page 7: “My own kitty has epilepsy. She has asthma, which she’s had her whole life. She has a heart murmur. And she's 15 going on 16 years old. So she gets a lot of essential oil treatment because of all of her issues. And she gets frankincense in her food every single day for her seizures”. Well I just hope that is not one of the oils containing Toluene a known carcinogen, poor kitty! See my article on Frankincense containing toluene.
Page 12: “Cancer. Frankincense is like the best thing ever for cancer. There’s study after study if you look them up about the effectiveness of frankincense in different types of cancer cases”. This is simply not true. See my article. Most of the studies done have been on cells invitro and using chemicals extracted from different types of Frankincense.
Page 16: “With most animals—cats, not so much—but with dogs and with horses and cows, they ask for certain oils. And usually, with horses, I’ll even take my home oil set out. And I'll set it in front of their nose and have them pick which oils they want because they usually kind of know what they need. And those are the ones that I'll use”. This is one of the many myths taught by animal aromatherapists. It is just not true that horses in particular know what is good for them. They will happily consume herbs that can kill them, anyone heard of ragweed? St Johns Wort in cattle, Yew and many others. There are expert books devoted to toxic plants that affect animals in various ways, yet they will munch on them because they love them!!
At least this talk does partly cover the issues of species differences and how one oil may be fine on one species but fatal to another.
Antibiotic Resistance: How Essential Oils Can Help
By Jessie Hawkins
As a whole this was a good talk; just a few issues to comment on:
Page 9 Last Paragraph. Here is mentioned about scientists investigating the components of essential oils to find out which were the most effective components. This is classic pharmaceutical science. If a single compound is found effective it will be almost certainly be manufactured as a synthetic equivalent. Even a natural chemical extracted from an oil is just as likely to trigger antibiotic resistance. If the whole oil is used with its hundreds of different molecules that is far less likely.
It should not be forgotten that masses of such research has been done by hundreds of researchers going back over 100 years. One big problem nowadays is that University researchers tend to be lazy and if they can't find information in databases or on the net, they assume it does not exist. They end up repeating work done previously by earlier researchers and try to make theirs look unique. For example, I have an excellent in-depth study of 2300 plants for antimicrobial activity done in 1959. Nowadays few are aware of its existence because you have to pay for copies from the British Library documents store.
Page 11. Paragraph 2. “But lavender actually is really rich in a substance. It’s technically an alcohol would be the chemical family. It’s lavandula,..........”. I hope this may be a transcription error because I would have though Jesse would know there is no such chemical as lavandula in Lavender oil.
Page 16. Paragraph 1. I disagree with Jesse that PubMed is a good source of information on essential oils. They publish all kinds of pseudo science assuming the peer reviewed journals have vetted the paper. I think you will find the trash research on Frankincense oil paid for by Young Living on PubMed. A paper published by a disreputable scam medical publisher who will put anything out as long as they are paid the appropriate fees. I have come across some appallingly misleading abstracts on PubMed. With those you never get the full story and often what seems to be a test on an essential oil turns out to be a test on an herbal extract. The only way to ascertain if a piece of research is valid is to get the whole research paper. Also, when pub med are informed of errors in research papers they will not correct them.
Essential Oils Around the Homestead
By Jill Winger
The person responsible for running some of the dreadful blogs with all their misinformation. She also links to DoTerra for essential oils.
Page 7-8 and others. Several mentions of using essential oils on a variety of animals but no consideration given to the species variability in tolerance to them. This is an untrained person experimenting on animals and hoping things work out.
“And I also did some frankincense, as well. Frankincense is a little safer for animals”. How does she know that? I have seen no data to support such a statement, particularly as some frankincense oils contain toluene - see my article.
Page 9. Some of the oils suggested as insect repellents actually attract them!!
Page 10. The same old tired nonsense about mixing essential oils and water.
Page 15. Zielinski speaking: “the Magi traveled halfway across the world to give Christ, ….... gold, frankincense, and myrrh”, Note Myrrh and Frankincense resins, NOT the essential oils. These are two very different substances with significantly different chemical profiles. However, these scammers just love telling people about “biblical oils”.
Zielinski speaking: “I actually had some swollen lymph nodes a couple of weeks ago. I put some myrrh over it. It really did the trick with some frankincense”. There is no evidence in traditional medicine for the oil used this way”. The infection may have cleared itself.
Page 15: Jill: “It actually has a dog bite story. My husband was bitten by a dog,....I used frankincense and a cleansing blend that had some oils to help cleanse things”. Any Rabies in that State I wonder? If there is, then not getting a Rabies shot is just crazy. Even if not, then dogs can carry all kinds of microbes and not getting medical treatment is risky. It seems some of these homesteaders want to live back in pioneer days when doctors were too expensive and you had to treat yourself and risk it working. People forget that in those days death rates from infections were through the roof. The pioneers were also ripe fodder for the sellers of quack remedies-think on!!
Page 20. Zielinski again: “The Essential Oil Revolution is to help people start practicing essential oils”. All this scam conference is doing is giving wrong and sometimes dangerous information as well as pushing people towards multi level oil sellers.
Dr. Zielinski: “All right, God bless. Bye-bye”. Yeah, yeah, hoodwink the followers. Sounds just like the late Gary Young!!
Homeopath & Mother Raised Children with No Meds…Ever!
by Joette Calabrese
Page 6. An error made time and time again in these talks. Just stating“Cinnamon oil” but without saying bark, or leaf. Two totally different oils with the bark oil being very dangerous depending on how much is used.
Page 7. “Let’s look at camphor. It’s a commonly used essential oil for antiseptic, disinfectant, insecticides, etc”. Genuine camphor oil is a by-product of camphor production and contains very little camphor. It is mostly linalool and it does not have a reputation as an antimicrobial oil or as an insecticide.
Page 9. “And approximately 40% of the doctors in Europe use homeopathy”. I am staggered at such a highly qualified homeopath making such a huge error unless of course it is another transcription error. Certainly in the UK I doubt more than one percent if that use homeopathy. On the Continent it varies, but nothing like 40 percent.
This therapist admits she has no training in the use of essential oils, yet seems to be using them to treat medical conditions:
Page 19. “Cypress fir is a great opportunity to use your essential oil and Arnica montana for hematomas, ecchymosis after surgery, etcetera”. This is not clear, does she mean Cypress oil for these conditions? If so that displays a complete lack of knowledge on essential oils as Cypress being astringent is a fairy tale.
I am puzzled why this speaker is involved in this conference as it is supposed to be about essential oils and she gives hardly any information on that. Could it be to try and give it an air of credibility?
Biblically Based Essential Oils
By Jordan Rubin
This speaker sounds like someone who only knows about essential oils via multi level oil sellers. His rhetoric is their classic misinformation and spin.
Page 2, 1st Paragraph. “when writing The Maker's Diet, there was inescapable evidence that the Bible discusses the power of essential oils”.Misinformation, there is no evidence that essential oils were used during the thousands of years of history in the Bible. They used other types of plant extracts, not distilled oils.
4th paragraph. No distinction on which type of Cinnamon oil he means.
Page 6, 2nd Paragraph. Typical nonsense over skin absorption and confusing the use of water based or specially prepared medical patches, with the use of essential oils. There is NO such correlation.
Page 8 1st Paragraph. “And, of course, internally, consuming oregano oil, thyme oil, they're very wonderful antimicrobials”. Absolutely no attempt to give information on the volumes to be consumed, or that both these oils are powerful mucus membrane irritants.
Page 8, 2nd Paragraph. “but thyme oil actually has phytoprogesterone that actually supports progesterone production in the body”, Some plants do contain compounds that the body may convert into human hormones, but all this marketing hype about “phytoprogesterone” is nothing but a health food scam. If thyme essential oil contains phytoprogesterone then it would need to be drunk in toxic amounts to have any effect..
Page 9. Once again mention of “Cinnamon oil” without defining which one.
Page 10-11. Again lots of talk about Biblical oils but never a mention that what were used for 'anointing oils' were infused oils, NOT essential oils.
Essential Oils for Gut, Thyroid, and Adrenals
By Dr. Josh Axe
Please see the separate pdf file
Essential Oils for Ear, Nose, and Throat Health
Dr. Josh Yorgason
Here we go again, yet another doTerraoils distributor, agent or whatever you want to call them. So maybe a real doctor, but certainly promoting all the hogwash on his website that doTerra promote.
Page 6. “And that very same process, it can be used with using essential oils in the
hands of a physician who can do the literature search and who can responsibly use them”. This is an aspect that few Doctors understand. Internet searches will find most of these pieces of so called 'research' are on the web sites and blogs of multi level oil distributors. That information is frequently twisted to suit their purpose of selling you the oils. Huge amounts of good information on essential oils are not to be found on the Internet, but are in medical and scientific journals and books going back over 100 years.
Page 9. “Internal ingestion, there’s a big to do about using essential oils internally”. Yes but the main reason for this is the fact that many on the market are adulterated. Of course I am sure his suppliers would not sell such oils would they!!!
“But in the amounts less than 2 milliliters, they didn’t show any adverse effects”. This is misleading as the maximum recommended dose of Eucalyptus in adults is 0.06 to 0.2 ml. In children even lower. Death has occurred in adults after ingesting as little as 4ml.
But of course as this Doctor has learnt from the Internet and doTerra it is not surprising he knows so little about real essential oils safety.
Page 14. Last Paragraph. "I’ve had times where I’ve accidentally got the oils in my eye. And I go like this for about 5 minutes. And then it’s all over". This is an extremely dangerous statement because it depends on which oil. Thyme, cinnamon bark, clove and even peppermint will burn the mucus membrane covering the eye.
Page 15. “And I can see my kids chugging a candy. Some of those different over-the counter medications are candy flavored or fruit flavored. I can see them being much more apt to try to down a bottle of that versus like you said the peppermint or eucalyptus, which is there’s no way they’re going to drink that whole bottle”. This is correct, but it is often the parents who believe in the trash disseminated by the multi level oil sellers and quacks who will use excessive amounts of essential oils on their children. There is published evidence in the toxicicological reports where children have been poisoned by their parents.
The Kings Medicine Cabinet
By Josh Axe
Please see the separate pdf file on this quack.
ANIMAL AROMATHERAPY
Kelly Holland Azzaro
Wow as last, two files where the speaker is making sense and giving correct warnings over the use of essential oils on animals. I have little to say on this other than the suggested oils for treating animals seem to have been taken from the uses on humans. That is one of the problems with animal aromatherapy where the interspecies differences are rarely accurate. At least this lady does tell you what not to use on cats and dogs.
On her web site she sells oil blends including a 'detox oil'. There is no such thing as an essential oil that can detoxify the body.
Kids essential oils for common ailments
by Erica Mueller
“Are Essential Oils Safe?” Clearly she has no idea on essential oil safety as in her other talk she states “essential oils pretty much have no expiration date”. For such an ill educated person (on essential oils safety) it would be crazy to accept advice in this booklet for children.
There are several pieces of bad information in this file, but one of the worst is:
“Seasonal Allergies”. She suggests lemon, lavender and peppermint oils. As seasonal allergies cause inflammation of the eyes, nose and throat, the last thing you need is oils that are irritants which is exactly what Lemon and Peppermint are. Also, the same old nonsense about mixing oils with water.
Colds and Flu. “At the first sign of any kind of sickness I get out my roller ball of the Flu Bomb blend and start putting it on the soles of the kids feet a few times a day”. Since essential oils cannot be absorbed through the thick skin of the feet, I am at a loss to know what this is supposed to achieve.
Beware of buying booklets from people who make the same or similar claims. Particularly this nonsense about oils on the soles of the feet. Most such people have had their mind manipulated by Young Living, DoTerra and their teachers/distributors.
Autoimmunity and Essential Oils
By Melody Watts
Yet one more doTerra distributor!!
Page 4 paragraph 4. About Frankincense: “It knows the difference between a sick cell and a healthy cell. So it regenerates copies of healthy cells. And it destroys mutated cells”. There is no evidence to back this claim as such tests in humans have not been done. “So it regenerates copies of healthy cells”. Clearly someone who knows nothing about physiology and how cells replicate, she needs to take proper notes from her doctor friend who she claims teaches the subject.
Page 5. “And I remember using cinnamon essential oil”. Which Cinnamon oil or does it not matter?
Page 7. “But three days before Jesus was crucified, they layered his feet in a year’s worth of essential oils”. Clearly another doTerra or Young Living follower as this is just the kind of trash they promote. They did not have essential oils in those days.
Page 8. “And then we've got environmental toxins and those kind of triggers. That's when we bring in the citrus oils that help bind to toxins”. Oh my, where on earth does this trash come from!
“It's the death of the pathogen that is so toxic that it causes these aldehydes in the body to just to just skyrocket”. But some of the oils she suggests are made of adehydes, so in that case they will increase the aldehyde content in the body!!
I can't be bothered with this file any more it is just a pile of trash. Please ignore the whole lecture.
Using Essential Oils for the Ultimate Birth Experience
By Dr. Penny Lane
Her web site has links to doTerra oils!!!
I was hoping to avoid commenting on this one but when I got to page 19 and saw:
“So wintergreen is popular for back pain. Again, we use a lot of chiropractic. So we don’t really see very many OP babies. But when we do, wintergreen is one that we’re often using”. This is appalling.Wintergreen oil should never ever be used on pregnant women because it is absorbed by the skin and has been the cause of fetal abnormalities. It should never be used on a baby because their skin is so thin.
Page 21. “Cinnamon balances their blood sugars”. Which cinnamon oil and how used? Use of cinnamon bark oil internally or externally in pregnancy would be crazy. Once again mention of Wintergreen.
I would not her want anywhere near a woman in labor if she is so badly educated about the safety of essential oils.
An Evidence-Based Approach to Essential Oils
By Sayer Ji
Dr. Con artist Axe: “Throughout this past week, we’ve been going through and interviewing some of the greatest minds in essential oils”. Ha Ha, yes very funny!!
The first part of this speech is full of inaccurate alarmist misleading information.
Page 3. “I did a quick search before I came on here and I found 709 references to essential oils and cancer”. Sure, and mostly on young living and doTerra oil distributors web sites before the FDA decided at last to take action to stop their illegal and outrageous medicinal claims.
Page 11. “And that’s also why spices like ginger, turmeric, and garlic and cardamom and all these others have been used for so long is the essential oils they contain are really good for food borne infectious agents in helping to preserve the balance of the good bacteria within our gut”. Yes, the herbs were/are used as food additives and do have lots of therapeutic properties BUT often not just due to their essential oils but other phytochemicals which do not come across with distillation.
This speaker talks a lot about “research” on this that and the other oils, but nowhere do we see a reference to the specific research so that it can be checked for validity. A huge amount of research has been published on essential oils over many years but very little is relevant to aromatherapy. Without checking what kind of plant extract has been used, and how, you just cannot accept the kind of claims made by most of these speakers.
He also talks about Lavender, etc. as if all Lavenders are the same. They are not and you need to know which specific variety has been used in any research. Sounds a bit like the Frankincense hype all over again-see my article on that.
Culinary Uses for Essential Oils
By Shaye Elliott
Looks like another doTerra distributor or earner via links.
Nothing wrong with using essential oils as food flavors provided they are unadulterated and only a few drops are used. The problem of adulteration is a big one because so many essential oils are modified in different ways. Of course none of the big multi level oil companies sell adulterated oils do they, ha ha!!
This speaker talks a lot about Lavender but does not define which type. The fact is Lavender oils are one of the commonest adulterated oils. Also, Lemon oil can be if the world yield is low. See my article on the internal use of essential oils for more.
Page 14. Jill: “Instead of zesting your lemon, you're just adding a drop of lemon essential oil, which is basically just distilled peels in a bottle”. This is wrong. A distilled lemon oil does not contain the same chemicals that occur in lemon peel. The flavor in particular is mostly in the water soluble portion and is lower in the essential oil. Therefore using lemon juice of fresh peel is a far better option for foods and certainly less risky.
Shaye: “Okay, let me think about that. Well, I think one would be my first love,
my London Fog using the bergamot and tea.” London fog, this just shows how some Americans live on news that is 50 years out of date!!
Page 17. “I love to use lemon in warm tea”, Well use a slice of Lemon or commercial lemon juice for goodness sake. That is far less risky than using an essential oil that you know nothing about other than what your supplier tells you.
Empowering Emotions with Essential Oils
By Dr. Susan Lawton
Wow a REAL doctor at last, but another doTerra oils distributor.
Page 6. 3rd paragraph: “So when I went to apply it to my throat,” This alone indicates someone who has not been educated on essential oil safety. The throat area - particularly in women - poses a far higher risk of irritation, sensitization and photosensitization due to previously used perfumes, thin skin and greater exposure to light. It can also happen in men if they use a lot of aftershave.
“Dr. Lawton: Oh, no! Oh, no! No. And the fact that the molecules are life enhancing and that the molecules can clear cell receptor sites and these one little drop can have between 400,000 and 400 billion molecules and it takes just a teeny drop to improve so many areas of your cells,” That tells me where she got her education, clearly doTerra, Young Living or their lousy teachers. This is total nonsense.
Page 10. 4th paragraph. “My experience has been if you can encourage citrus oils on the bottom of their feet,” Classic YL or DT nonsense.
Page 12. 5th Paragraph. “And the bottom of the feet would be the same thing, put on my cotton socks, walk around for 2 minutes, let the oils penetrate”. Just not true, the oils do not penetrate the soles of the feet. This is again classicYL or DT nonsense.
Page 13. 3rd paragraph: “they have compounds called sesquiterpenes—they’re literally a raft that allows more oxygen to penetrate the blood-brain barrier”, This is theoretical science. The only way to prove or disprove the concept of sequiterpenes penetrating the blood brain barrier would be to take blood samples directly from the living brain and I do not know of such research. As to them assisting oxygenation that is complete fabrication spread again by doTerra and Young Living. In addition, sequiterpenes are in many fruits that we eat or are used in food flavors.
Page 13.“So a few molecules of really good essential oils have the ability to motivate what we call quantum healings. It literally takes your original RNA and DNA, which is like your gold card, your definition of who you are, and clears away the glom, clears away the interfering messages so that your system can genuinely remember how to operate efficiently”. This is truly shocking that a registered doctor disseminates such complete trash.
“There are several techniques that require layering of oils on people that I think are an amazing gift to the entire body”. That tells me this Dr has been sucked in by the trash education of Young Living or doTerra and/or their agents.
Page 19. Dr. Lawton: “Well, I personally recommend AromaticScience.com”. I don't, this site was at one time covered in trash from Dr Hill a doTerra adviser. It seems since the FDA warnings, they have removed a lot of that but I still have copies from the original site.
Essential Oil Safety
Sylla Sheppard-Hanger and Nyssa Hanger
Page 4. A transcription name error. It says “I traveled and I had to go to libraries to look up stuff and go study with people that would let me come and stay with them like Martin Rye”. Anadmitted transcription error,please substitute Martin Watt. Sylla visited me briefly around 1994 following the publication of my Plant Aromatics safety manual. I also supplied her with tuition materials for her students over several years.
THE BEGINNERS’ BOOK OF ESSENTIAL OILS
By Christine Dalziel
I was enjoying reading this as there is some good advice in it. Indeed some looks like it might have come from past articles of mine, or a teacher who has used my materials. Please bear in mind my old .com website was online for nearly 25 years and my safety manual over 20 years. Both contained a lot of the information in this booklet.
Page 14 & 27. “A WORD ABOUT CITRUS ESSENTIAL OILS”.
“Citrus oils are cold pressed from the peels of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruit”. Wrong, the majority are a by-product of fruit juice production and are redistilled. Only small volumes on sale are expressed. “They all have antimicrobial and astringent benefits”. Wrong on antimicrobial activity, they are hugely variable. “Astringent” no way, that is fundamentally wrong.
“Essential oils are considered essential because they are volatile in the air”. Wrong, the definition is a leave-over from the old alchemists.
Page 16. “Organic essential oils however, are a concentrated and highly antimicrobial substance”. All essential oils from plants are “organic”. If they are 'organically grown' there is no difference in the therapeutic activity between commercially grown oils and organically grown oils. Some suppliers call their oils “organic” to fool people into paying a premium.
Page 17. “I also often use virgin olive oil. Your body will absorb the carrier oil along with the essential oil”, This is wrong, there is far more evidence against this idea than for it.
Page 23/24. Oh what a shame, it was fine until this point but then the author fails to distinguish between the use of Lavender oil and Lavender herbal medicine.
Page 27. “Lemon is antiseptic. It stimulates digestion by supporting the liver. It prevents contagious illnesses like colds and flu when it is diffused into room air”. There is no evidence that the internal consumption of Lemon oil can “support the liver”. It is highly unlikely that Lemon oil in the air is anti-viral.
Table: Lemon oil is Anti-inflammatory, Astringent. These claimed effects are wrong. Never rely on Lemon oil as an antimicrobial.
Page 31. Peppermint. Once again a whole list of conditions only some of which the oil will help. Others are from the consumption of the herb tea.
Page 31. Tea Tree oil. “Anti-viral”. A common error, it is not.Once again a whole list of conditions only some of which the oil will help.
Page 40. Again a whole list of conditions which it is claimed Rosemary oil can treat and again some yes, many no, because they are uses of the alcohol or water extract.
Page 44. Eucalyptus. As above.
Page 49. Marjoram. As above.
Page 50. Geranium oil. “Anti-diabetic”.That is an extremely dangerous claim and there is not a shred of evidence to justify it. “Astringent” No essential oils are astringent, they do not contain the plant chemicals responsible for that action. Several other claims are similar to the above and seem based on herbal use, yet the plants used for 'Geranium' oils have never been used in herbal medicine.
Most of the other oils listed contain the same errors as above.
Page 62. REMINERALIZING TOOTH POWDER. So where is the evidence for such a major claim?
Page 82. TOILET BOWL CLEANER. “15 drops of orange or lemon essential oil”. The bugs will laugh at this!
Such a shame that this lady has educated herself via such inadequate sources.
Energy, Work, Deep Healing, and Essential Oils
Dr. Todd Watts
No not a relative thank goodness!
This talk is full of trash and much of it I have commented on in earlier reviews. I should perhaps add a bit about his ideas of putting essential oils over the chakras to have an effect on the body. These concepts of “energies” in essential oils are nothing but modern inventions developed by some of the early con artists in aromatherapy. They are based around unsound philosophies over plant extracts which do not stand up to scrutiny. The fundamental issue is that essential oils are cooked in a similar way to our food and thus any original life force or whatever must be totally destroyed.
Page 15. “Some of the other ones I use are artemisia. Artemisia is wormwood, which is great for parasitic infections, especially for kids. It’s great to put it on their feet”.This is pure unadulterated quackery. See earlier reviews over oils on the feet, but this concept tells me who he got his training from.
Page 16. “Melissa is another really excellent oil for antiviral, fungal, antibacterial”. Wrong, the tea is antiviral due to substances which do not occur in the essential oil. In addition, the safety experts at the IFRA advise against the use of this essential oil in products due to insufficient safety data and the risk of sensitization.
“A couple of these I would consider using internally. Like clove bud is really excellent, especially for parasitic larvae”. I wonder if his patients have lab tests to prove the existence of parasites and if so which ones? All parasites are not the same and therefore one cannot assume the same oils will affect all of them. It is now known that some gut parasites can be beneficial to the immune system, if you give oils that kill the undesirable parasites how does that affect the desirable ones? This method is like taking antibiotics where you wipe out the good bacteria along with the bad ones. On top of all that you would need huge amounts of essential oil given internally to have much of an effect on parasites in the blood and other organs. Probably so much that the dose would be toxic. There are recorded cases of parents who have killed their children by administering toxic volumes of Chenopodium oil. This is illegal in the UK but it may be available in the USA.Do not buy or use it.
“Dr. Zielinski: So when it comes to topical application, if we’re dealing with a parasitic infection assuming that we’re dealing with the GI tract, dilute, put over the stomach area? Or are there certain meridian or chakra points that you would try to capitalize on?” There is no way putting an essential oil on the skin can get rid of parasites inside the body.
“Dr. Todd: The feet is always a really good go-to thing”. Quack, quack, quack.
Page 17. “And Dr. Jane Goldberg wrote an article in the Huffington Post a couple of years ago that according to her, any application of essential oils anywhere on the body, because they’re transdermal, once it penetrates that first layer of the dermis, within 20 minutes, Dr. Goldberg says within 20 minutes every one of your cells of your body are going to be affected”. How many more dangerous quacks are we going to hear referred to?
12 Essential oil profiles
By Angela England
Lavender essential oil profile. “Lavender essential oil is made by steam distillation using only the flowers of the lavender plant”. Rubbish, I doubt she has ever seen a Lavender harvest. The flowering stalks with leaves are used as even the leaves contain oil.
“Lavandula angustifolia is easier to grow, but the essential oil derived from that variety is slightly more limited in its uses”. Easier to grow is wrong.This Latin name tells you nothing about the oil composition, you need to know which sub variety to get some idea.
“Lavender oil is often sold as "lavandin"which is a poor quality, cheap oil that should not be used for health care at all”. It may be cheaper, but certainly not poor quality. It in fact the biggest “Lavender” crop grown commercially and has wide uses. The range of uses are just different to high linalool types of Lavender.
“Linalyl acetate (30-60%), linalool, geranial, caryophyllene, lavandulyl acetate, cineole, nerol, coumarin, and fat aldehydes”. Without giving the percentages of the other chemicals this is meaningless information. What the heck “fat aldehydes” are I have no idea and I have hundreds of analysis of Lavender type oils; transcription error maybe.
Eucalyptus essential oil. “Another variety is derived from Eucalyptus radiata and tends to produce a less stimulating oil that I prefer to use with children”. To the best of my knowledge this variety of Eucalyptus oil has not been subjected to formal safety trials and therefore safety is not known. That has been guessed at simply by the occurrence of the major components and that is very risky. I would never use an essential oil on a child if it has not been properly tested by people who know what they are doing.
Tea tree essential oil. “Melaleuca alternifolia essential oil is high in terpineol, cineole, pinene, terpinenes and many other constituents”. Wow, looks like she does not know its composition such as the Australian standards. That is even in my most basic oil profiles.
“Melaleuca alternifolia is antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral”. The essential oil is not antiviral.
“While some people can develop a sensitivity to prolonged use of the essential oil, especially when poor quality oil is used, tea tree oil is considered safe for undiluted application to small areas of the skin”. Such a statement indicates a complete lack of knowledge of the issues surrounding sensitization to essential oils. Likewise in the next paragraph on precautions. Oil quality is not the main issue, it is the occurrence of specific natural chemicals in essential oils.
THERAPEUTIC ESSENTIAL OIL COMBINATIONS. “Antiviral (flu, cold and other virus care) - Tea tree, ravensara, or rosemary”. Not one of these oils are proven antivirals in humans. In addition, Ravensara has not been formally tested for safety and much of it was manufactured using 1,8-cineole.
Rosemary essential oil. “The main essential oil constituents of rosemary essential oil are pinene, cineole, camphor, camphene, bornyl acetate, borneol and verbenon”. Which pinene? Does it not matter if it is alpha or beta? Verbenone does not occur in normal rosemary oil, but is a constituent of a sub variety. It can also be purchased as a synthetic chemical and its safety is not known.
“Rosemary has strong effects on the adrenal and other glands of the body”.What the oil?Who says so and where is the evidence?
Frankincense essential oil. “a unique essential oil that is created from the resin of a tree, Boswellia carteri”. Incorrect, different resins comes from a wide variety of trees commonly called 'Frankincense' from Arabia to India.
“Phelladren, a-pinene, actanol, limonene, linalool, octyl acetate, bornyl acetate, incensole and myrcene”. This is just nonsense as without percentages it means nothing, also the composition of Frankincense oils varies widely depending on origin.
Physical effects. “These same healing effects can support bladder infections”. What from use in massage? I don't think so!
“Urinary Support – Frankincense, sandalwood, tea tree, bergamot, lavender, or geranium”.
Dangerous nonsense if people believe this will work from external use.
Ravensara essential oil. “is derived from a tree native to Madagascar”. In theory yes, in practice it can be entirely manufactured. The safety of the genuine oil is unknown as no formal testing has been done. Instead the safety has been guessed at by its chemical profile. This oil was introduced to aromatherapy after being hyped by certain con artists originating from France, and then passed on by aromatherapy authors in their popular novels. Almost all of the claimed properties are inventions and are not backed by traditional uses. To be safe ignore all of these claims and use oils with a sound historical and research background for dealing with these conditions.
Bergamot essential oil. “is an anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral, antiparasitic, and antiseptic” It is not antiviral, it is not antiparasitic.
“....It is also helpful for urinary tract health and is strong against UTI's or cystitis”. It is not useful for these conditions. The use of essential oils in a bath or as a douche for such conditions was proven ineffective by researchers years ago.
“It also inhibits herpes and other viruses”. It may help soothe and heal such skin eruptions, but there is no evidence that it kills the viruses.
“Urinary Health”. What the heck does that mean? Are the readers supposed to guess?
Geranium oil. “it has the ability to both raise and lower the blood pressure”. If caused by stress possibly but not if the BP is due to a physical problem.
“Geranium essential oil can balance blood sugar levels and regulate the systems of the body. Geranium oil has also been used as a diuretic”, This is dangerous nonsense.
“In fact, according to Aromatherapy A-Z”, Oh so that's where some of this nonsense comes from - one of the trades best works of fiction!
“The diuretic effect of the oil means you shouldn’t use it if you have kidney issues”. Maybe if it was drunk, but not otherwise.
“Water Retention – Geranium, petitgrain, or bitter orange”. Beauty therapy trash!
Peppermint essential oil. The photo is not of Peppemint.
“Fever – Peppermint, lavender, basil, cypress, rosemary, tea tree, or chamomile”. Not one of these oils will affect a fever because these are the actions of the herbal infusions.
Sandalwood oil. “Sandalwood has been used historically as a treatment for gonorrhea and genital or urinary infections”. Yes, but only Mysore oil which has not been available for years. To do such treatments nowadays would be illegal in many countries. This is because such infections can be reportable sexually transmitted diseases.
Lemon essential oil. “The major chemical compounds are pinene, limonene, and phellandrene”. Wrong the major chemical is d-limonene.
“Lemon essential oil is highly anti-microbial and has been shown in studies to kill Salmonella and Staphylococcus”, Only the very fresh oil or ones in which antioxidants have been added. This is a typical case of twisting scientific research to suit.
“Its detoxifying properties make it great for use in lymphatic massage”. It is not absorbed by the skin in sufficient volumes to have any effect on the lymphatic system. This is classic beauty therapy hype.
“Detoxifying – Lemon, fennel, juniper, frankincense, or grapefruit”. Not true, no essential oils used externally can possibly have such an effect.
Quest for the Cure
By Ty Bollinger
Not a lot to be said about this one as there is not much on essential oils. Instead we get a mash of fact and fiction mixed up with scare mongering. It sounds more like a evangelical sermon rather than anything to do with complementary medicine.
Some Audio files follow:
Chris - Joybilee Farm
Audio
Wow at long last a lady who talks sense and knows her stuff, I expect starting 30 years ago she has learnt a lot.
Very good info on the differences between animals and the dangers of using essential oils on the wrong species (unlike other speakers).
Good advice on putting essential oils on clothing rather than the skin.
Good advice over the short life of citrus oils which completely flies in the face of earlier speakers who say they last for years.
Only thing I would be concerned about is her use of Lemon Verbena oilwhich is a powerful sensitizer and banned in cosmetics by the IFRA.
Otherwise great stuff.
Heather from thehomesteadinghippy.com
Audio
This blogger is not an oil seller but gets paid via links to Amazon a company that does not care what it sells as long as they get their cut.Some of the sellers on there are scam artists selling junk.
There is information about essential oils getting in the eye and advising the use of fixed oils rather than water. A much better solvent is full fat milk. Especially if straight out of the refrigerator.
Some sensible advice given by Heather. "Don't just take a bloggers word for it". "Talk to a naturopath" Well since most at this conference are doTerra distributors I would caution against that. She also mentions about “doing your research on the internet”. My advice is ignore everything on Young Living and doTerra distributors blogs and sites.
Honey from honeyslife.com
Audio
Honey says: "Clary sage oil can induce labor and cause a miscarriage". This based on past herbal use to expel the afterbirth and typically this has been corrupted by aromatherapy authors into the oil does the same. There is no sound evidence for that.
“Jasmine is good for the uterus” but she does not say how it gets there and what it is supposed to do.
Continued.
“Ragweed oil can cause an allergy”. I have never heard of such an essential oil so any small producer distilling it has no idea on its safety and is playing with fire.
“Orange oil is good for good for flu rubbed on the feet”. Well that indicates who she has been learning from; a multi level company of course!!
“Cinnamon oil a friend put in toilet water caused burns” Yes I am sure if it was Cinnamon bark oil that it did, but these people never say which cinnamon oil they are talking about!
She mentions Jasmine oil for when breastfeeding.This is fundamentally wrong as published research has proven Jasmine flowers can inhibit lactation. It is a common error found in popular aromatherapy books, but shocking if a mother can't breastfeed due to such a huge error of facts.
Jessica from The 104 Homestead
Audio
Jessica talks “about the fun making things with essential oils”. Yes this is fine but only if you understand the issues involved in making safe products. Unfortunately this is not the case with many of these homesteader bloggers.
She used google to find out about essential oils. On google the first many pages are links to suppliers where reliable information is rarely found. Just the mention of “blue oil”tells me where she got a lot of her information from!
She says “I do not wear gloves while blending essential oils and I am still here”. This indicates a total lack of knowledge of how skin sensitization happens.
The constant “do your research” mostly means online where sound research is rarely found, or you need to know where to find the sound research. I only know of one web site where comprehensive safety information is available, although most is aimed at essential oils in products. It does not cover medicinal uses or toxicological information because that is in scientific journals or 'member only' online databases that cost thousands of Dollars.
Kat - Simply Living Simply
Audio
Definitely a multi level company oils seller and probably doTerra.
She talks a lot about this one company she uses and the wonderful essential oil compared to others. The fact is without analysis an individual simply cannot determine the quality of an essential oil. It is all hype to sell oils.
She talks about layering essential oils, another term used by multi level oil sellers.
“I always put lemon (oil) in my water....i like to have that little bit of detox”. Why use Lemon oil in water when the juice would be better and safer? Detox is just beauty trade hype.
Talks about spraying several essential oil on plants as bug repellents. What she clearly does not know is that some of these oils contain the same chemicals that occur in the bugs and are used as attractants for mating. So they will just love your precious plants!!
Katey - MamaKautz
Audio
Another doTerra oils distributor. With the same old stuff from their hype.
Kelly - Simple Life Mom
Audio
Sells various products and essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues.
Leah - Fabulous Farm Girl
Audio
Sells various products including essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues.
Lesa - Better Hens and Gardens
Audio
Sells various products including essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues. She certainly will not learn that from the bloggers on this conference.
Tammy - Trayer Wilderness
Audio
Another doTerra oils distributor.
Typical do Terra nonsense about oils on the feet and on the neck.
--------------------------------
Summary. As a retired natural therapist I despise companies such as doTerra who denigrate our wonderful healing plants by spreading false claims over what the plant extracts can do. That is clearly what this conference was designed to do. It promotes quacks as experts and uses amateurs to ensnare others into spending huge amounts of money to become distributors. It is also designed as a way to side step the FDA and their warnings over previous illegal medicinal claims made on doTerra and its distributors web sites.
KEY:Blue my comments
Black or yellow outline their statements.
The following reviews of the presentations at this conference are to illustrate how people promoted as experts are often far from it. This conference was targeted at persuading people to believe in unfounded and outrageous medicinal claims for essential oils. That influences some listeners to obtain oils from and seek therapists who know only what multi level marketing companies have taught them.
Anyone who paid to access this conference has been deceived into paying for garbage mostly originating from DoTerra oils and their distributors. The organizers and most speakers were doTerra oil distributors either directly or indirectly via emailed personal recommendations.
This conference was promoted by blog sites as “The Essential Oils Revolution Summit! There's going to be a FANTASTIC line-up of experts on the subject of essential oils”.A few maybe, but most of the speakers are far from being experts on essential oils.
What lets many of the speakers down is they only know what they have read in popular books, on blogs and via multi level essential oil sellers. They then write guidance books to sell on their web sites and blogs. Books packed with gross errors.
Several of the presentations have dangerously incorrect information on their web blogs such as “On top of that, I learned that essential oils don't expire for 10-15 years.”This is a clear indication that the author knows nothing about essential oil safety. That statement is not valid for the vast majority of essential oils.
The style of speaker introduction is classic of the methods used by multi level companies.
1. “Thank God” “Praise God” “Blessings” and similar terms are introduced at every opportunity to manipulate Christian minds. This is a classic selling technique used by DoTerra, Young Living and their distributors. It seems American Christians are easily deceived by these dishonorable marketing techniques and cult builders.
2. Speakers are constantly introduced as “DR”.This can mislead listeners to assume they are medical doctors. In reality most of these speakers are Chiropractors from schools where the quality of tuition on essential oils is clearly appallingly bad.
3. Photographs of the speakers are typical of those seen on multi level distributors web sites with emphasis on the family and well groomed presenters.
A lot of the information in this conference is taken from blog sites. On these sites it is difficult to issue challenges to the authors because they only publish what they like. They are being used to fool the public into buying products of little value as well as presenting a lot of inaccurate information some of which has the potential to cause physical harm.Most of those who run these 'homesteader' type blogs are 'trained' via multi level oil companies and constantly use unverified personal reports to justify their therapeutic use claims. There is nothing wrong with telling others that a particular product helped them or their family. What is wrong is when these unverified anecdotal reports are promoted around the Internet blogs as fact. The authors just do not know enough about the ingredients they promote. Everything is designed to get sales at any cost!
See next review.
A Cancer Survivor’s Story
by Allison Huish
Introduced as “a registered dietician, essential oil educator”
It looks like this lady has been sucked in by the dangerous hype of the multi level distributors sales teams. It is shocking that the unjustified and incorrect claims made for these oils will mislead others to use them for cancers.
Page 5 of the .pdf presentation.
“So as I work with people, and even my own health, I found things that, let's say, for example, your citrus oils, those help break down the fat cells that are in your body. I also found things like peppermint oil curbs your appetite. But I love to teach classes on weight loss where we talk about how to lose weight naturally. I let people know do something like peppermint oil that helps curb your appetite instead of doing something like red bull or something synthetic and processed.” This statement about citrus oil breaking down fat cells in the body has absolutely no foundation and indicates she learnt from a multi level marketing company. Peppermint oil curbs the appetite is also wrong, in fact it is a well known appetite stimulant.
“But I teach people naturally how to lose weight. So peppermint’s a great tip that a lot of people love, just two drops of peppermint in your water three times a day will really just curb your appetite.Or things like your citrus oils, put them on topically is the best cellulite reducer in the world I have ever found”.Peppermint oil in water can be dangerous because essential oils in water do not mix. Undiluted peppermint oil on the mucous membranes of the lips and mouth will irritate and possibly burn them. Citrus oils will do nothing for cellulite, especially applied externally as suggested.
“So if we look at the science of what essential oils do, we’re healing the cells. And by healing the cells, by getting them functioning, by increasing the mitochondria strength, by cleaning the blood, by cleaning the cells, by getting the right amount of lipids around the cells, by getting rid of free radicals and putting in antioxidants, essential oils can do all of those things”.This is just total nonsense. It is also being used by multi level companies and their joke “scientific advisers”.
“And these studies showed how frankincense shrunk tumors. And it actually shrunk cancer cells”. Studies on cells invitro using oil from Young Living - see my article. Most such studies have just used Boswellic acid rather than the whole oil.
“And we did it in several different ways. We started using frankincense on the back of my head. I took it internally. I put it on the reflexology points. But any way that I could get frankincense into me, we did. So we used a lot of frankincense oil. We also did a couple oils like clove oil. That's very oxygenating, also sandalwood oil. But primarily we used a lot of clove oil. Clove oil and then frankincense oil would be the two main oils”.
The only studies that have been ratified are in-vitro on cells. That does not mean consuming Frankincense oil will do the same in the living body. Also, see article on this site about Toluene (a cancer promoter) in this oil. In addition, some of these studies were published by scam medical publication sites who will publish anything in return for payment. Therefore these studies have not been peer reviewed by experts in the field. Clove oil is NOT oxygenating, this is classic multi level marketing hype.
Beauty and Skincare with Essential Oils
By Angela England and Erica Mueller
Many of the claims made in this file are typical of those made on the hundreds of blog sites where it is mostly the blind leading the blind, or they are on sites that are marketing oils and other items, but which masquerade as information sites.
HOW TO USE COCONUT OIL FOR NATURAL BEAUTY:
Paragraph 4.
“Try a few drops of some of the citrus oils – grapefruit is energizing and detoxifying, great against cellulite”. Detoxifying and cellulite claims are complete nonsense and are just beauty trade hype.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DIFFERENT SKIN TYPES
Heading 2: “Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) balances sebum production, is antiseptic
and astringent”... Essential oils are not "astringent" they are the opposite.
Heading 5: “Palmarosa (Cympobogon martinii) is hydrating, helps to balance sebum production, stimulates cellular regeneration, and is antiseptic”. No essential oils are "hydrating" it is the cream or fixed oils used which do this. Also, where is the evidence that “palmarosa stimulates cellular regeneration”? This also sounds like hype from some book or course written or taught by a con artist.
Heading 6: “Rose (Rosa centifolia or damascena) is especially good for dry, sensitive or aging skin; has an astringent and tonic effect on the capillaries and can be helpful for thread veins and even couperosa”. Rose hydrosol may have an astringent action but certainly not the essential oil.
SUGGESTED ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DIFFERENT SKIN TYPES
“Jasmine (good for hot, dry or inflamed skin), Lavender and Sandalwood”. Jasmine and Sandalwood oils are widely adulterated and such oils should not be used on damaged skin. Jasmine is almost always an absolute, not an essential oil.
“Stretch mark prevention: Neroli, Mandarin (in a 1% dilution, and add some wheatgerm oil to the base oil blend)”. The essential oil will do nothing for stretch marks. Wheatgerm oil will just make the blend go rancid unless it contains a synthetic antioxidant which is common. Wheatgerm oil is not a natural antioxidant.
“Detoxifying oils, against cellulite or fluid retention: Geranium, Grapefruit, Juniper, Rosemary, Lemon”. This is all total nonsense and beauty trade hype.
“Lavender is a natural antibiotic, antiseptic, antidepressant, sedative, and detoxifier”.
It is not an antibiotic. It is not a detoxifier.
“Tea Tree oil....It has antiviral.....” It is not antiviral, only the water based extract has been shown to have such properties, not the essential oil.
“Peppermint is an excellent digestive aid, great for the respiratory system and circulation along with being an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic...”. Peppermint oil can cause skin burns. The cooling effects are a temporary numbing of the skins sensory nerves, but when that wears off you can get rebound heating and inflammation. This advice is dangerous.
“Eucalyptus oil has numerous properties. It is useful as an anti-inflammatory, an
antiseptic, antibiotic, diuretic, analgesic”. No essential oils are antibiotics. It is also not diuretic unless someone were foolish enough to drink it. I would also question the claim to it being anti-inflammatory, it is more of a skin irritant.
“Thyme oil is an antiviral, antibiotic, antiseptic, and diuretic product that should be used with caution. It is good for discouraging parasites and insects from your home. It should not be overused as it can affect the thyroid gland and lymphatic system”.
It is not antiviral. To cause a diuretic effect it would have to be consumed in dangerous amounts which could damage the kidneys. As to how it effects the thymus gland, that's a mystery to me.
TEN WAYS TO SCENT HOMEMADE SOAP
1. Peppermint
“My basic recipe is 1 teaspoon of peppermint essential oil to one pound of soap base”.
This is typical of most US home soap makers who use weights and measures which make calculating accurate ingredient percentages almost impossible. In my experience many of these soap makers are ignorant of safety issues and use far too much essential oil in their products. As peppermint oil is a known irritant, this formula is suspect to say the least.
2. Chocolate
“and 1 teaspoon vanilla essential oil”. There is no such thing as vanilla essential oil; therefore this indicates someone with a lack of knowledge of what they are using. See other headings where this non existent “oil” is mentioned.
6. Citrus
“add in 1 teaspoon jojoba oil, 1/2 teaspoon bergamot essential oil, 3/4 teaspoon lime essential oil and one teaspoon lemon essential oil”.
No mention of the significant risks of photo sensitization if expressed lime and bergamot were used in the formula.
9. Cinnamon-Chocolate Swirl
“My basic recipe is 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon essential oil and 1/2 teaspoon of chocolate essential oil”. Cinnamon what, bark or leaf? Cinnamon bark oil should never be used in products at this level of use. Chocolate essential oil (if it exists as a natural extract) has never been tested for skin safety.
EASY HOMEMADE SALT SCRUB RECIPE
“and you can add essential oils to hydrate and balance, to energize, or to detoxify.”
Essential oils do not “detoxify” the body. The body has mechanisms to eliminate undesirable metabolites, unless one has major organ damage in which case some oils if consumed could worsen the damage, particularly to the liver.
THE SALT SCRUB RECIPE
“10-15 drops of essential oils – choose from the following or add your own favorite oils.”
This is a dangerous statement as that amount of some oils could damage the skin.
“detoxifying:Juniper, Grapefruit, Rosemary, Geranium, Lemon (all these are also great for an anti-cellulite salt scrub)” All of this is just marketing hype - see above.
MAKING YOUR OWN FACE OILS
“Cold-pressed vegetable oils are nourishing to the skin, natural and free of all the preservatives” Most fixed oils have synthetic antioxidants added at point of production because otherwise they go rancid. Most aromatherapy type suppliers have no idea what is in their “organic” cold pressed oils.
“unlike mineral oils that can clog the pores”. Simply not true, fixed oils can and do block the pores, some are worse than mineral oils in that respect.
“Great essential oils for a face oil include:”
“Frankincense (Boswellia carterii): one of the best choices for anti-wrinkle oils”.
There is no such thing as an “anti-wrinkle essential oil”, this is 100 percent beauty trade hype. Healing yes, but wrinkles are only cured by surgery and other physical treatments.
“Palmarosa............but is also hydrating”. No such thing as a hydrating essential oil.
SUNBURN RELIEF SPRAY
This is a water based formula with recommended Lavender oil. You cannot mix essential oils and water unless a surfactant is used. The oil will come out of suspension into globules which means you are spraying undiluted oil onto your skin. This is made even worse by suggesting that Peppermint oil is used which can burn the skin if undiluted.
HOMEMADE DIY FOUNDATION
Suggests using cinnamon but does not say if powder or oil. If someone foolishly used cinnamon bark oil, this could cause irritation or worse a sensitization response.
OILS GOOD FOR AGEING SKIN, FINE LINES, AND WRINKLES
“Frankincense, Lemon, Myrrh, Patchouli”, There is absolutely no evidence that these oils can do anything for aging skin. Indeed Lemon oil is an irritant and the cold pressed oil is a photo sensitizer.
DIRECTIONS TO MAKE HOMEMADE FACE POWDER
Comments same as above.
NATURAL HAIR CONDITIONING TREATMENTS -
Avocado cleansing and strengthening conditioner
This formula contains the classic aromatherapy error of assuming sage essential oil has the same properties as the herb. The herb has an ancient reputation for darkening hair and as a “conditioner”.The essential oil has no such use. What variety of the oil is she suggesting as the chemical profiles are profoundly different from each other? Likewise there is no evidence for using lemon oil in this formula other than for its fragrance.
NOURISHING OIL TREATMENT FOR DRY AND DAMAGED HAIR
“Rosemary oil for dark hair or as a general hair tonic. Chamomile essential oil for blond hair.” Both claims on coloring the hair are corruptions from the use of the herbs. The coloring action has nothing to do with the essential oil content of the plant.
HOMEMADE HAIR GEL
“30 drops essential oils of choice for scent and personal medicinal purposes
(Citrus oils are better and provide preservative effects, too.)” Citrus oils have no preservative properties unless they contain synthetic anti oxidants commonly used at point of production.
CONTRIBUTING BLOGGERS:
“Angela England, Untrained Housewife”. Yes clearly untrained in these subjects but excellent at marketing via these blog sites.
Living the Innovated Life with Essential Oils
By Callie and David Steuer
These people are distributors for doTerra oils. A company disciplined by the FDA for their illegal and outrageous medicinal claims.
“Dr. David: Frankincense is fantastic, wonderfully anti-inflammatory,.........The research going into frankincense is just superb.” It is not superb research - see my article on this.
“Cinnamon, another wonderful one for stabilizing our natural blood sugars”. What cinnamon and oil or powder? Many will assume he means the bark oil, very dangerous. This sounds to me like a veiled suggestion for diabetes!!
No more to say on this one as most of the talk is anecdotal and unverified hype.
Child Safe Essential Oils
Author not given.
TOPICAL USE BABIES 3mo+
“Chamomile, Dill, Lavender, and Yarrow”. They do not say which chamomile and more important is that there is no known skin safety for Yarrow oil. To use an 'untested' oil on such a young baby is shocking.
TOPICAL USE CHILDREN 6yr+
“Fennel, Laurel, Marjoram, Niaouli, Sage”. Do they mean Laurel (Laurus nobilis) or Laurel-Bay (Pimenta racemosa)? Laurel (Laurus nobilis) is a known powerful skin sensitizing oil and should never be used on such a young child. Niaouli has no known skin safety tests.
Natural Essential Oil Pain Remedies
By DaNelle Wolford
The web address given for this speaker shows thatthey are a distributor for doTerra oils. A company recently disciplined by the FDA for their illegal medicinal claims. A company that teach these unfounded claims to distributors just to push sales.
The claims made over her personal health issuesare similar to those made by the late confidence trickster Gary Young. I wonder if anyone has bothered to check their authenticity?
“Peppermint kind of gives that hot ice effect where it gets hot and then it gets cold. But it also can increase circulation, oxygenation to the muscles. Peppermint itself has about 12 different active compounds. The largest compound is menthol. So it actually works as an analgesic. That menthol is really good at kind of numbing the area, but also increasing circulation”. As explained previously, this common error about peppermint oil being a coolant is wrong. The effect is a temporary numbing of the skins sensory nerve cells, but after a time the effect reverses. That is when increased blood flow happens and can result in severe skin irritation. “Peppermint itself has about 12 different active compounds”. That is an indication of someone who has been trained by someone who knows nothing about essential oils. All genuine essential oils contain hundreds of natural chemicals.
“So thyme in itself is really a great anti-inflammatory.” It is NOT in fact the opposite, a skin irritant which is an inflammatory reaction.
“Yeah. I would go with the most popular, which would be like a peppermint oil or wintergreen or maybe a blend”. Wintergreen is NOT a natural essential oil, it is a chemical made from natural materials in a similar way chemicals are made from coal. Much on the market is just synthetic methyl salicylate.
“And the essential oils that I usually choose to take, which are good for reducing inflammation from the inside, is I really like to take marjoram. And I will also do frankincense”. See my article on Toluene found in Frankincense oil. So if her oil comes from the same source as that analyzed in my article, she is consuming a known toxic and carcinogenic chemical. How is Joe public to know what they are using? Trust your supplier, I think not!!
Essential Oil in the Kitchen
A book preview from vintage remedies
While the suggested recipes look fine, when it comes to the use of essential oils as ingredients there is no mention that people need to know if the oil they are using is the real deal. If not they may be ingesting harmful synthetic chemicals. See my article on Frankincense and others.
Essential Oils for Pets and Livestock
Via Homestead Bloggers Network
In general these bloggers do not take into account the significant differences between species. We have formulas from use on chickens, goats, dogs, etc., all using the same essential oils. A common feature is Tea Tree oil which is known to affect dogs differently to other animals and has caused death in dogs.
It is clear to me that most of these US based homesteader style blogs consist of the blind leading the blind. Most have no training in the use of essential oils, or if they have it is via a multi level company whose training is only aimed at selling products.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR DOGS
As is often seen on these blog sites, the complete lack of understanding that essential oils and water do not mix. The list of ailments that the suggested oils can help is preposterous. Continued.
To suggest that Peppermint oil on the paws of a dog can fix heart problems is so way out that I cannot figure out where such a crazy idea originated. So the dog licks its paw and get Peppermint oil in its eye. This is animal cruelty!!
GOAT TEAT SPRAY RECIPE
“20 drops grapefruit essential oil, 8 drops tea tree oil, 5 drops lavender oil, 1 drop clove bud oil, 1/4 teaspoon isopropyl alcohol, 2 ounces distilled water.” This is a great example of over-use of essential oils and an individual who has no idea on safety issues or that oils and water do not mix.
MASTITIS UDDER MASSAGE SALVE
Same comments as above.
Essential Oils for Health and Wellness
By Homestead Bloggers Network
SHOULD YOU EVER TAKE ESSENTIAL OILS INTERNALLY?
“in case of a cold or a flu, it is much more effective to give regular massages with a 3% blend of antiviral essential oils, which means you can get quite a lot of oil into the body, than to take the oil internally” Firstly there are very few essential oils with proven antiviral activity in the body. Secondly there is no evidence that massage can get enough oil into the body to have an antiviral action. Massage can relieve some of the side effects of flu but as indirect actions of the oil vapor inhalation and the effects of the massage.
5 ESSENTIAL OILS WE USE EVERY DAY
“Lemon essential oil is cold-pressed from the rind of the lemon and is not the same as lemon juice. It is antiseptic, anti-fungal, antiviral, astringent......”. Cold pressed lemon oil is a known photo sensitizer. It is NOT antiviral, it is NOT an astringent; this is a classic error of taking the actions of the juice and giving the same ones to the essential oil.
“Drink It – 2 to 3 drops of lemon in each glass of water you drink will not only kill the nasties in your tap water but will also provide a gentle detox”. You can't mix oil and water. It is doubtful that lemon oil will kill bugs in tap water at that level of use or indeed at any level of use. The mention of detox is classic beauty/aromatherapy hype and fairy tales.
“Lavender essential oil is......anti-infectious”.What exactly does that mean? If it means using lavender oil reduces the chance of getting an infection, then I know that those involved in the production get just as many colds as anyone else. This sounds just like the kind of illegal nonsense that multi level distributors were using until the FDA stopped them.
“Rub a few drops on the bottom of your kids’ feet at night to help calm them down for bed and promote restful sleep. Put in a diffuser at night to provide a calming atmosphere.”
Why on kids feet? Nothing is absorbed via that route. Suggesting a diffuser is left with a child overnight, without qualifying what kind of diffuser is very dangerous advice. Some might assume they mean a candle heated diffuser and that would be plain crazy.
Peppermint: See comments on that in Beauty and Skincare with Essential Oils.
“Cool It – Peppermint is effective at cooling the body from fevers, hot flashes, over-exertion, or hot weather. Apply a few drops to forehead, back of neck, lower spine and/or bottom of feet”. Peppermint oil does NOT cool fevers. Suggesting adding the oil to the lower spine indicates someone who has learnt from Young Living or one of their distributors. It is total nonsense.
“A Muscle Relief Blend - I used a premade blend consisting of oils that target sore, achy muscles and joint pain. It provides long-lasting, anti-inflammatory relief wintergreen, camphor, peppermint, blue tansy, german chamomile, helichrysum and osmanthus”. Wintergreen is not a natural essential oil, camphor oil is mostly linalool and is a byproduct of camphor production, blue tansy is hyped like crazy but it has no known safety testing.Osmanthus is only obtainable as a perfumery absolute and skin safety is not known.
“Protective Blend – Boost your immune system with powerful protective blend of essential oils. One of my favorites is a combination of wild orange, clove, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary. It’s antiviral, antibacterial, anti-fungal, antiseptic, anti-infectious, and an immune stimulant”. This formula is plain crazy. It contains cinnamon bark oil which is a well known skin sensitizer (in the REAL essential oils trade) and worse can burn the skin if too much is used. There is not a scrap of evidence that this formula can boost the immune system. This is all based on unevaluated anecdotal hype.
WHAT IS OIL PULLING… AND WHY SHOULD I DO IT?
“Simply put, oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic practice”. Ayurvedic therapists did not use essential oils in Ancient times. Fixed oils yes, but not the essential oils suggested in later paragraphs. They certainly never used Melaleuca oil. Oil pulling - what a stupid term!
SHOULD I ADD ESSENTIAL OILS?
This whole section is 100 percent modern invention with no sound evidence.
BATH BLENDS FOR THE FLU SEASON
“Many essential oils are antiviral........” Not true, very few have invivo antiviral activity.
“If you start to sweat profusely, you know that the treatment is working” That is complete nonsense, a high temperature is the body doing its job and is not related to the use of any essential oils in the bath. High temperatures in young children may be dangerous and thus if this advice were followed, it could have dangerous implications.
TWO RELAXING ANTI-FLU EVENING BATHS
“Ravensara (Ravensara aromatica) is one of the best essential oils for the flu season: it is immunostimulant, anti-viral, and anti-microbial, as well as expectorant –........It is non-toxic and non-sensitizing”. The safety of Ravensara oil is not known. Also, it is frequently a fake oil made from fractions of eucalyptus. Therefore, I have always advised against its use. I know that most of the therapeutic uses were 'invented' by two therapists from France whose work has never been evaluated by experts. As far as I am aware there is no evidence that the genuine oil has antiviral activity.
“Tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) is antiviral”. It is not, the only tests for that activity were done on a water based extract. This type of corruption of scientific research is common in aromatherapy, especially by multi level companies.
“Eucalyptus (globulus or radiata) is antibacterial, antiviral”. Same as above.
A BATH TO BRING DOWN FEVER
“Use Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) and/or Peppermint (Mentha piperita) as both oils can help to bring down fever”. There is no evidence to back this claim, particularly as Bergamot oil is not an anti viral agent. It sounds again like a corruption of the traditional use of herb teas to help reduce a fever by their antiviral action.
“Disclaimer: You can use this method for bringing down fever even if you take medicines and support your body’s natural healing systems”. Clearly the author has no idea that a fever is the bodies natural healing mechanism. It should only be reduced in young children or those suffering from other conditions. To reduce this reaction prematurely allows viral infections to proliferate.
ESSENTIAL OILS: NATURAL COLD REMEDIES
“Eucalyptus is antiviral”.As in the last page, it is not antiviral.
“Tea tree essential oil.....is one of the most effective anti-viral oils,” It is not.
“The closely related niaouli (Melaleuca viridiflora)”. As with Ravensara there has been no safety testing of this oil and as with Ravensara it is dead easy to synthesize it.
ANTIMICROBIAL SPRAY FOR FLU SEASON
Wow at last, someone who understands the need for alcohol to dilute essential oils in. This formula would reduce the cheap vodka to around 23 percent strength which is too low for some essential oils, but the lighter ones it will work for. Congratulations Schneider Peeps
DO NATURAL INSECT REPELLENTS WORK?
Again we are back to adding essential oils to plain water. An important factor nearly always missed on these anti insect formulas is that insects are highly specific in what fragrance molecules attract or repel them. There are masses of trials that have been conducted into the olfactory preferences of numerous insects. Therefore to claim a formula is “anti insect” is misleading. You need to know will it deter mosquitoes such as catnip oil does, or will they be attracted to the oils used? For example, lavender is often promoted as “anti insect”, yet some insects are attracted to it and will lay their eggs in lavender plants.
A HOMEMADE NATURAL INSECT REPELLENT WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
“Eucalyptus essential oil deters mosquitoes and other insects,” So in areas where Eucalyptus grows they have no insects? In hot places such as Australia the air is full of Eucalyptus oil vapors, yet the Australians have to be utra careful not to let insect hosting raw materials through customs.
“Fresh lavender flowers are known to keep moths away from bed linens and other household textiles”. Just one more frequently quoted fairy tale. I had several clothing items in a wardrobe destroyed by moths. They were hatching from dried lavender placed in paper bags. A mistake never repeated and after that I put all my herbs into containers.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR A HOMEMADE BUG REPELLENT
“This blend can be sprayed on the skin,....” This formula includes Manuka oil the skin safety of which is not known.
ANTI-ITCH CREAM
“Clove EO – One of nature’s best pain relievers”,Not true. Diluted it may work for an infected aching tooth, even then it can kill the gum cells causing an ulcer. The most potent pain killers from plants are alkaloids which are only soluble in water other solvents.
“clove is also anti-inflammatory,” Not true it causes irritation/inflammation.
“can help pull infection from tissues”. Where the heck does that crazy idea come from?
ITCH RELIEF CREAM WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
45 drops of clove oil is about 2.5 ml. That volume in this formula combined with peppermint oil is likely to cause more irritation than it cures. These volumes are typical of home formulators who do not have the first clue about safety issues.
ECZEMA SKIN SALVE INGREDIENTS
While most advice in this section is fine, the use of Thyme essential oil in this formula is unwise as it is likely to cause irritation of the damaged epidermis. I can see no logical reason for its inclusion.
DIY HAND SANITIZER FOR THE FLU SEASON
“My oils of choice were an immune support blend that included clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary essential oils. I used about 20 drops total of this blend and 10 drops of Oregano Oil. Both are known to be antibacterial/antibiotic/antiviral.” Classic multi level marketing hype. There are no specific essential oils that are proven to boost the immune system, it can be any fragrance that the individual likes, even chocolate.
HOW TO DO A STEAM INHALATION WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
Originally Published on 'Untrained Housewife'
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR STEAM INHALATIONS
Colds: Several oils claimed to be “antiviral” but there is no evidence for that.
“The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils by Julia Lawless is a good guide to using essential oils at home”. It is not, much of the information is taken from the use of herbs rather than known uses of the same plants essential oil.
FABULOUS SLEEP SALVE
Originally Published on Fabulous Farm Girl
FABULOUS SLEEP SALVE WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
These volumes of essential oils in this salve are far higher than recommended safety levels.
FABULOUS VAPOR RUB
Originally Published on Fabulous Farm Girl
FABULOUS VAPOR RUB WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
These volumes of essential oils in this salve are far higher than recommended safety levels. Also, Laurel leaf oil can be a skin photo sensitizer.
ESSENTIAL HERB OILS FOR ASTHMA
Originally Published at The Go Mamas
SINGLE OILS:
“Wintergreen (her favorite)” Wintergreen is not a natural essential oil because it does not occur in the plant. Most on the market is 100 percent synthetic.
“Apply the oils neat 2-4 drops on the soles of feet 2-3 x daily”. This is classic of someone educated by multi level selling distributors. There is not a shred of evidence that essential oils can get into the body via the thick skin of the feet.
“IMPORTANT: Smells may bring an attack on for someone else. So please do not have them inhale an essentials oil ever. Essential oils should NOT be inhaled for asthma-related problems. The oils should be applied to the soles of their feet”. This is crazy, it shows a total lack of knowledge of what essential oils are. They are volatile substances and no matter where they are put on the skin they will turn to vapors and you inhale them.
SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL READING
Patricia Davis: Aromatherapy, an A-Z (Random House, UK, 2004). A book primarily describing what herbal medicine does as internal medicine rather than the essential oil applied externally. It contains numerous errors and lots of beauty therapy hype.
Essential oils in the Home
NATURAL CLEANING SOLUTIONS WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
Originally published on Untrained Housewife
HOW TO USE ESSENTIAL OILS FOR CLEANING
As usual the same wrong information about diluting essential oils in water and the failure to understand fundamental issues that this cannot be done without an additive.
“Don’t use essential oils without diluting them – neat essential oil could damage some surfaces”. The failure to understand that when you add essential oils to water they are NOT diluted. Any initial dispersion will separate into oil and water within a minute or so depending on which oils are used. Heavy oils such as vetiver, myrrh, etc., will never disperse in water.
5 NATURAL HOME FLEA REMEDIES THAT ACTUALLY WORK
Originally published on Untrained Housewife
“The main issue with these (chemical flea killers) is that they often make cats very sick and caused liver problems, kidney diseases, and immune disorders,” So can essential oils if the wrong ones are used on pets. In addition there are major differences between species such as cats and dogs in how they metabolize essential oils.
“The essential oils are all either poisonous to insects or repel them. (However, all are harmless to pets and humans except for the salt.)”Fundamental error as some oils are known to be badly tolerated by some dogs, for example tea tree oil has several cases recorded of harm to dogs. The same applies to humans as there are cases recorded of toxicological effects and hundreds of reports on adverse effects on the skin. Clearly this author knows nothing about safety issues.
LAWN AND GARDEN
"Plant your garden with marigold, lavender, rosemary, and lemon geranium (citronella)", Since when has geranium been Citronella?
“Lavender and marigold kill fleas and their larva while rosemary and lemon geranium deter them”. As someone who has years of experience growing and processing herbs, I know that lavender is loved by moths in the garden. They lay their eggs in it and these can even survive the plants being dried.
“There is no need to worry about having to protect your skin from them or worry about the essential oils hurting lungs or eyes”. This is shocking, clearly this individual knows nothing about the skin problems that overuse of essential oils can cause and that in the eyes they can be agonizing and cause conjunctival damage.
10 ESSENTIAL OILS FOR YOUR EMERGENCY KIT
Originally published on Mom Prepares
Really this information is so poor I can't be bothered spending time going through each item. You are advised to ignore it all.
Essential Oils in the Kitchen
by Homestead Bloggers Network
Contains several recipes which are fine except when it comes to:
ESSENTIAL OIL PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
This recipe contains Cassia and Clove oil as well as Cinnamon powder. As the taste of Cinnamon powder is far superior to Cassia oil, it seems pointless in adding that oil, especially in view of the dangers associated with using essential oils which can be and often are adulterated with fragrance chemicals.
COLD & FLU TEA
“Lemon Essential Oil – this antiviral is effective in dealing with colds and flu and provides support in relieving coughs, sore throats and fevers.” Lemon oil is NOT antiviral. This formula would do absolutely nothing to cure the flu, all it might do is act as a soothing agent for a sore throat. If it had been Lemon juice that might have been far more effective.
In addition, the suggestion that “1 tbsp. coconut oil is added to hot water” is ludicrous because it will not mix and will be a sticky mess to drink.
Cancer and Essential Oils
by Dr. Eric Zielinski
Page 4. 3rd and 4th paragraphs.
“Essential oils won’t cure you of anything. And that is super important to recognize. The essential oil works with the chemistry of the body so the body will kill, for example, cancer.”
If that is not an underhand way of saying that essential oils can help the body cure cancer I don't know what is. Absolutely shocking and absolutely unproven.
Page 5 and 6. A lot about the quality of essential oils and finding “the good stuff”. Of course and who do you get it from, from his wife of course who is a distributor of doTerra oils!!! Both Zielinski and his wife run websites with the biggest heap of quack medicine claims imaginable, slightly reduced since the FDA intervened, but still using misleading scientific research to prove their misleading claims.
Page after page of references to God, the Devil and Satan targeted at manipulating the mind of Christians.
Page 13: “Essential oils will help with the side effects of chemotherapy. They will actually make chemotherapy more effective because..”. No research references to justify this and which side effects as there are many?.
Page 14: “Frankincense and Sandalwood internally, can help the chemo work better.” Who says so? I can't think of any research on humans to justify that, just invitro lab trials. Also please read my article about the carcinogenic chemical Toluene in the oil used in some of these highly suspect trials.
Page 16: “But with that, we have oils. And for those of you who want to take a list, I put together a nice list in my cancer protocol. These six oils are just fantastic for cytotoxic and apoptotic effects. Basically, they produce that natural body’s resistance towards cancer. And the body will then kill cancer through clove, cinnamon, frankincense, lemongrass, Melissa, sandalwood, and thyme.…....... We’re talking breast, colon, prostate, all sorts of different things”. These statements confirm my opinion that this guy is a con artist par excellence and a dangerous and uncaring quack!
“Now women, there’s a lot—and men, too, because men do get breast cancer—there’s a lot of research, a lot more. And some others included in that list, we add oregano and black pepper, cardamom, fennel, clary sage, helichrysum, peppermint, and rosemary. These are oils that have all been done in clinical trials regarding not only producing that apoptotic affect within the body they can kill cancer, but also with side effects”. So where are the research references to trials on humans?
Page 19: “And also one key a lot of people don’t recognize is lemon is fantastic for
inflammation”. So if you accidentally get Lemon oil in the eye it does not cause instant burning and inflammation?
Summary: If this is the kind of quack being produced by American Chiropractic schools beware. Check what school your practitioner trained at.
Why Every Prepper Needs Essential Oils
By Erica Mueller
Page 3, Paragraph 5. “essential oils pretty much have no expiration date”. Clearly someone who knows nothing about essential oil safety. This sounds like the kind of trash that multi level distributors tell people. It is wrong and dangerous. The same wrong information is in the next paragraph.
“I really like SurvivalatHome.com”. A blog site that is auto connecting you to dozens of other sites as well as dumping dozens of spying cookies on your hard drive. A site that gives links to Young Living and DoTerra from where I guess the owner got all his wrong information on essential oils.
“Well, I love what you do on Mom Prepares. And for those of you who haven’t gone, MomPrepares.com, it’s just fabulous”. Just another homesteaders blog set up to sell doTerra essential oils along with all their wrong and dangerous information”
Page 7: “Erica: Yeah. So Angela owns UntrainedHousewife.com”. Yet another blog site providing wrong information on essential oils probably gleaned from multi level oil sellers. I think the title of the site says it all!! I don't have a problem with untrained people using essential oils if done correctly, but I have a big problem with those who are too lazy to equip themselves with sound information but instead parrot garbage to their readers.
Page 13: “I used to be a barrister”. One would expect a barrister to be a seeker of the truth and never to accept unverified hype. Clearly not the case with this presenter.
Page 14: “we get out our essential oils and we start to make our own immunity blend with some oregano and some citrus and clove and different things. And we start rubbing it on the bottom of the kids’ feet diluted, of course”. Rubbing oil on the feet is a typical tactic of multi level distributors because they learn this garbage from the teachers of the multi level companies. There is absolutely no evidence that essential oils can penetrate through the thick skin of the feet. There is absolutely no sound evidence that these oils used that way can enhance the immune system.
Page 20. "But, in general, I am allergic to every synthetic scent out there. I cannot walk
down the laundry soap aisle at the store or the candle aisle or be around someone who’s wearing a perfume because I’m allergic to all of that stuff". This is uneducated misleading hype. It is near impossible to be allergic to ALL synthetic fragrances. A perfume allergy is to specific chemicals in the perfume. Chemicals extracted from essential oils can form part of a fragrance blend, particularly the high end perfumes. Therefore, if someone was allergic to citronellol extracted from lemongrass oil and added to a perfume, then one would also be allergic to lemongrass oil itself as well as any other oils that citronellol occurs in. Allergic reactions to pure essential oils are well documented.
Natural Essential Oil Stress Remedies
By Hayley Hobson
Claiming to take supplements containing essential oils indicates someone who is a multi level company follower. Her web site confirms, she is a distributor of doTerra oils.
Page 11, paragraph 2. “And I also use the oil frankincense, which is really great for inflammation and also is really well known for anxiety and stress. And I put a drop of that underneath of my tongue. I also use a blend—a metabolic blend—that has oils like grapefruit and cinnamon and other oils in there that help with blood sugar stabilization”. See my article on frankincense and the dangerous levels of toluene in some oils. Also there is not a shred of evidence to back the claims for the metabolic blend. This is typical multi level company hype.
In the next paragraph once again mention about putting oils on the feet. That is a strong indication of someone who has learned from DoTerra, Young Living or their distributors.
Homemade Beauty Essentials
Making Your Own Natural Body Products
by Jessica E. Lane
While many of the given formulas contain more essential oils than accepted safe levels. One that sticks out is on page 29, “Bouquet. 8 ml Rose Absolute Essential Oil” This level of use is way above accepted limits and more worrying is that there is no such thing as “Rose Absolute Essential Oil”. Rose is either an essential oil or an absolute. In addition, that volume of rose oil or absolute would be prohibitively expensive and therefore I would question what she is actually using. Could she have been misled by a scammer supplier and is using a synthetic Rose? On the other hand the 8 ml could be a typo but if so the conference organizers should have corrected it.
Dirt Lovin’ contains 8.75 mls of essential oil way above recommended volumes for soaps.
Essential Oil Blend Balm contains 15-20 drops Essential Oil(s). This is much too high a volume depending on which essential oils are being used. I do not see any warnings over which oils should not be used in such a product.
Using Essential Oils for High Performance Health
Dr. Isaac and Erica Jones
There is an awful amount of rhetoric in this talk so I will just select a few bits that are wrong or misleading.
“And a little bit about both of them is that Dr. Isaac and Erica are the founders of Designer Health Centers, which are actually certified through the United Nations. And they’ve actually have received the certification for the Excellence in Healthcare Award”. Try searching the UN for this award, I can't find it!!
Page 8. “There’s been over 100,000 new toxins and chemicals brought on the market since World War II. And none of them really have been properly tested for their effects on the human organ systems”. That statement is just ludicrous. Certainly all new fragrance chemicals are tested before being allowed into commerce. “100,000 new toxins”, I very much doubt that, the statement is designed to mislead.
Page 9. “Essential oils act as antioxidants”. Another laughable statement. In fact most Citrus oils oxidize swiftly unless antioxidants are added. Many other essential oils will oxidize in variable amounts of time, even Lavender does. Such a statement shows ignorance of the real facts about essential oils.
Page 11. Paragraph 5. “So one of the things that I do to boost digestive support, one is consume ginger essential oil. It’s anti-inflammatory”. Crazy, Ginger oil is a well acknowledged rubifacient which is the opposite of anti-inflammatory.
“And I just do that by adding a couple drops to 4 to 8 ounces of water. And I just sip that throughout the day”. Ginger oil in water forms droplets, it does not mix and therefore you will be consuming the undiluted oil which can irritate the mouth and esophagus.
Page 12. Paragraph 3. If there were any sound evidence for these claims about perfumes they would be banned. Most of the information on the Internet is scare mongering and often bad science. For example, the widely circulated trash about Lavender oil and gynaecomastica in a boy. Long dismissed as lousy research but still out there.
Page 17. Paragraph 2. “But ultimately, if you want to really decrease inflammation, not just in the skin, but in the body, then the consumption of essential oils is really important. Frankincense is probably one of the best anti-inflammatory essential oils that you could consume and that you could put on your skin. And it also boosts your immunity. And it’s just really good at reducing inflammation on a cellular level”. Sounds just like a Young Living seminar, from a Doctor? where is the evidence please?
“What’s so amazing about essential oils is that they penetrate right into the cells of the body”. Clearly been miseducated by YL or DT. Not true on any level.
“Essentially, what I mean is that essential oils affect your genome. They will affect the positive expression of your genes to create more health and gene expression on a very positive level”. One hundred percent utter trash!!
DIY Natural Beauty Products
by Jackie Ritz
Yet another DoTerra oils distributor with presumably their trash education and hype on essential oils. The talk itself is not worth me making notes on.
Essential Oils for Animals
by Dr. Janet Roark
Yet another DoTerra oils distributor with presumably their trash education and hype on essential oils. At least this individual is a qualified veterinarian, but that does not make her an expert on essential oils.
Page 4: “And you do six drops along their spine, going from tail to head, and then six drops”. Sounds a bit like the trash taught by Young Living some of which spilled over to DoTerra when the Directors left YL and took some of Gary Young's trash with them.
“There's a couple of companies that are really good that test their oils.” Now I wonder who that could be? In reality most of the large distributors test their oils, but these are NOT aromatherapy companies. They are the large wholesalers who have been selling essential oils by the ton long before aromatherapy was even invented.
Page 7: “My own kitty has epilepsy. She has asthma, which she’s had her whole life. She has a heart murmur. And she's 15 going on 16 years old. So she gets a lot of essential oil treatment because of all of her issues. And she gets frankincense in her food every single day for her seizures”. Well I just hope that is not one of the oils containing Toluene a known carcinogen, poor kitty! See my article on Frankincense containing toluene.
Page 12: “Cancer. Frankincense is like the best thing ever for cancer. There’s study after study if you look them up about the effectiveness of frankincense in different types of cancer cases”. This is simply not true. See my article. Most of the studies done have been on cells invitro and using chemicals extracted from different types of Frankincense.
Page 16: “With most animals—cats, not so much—but with dogs and with horses and cows, they ask for certain oils. And usually, with horses, I’ll even take my home oil set out. And I'll set it in front of their nose and have them pick which oils they want because they usually kind of know what they need. And those are the ones that I'll use”. This is one of the many myths taught by animal aromatherapists. It is just not true that horses in particular know what is good for them. They will happily consume herbs that can kill them, anyone heard of ragweed? St Johns Wort in cattle, Yew and many others. There are expert books devoted to toxic plants that affect animals in various ways, yet they will munch on them because they love them!!
At least this talk does partly cover the issues of species differences and how one oil may be fine on one species but fatal to another.
Antibiotic Resistance: How Essential Oils Can Help
By Jessie Hawkins
As a whole this was a good talk; just a few issues to comment on:
Page 9 Last Paragraph. Here is mentioned about scientists investigating the components of essential oils to find out which were the most effective components. This is classic pharmaceutical science. If a single compound is found effective it will be almost certainly be manufactured as a synthetic equivalent. Even a natural chemical extracted from an oil is just as likely to trigger antibiotic resistance. If the whole oil is used with its hundreds of different molecules that is far less likely.
It should not be forgotten that masses of such research has been done by hundreds of researchers going back over 100 years. One big problem nowadays is that University researchers tend to be lazy and if they can't find information in databases or on the net, they assume it does not exist. They end up repeating work done previously by earlier researchers and try to make theirs look unique. For example, I have an excellent in-depth study of 2300 plants for antimicrobial activity done in 1959. Nowadays few are aware of its existence because you have to pay for copies from the British Library documents store.
Page 11. Paragraph 2. “But lavender actually is really rich in a substance. It’s technically an alcohol would be the chemical family. It’s lavandula,..........”. I hope this may be a transcription error because I would have though Jesse would know there is no such chemical as lavandula in Lavender oil.
Page 16. Paragraph 1. I disagree with Jesse that PubMed is a good source of information on essential oils. They publish all kinds of pseudo science assuming the peer reviewed journals have vetted the paper. I think you will find the trash research on Frankincense oil paid for by Young Living on PubMed. A paper published by a disreputable scam medical publisher who will put anything out as long as they are paid the appropriate fees. I have come across some appallingly misleading abstracts on PubMed. With those you never get the full story and often what seems to be a test on an essential oil turns out to be a test on an herbal extract. The only way to ascertain if a piece of research is valid is to get the whole research paper. Also, when pub med are informed of errors in research papers they will not correct them.
Essential Oils Around the Homestead
By Jill Winger
The person responsible for running some of the dreadful blogs with all their misinformation. She also links to DoTerra for essential oils.
Page 7-8 and others. Several mentions of using essential oils on a variety of animals but no consideration given to the species variability in tolerance to them. This is an untrained person experimenting on animals and hoping things work out.
“And I also did some frankincense, as well. Frankincense is a little safer for animals”. How does she know that? I have seen no data to support such a statement, particularly as some frankincense oils contain toluene - see my article.
Page 9. Some of the oils suggested as insect repellents actually attract them!!
Page 10. The same old tired nonsense about mixing essential oils and water.
Page 15. Zielinski speaking: “the Magi traveled halfway across the world to give Christ, ….... gold, frankincense, and myrrh”, Note Myrrh and Frankincense resins, NOT the essential oils. These are two very different substances with significantly different chemical profiles. However, these scammers just love telling people about “biblical oils”.
Zielinski speaking: “I actually had some swollen lymph nodes a couple of weeks ago. I put some myrrh over it. It really did the trick with some frankincense”. There is no evidence in traditional medicine for the oil used this way”. The infection may have cleared itself.
Page 15: Jill: “It actually has a dog bite story. My husband was bitten by a dog,....I used frankincense and a cleansing blend that had some oils to help cleanse things”. Any Rabies in that State I wonder? If there is, then not getting a Rabies shot is just crazy. Even if not, then dogs can carry all kinds of microbes and not getting medical treatment is risky. It seems some of these homesteaders want to live back in pioneer days when doctors were too expensive and you had to treat yourself and risk it working. People forget that in those days death rates from infections were through the roof. The pioneers were also ripe fodder for the sellers of quack remedies-think on!!
Page 20. Zielinski again: “The Essential Oil Revolution is to help people start practicing essential oils”. All this scam conference is doing is giving wrong and sometimes dangerous information as well as pushing people towards multi level oil sellers.
Dr. Zielinski: “All right, God bless. Bye-bye”. Yeah, yeah, hoodwink the followers. Sounds just like the late Gary Young!!
Homeopath & Mother Raised Children with No Meds…Ever!
by Joette Calabrese
Page 6. An error made time and time again in these talks. Just stating“Cinnamon oil” but without saying bark, or leaf. Two totally different oils with the bark oil being very dangerous depending on how much is used.
Page 7. “Let’s look at camphor. It’s a commonly used essential oil for antiseptic, disinfectant, insecticides, etc”. Genuine camphor oil is a by-product of camphor production and contains very little camphor. It is mostly linalool and it does not have a reputation as an antimicrobial oil or as an insecticide.
Page 9. “And approximately 40% of the doctors in Europe use homeopathy”. I am staggered at such a highly qualified homeopath making such a huge error unless of course it is another transcription error. Certainly in the UK I doubt more than one percent if that use homeopathy. On the Continent it varies, but nothing like 40 percent.
This therapist admits she has no training in the use of essential oils, yet seems to be using them to treat medical conditions:
Page 19. “Cypress fir is a great opportunity to use your essential oil and Arnica montana for hematomas, ecchymosis after surgery, etcetera”. This is not clear, does she mean Cypress oil for these conditions? If so that displays a complete lack of knowledge on essential oils as Cypress being astringent is a fairy tale.
I am puzzled why this speaker is involved in this conference as it is supposed to be about essential oils and she gives hardly any information on that. Could it be to try and give it an air of credibility?
Biblically Based Essential Oils
By Jordan Rubin
This speaker sounds like someone who only knows about essential oils via multi level oil sellers. His rhetoric is their classic misinformation and spin.
Page 2, 1st Paragraph. “when writing The Maker's Diet, there was inescapable evidence that the Bible discusses the power of essential oils”.Misinformation, there is no evidence that essential oils were used during the thousands of years of history in the Bible. They used other types of plant extracts, not distilled oils.
4th paragraph. No distinction on which type of Cinnamon oil he means.
Page 6, 2nd Paragraph. Typical nonsense over skin absorption and confusing the use of water based or specially prepared medical patches, with the use of essential oils. There is NO such correlation.
Page 8 1st Paragraph. “And, of course, internally, consuming oregano oil, thyme oil, they're very wonderful antimicrobials”. Absolutely no attempt to give information on the volumes to be consumed, or that both these oils are powerful mucus membrane irritants.
Page 8, 2nd Paragraph. “but thyme oil actually has phytoprogesterone that actually supports progesterone production in the body”, Some plants do contain compounds that the body may convert into human hormones, but all this marketing hype about “phytoprogesterone” is nothing but a health food scam. If thyme essential oil contains phytoprogesterone then it would need to be drunk in toxic amounts to have any effect..
Page 9. Once again mention of “Cinnamon oil” without defining which one.
Page 10-11. Again lots of talk about Biblical oils but never a mention that what were used for 'anointing oils' were infused oils, NOT essential oils.
Essential Oils for Gut, Thyroid, and Adrenals
By Dr. Josh Axe
Please see the separate pdf file
Essential Oils for Ear, Nose, and Throat Health
Dr. Josh Yorgason
Here we go again, yet another doTerraoils distributor, agent or whatever you want to call them. So maybe a real doctor, but certainly promoting all the hogwash on his website that doTerra promote.
Page 6. “And that very same process, it can be used with using essential oils in the
hands of a physician who can do the literature search and who can responsibly use them”. This is an aspect that few Doctors understand. Internet searches will find most of these pieces of so called 'research' are on the web sites and blogs of multi level oil distributors. That information is frequently twisted to suit their purpose of selling you the oils. Huge amounts of good information on essential oils are not to be found on the Internet, but are in medical and scientific journals and books going back over 100 years.
Page 9. “Internal ingestion, there’s a big to do about using essential oils internally”. Yes but the main reason for this is the fact that many on the market are adulterated. Of course I am sure his suppliers would not sell such oils would they!!!
“But in the amounts less than 2 milliliters, they didn’t show any adverse effects”. This is misleading as the maximum recommended dose of Eucalyptus in adults is 0.06 to 0.2 ml. In children even lower. Death has occurred in adults after ingesting as little as 4ml.
But of course as this Doctor has learnt from the Internet and doTerra it is not surprising he knows so little about real essential oils safety.
Page 14. Last Paragraph. "I’ve had times where I’ve accidentally got the oils in my eye. And I go like this for about 5 minutes. And then it’s all over". This is an extremely dangerous statement because it depends on which oil. Thyme, cinnamon bark, clove and even peppermint will burn the mucus membrane covering the eye.
Page 15. “And I can see my kids chugging a candy. Some of those different over-the counter medications are candy flavored or fruit flavored. I can see them being much more apt to try to down a bottle of that versus like you said the peppermint or eucalyptus, which is there’s no way they’re going to drink that whole bottle”. This is correct, but it is often the parents who believe in the trash disseminated by the multi level oil sellers and quacks who will use excessive amounts of essential oils on their children. There is published evidence in the toxicicological reports where children have been poisoned by their parents.
The Kings Medicine Cabinet
By Josh Axe
Please see the separate pdf file on this quack.
ANIMAL AROMATHERAPY
Kelly Holland Azzaro
Wow as last, two files where the speaker is making sense and giving correct warnings over the use of essential oils on animals. I have little to say on this other than the suggested oils for treating animals seem to have been taken from the uses on humans. That is one of the problems with animal aromatherapy where the interspecies differences are rarely accurate. At least this lady does tell you what not to use on cats and dogs.
On her web site she sells oil blends including a 'detox oil'. There is no such thing as an essential oil that can detoxify the body.
Kids essential oils for common ailments
by Erica Mueller
“Are Essential Oils Safe?” Clearly she has no idea on essential oil safety as in her other talk she states “essential oils pretty much have no expiration date”. For such an ill educated person (on essential oils safety) it would be crazy to accept advice in this booklet for children.
There are several pieces of bad information in this file, but one of the worst is:
“Seasonal Allergies”. She suggests lemon, lavender and peppermint oils. As seasonal allergies cause inflammation of the eyes, nose and throat, the last thing you need is oils that are irritants which is exactly what Lemon and Peppermint are. Also, the same old nonsense about mixing oils with water.
Colds and Flu. “At the first sign of any kind of sickness I get out my roller ball of the Flu Bomb blend and start putting it on the soles of the kids feet a few times a day”. Since essential oils cannot be absorbed through the thick skin of the feet, I am at a loss to know what this is supposed to achieve.
Beware of buying booklets from people who make the same or similar claims. Particularly this nonsense about oils on the soles of the feet. Most such people have had their mind manipulated by Young Living, DoTerra and their teachers/distributors.
Autoimmunity and Essential Oils
By Melody Watts
Yet one more doTerra distributor!!
Page 4 paragraph 4. About Frankincense: “It knows the difference between a sick cell and a healthy cell. So it regenerates copies of healthy cells. And it destroys mutated cells”. There is no evidence to back this claim as such tests in humans have not been done. “So it regenerates copies of healthy cells”. Clearly someone who knows nothing about physiology and how cells replicate, she needs to take proper notes from her doctor friend who she claims teaches the subject.
Page 5. “And I remember using cinnamon essential oil”. Which Cinnamon oil or does it not matter?
Page 7. “But three days before Jesus was crucified, they layered his feet in a year’s worth of essential oils”. Clearly another doTerra or Young Living follower as this is just the kind of trash they promote. They did not have essential oils in those days.
Page 8. “And then we've got environmental toxins and those kind of triggers. That's when we bring in the citrus oils that help bind to toxins”. Oh my, where on earth does this trash come from!
“It's the death of the pathogen that is so toxic that it causes these aldehydes in the body to just to just skyrocket”. But some of the oils she suggests are made of adehydes, so in that case they will increase the aldehyde content in the body!!
I can't be bothered with this file any more it is just a pile of trash. Please ignore the whole lecture.
Using Essential Oils for the Ultimate Birth Experience
By Dr. Penny Lane
Her web site has links to doTerra oils!!!
I was hoping to avoid commenting on this one but when I got to page 19 and saw:
“So wintergreen is popular for back pain. Again, we use a lot of chiropractic. So we don’t really see very many OP babies. But when we do, wintergreen is one that we’re often using”. This is appalling.Wintergreen oil should never ever be used on pregnant women because it is absorbed by the skin and has been the cause of fetal abnormalities. It should never be used on a baby because their skin is so thin.
Page 21. “Cinnamon balances their blood sugars”. Which cinnamon oil and how used? Use of cinnamon bark oil internally or externally in pregnancy would be crazy. Once again mention of Wintergreen.
I would not her want anywhere near a woman in labor if she is so badly educated about the safety of essential oils.
An Evidence-Based Approach to Essential Oils
By Sayer Ji
Dr. Con artist Axe: “Throughout this past week, we’ve been going through and interviewing some of the greatest minds in essential oils”. Ha Ha, yes very funny!!
The first part of this speech is full of inaccurate alarmist misleading information.
Page 3. “I did a quick search before I came on here and I found 709 references to essential oils and cancer”. Sure, and mostly on young living and doTerra oil distributors web sites before the FDA decided at last to take action to stop their illegal and outrageous medicinal claims.
Page 11. “And that’s also why spices like ginger, turmeric, and garlic and cardamom and all these others have been used for so long is the essential oils they contain are really good for food borne infectious agents in helping to preserve the balance of the good bacteria within our gut”. Yes, the herbs were/are used as food additives and do have lots of therapeutic properties BUT often not just due to their essential oils but other phytochemicals which do not come across with distillation.
This speaker talks a lot about “research” on this that and the other oils, but nowhere do we see a reference to the specific research so that it can be checked for validity. A huge amount of research has been published on essential oils over many years but very little is relevant to aromatherapy. Without checking what kind of plant extract has been used, and how, you just cannot accept the kind of claims made by most of these speakers.
He also talks about Lavender, etc. as if all Lavenders are the same. They are not and you need to know which specific variety has been used in any research. Sounds a bit like the Frankincense hype all over again-see my article on that.
Culinary Uses for Essential Oils
By Shaye Elliott
Looks like another doTerra distributor or earner via links.
Nothing wrong with using essential oils as food flavors provided they are unadulterated and only a few drops are used. The problem of adulteration is a big one because so many essential oils are modified in different ways. Of course none of the big multi level oil companies sell adulterated oils do they, ha ha!!
This speaker talks a lot about Lavender but does not define which type. The fact is Lavender oils are one of the commonest adulterated oils. Also, Lemon oil can be if the world yield is low. See my article on the internal use of essential oils for more.
Page 14. Jill: “Instead of zesting your lemon, you're just adding a drop of lemon essential oil, which is basically just distilled peels in a bottle”. This is wrong. A distilled lemon oil does not contain the same chemicals that occur in lemon peel. The flavor in particular is mostly in the water soluble portion and is lower in the essential oil. Therefore using lemon juice of fresh peel is a far better option for foods and certainly less risky.
Shaye: “Okay, let me think about that. Well, I think one would be my first love,
my London Fog using the bergamot and tea.” London fog, this just shows how some Americans live on news that is 50 years out of date!!
Page 17. “I love to use lemon in warm tea”, Well use a slice of Lemon or commercial lemon juice for goodness sake. That is far less risky than using an essential oil that you know nothing about other than what your supplier tells you.
Empowering Emotions with Essential Oils
By Dr. Susan Lawton
Wow a REAL doctor at last, but another doTerra oils distributor.
Page 6. 3rd paragraph: “So when I went to apply it to my throat,” This alone indicates someone who has not been educated on essential oil safety. The throat area - particularly in women - poses a far higher risk of irritation, sensitization and photosensitization due to previously used perfumes, thin skin and greater exposure to light. It can also happen in men if they use a lot of aftershave.
“Dr. Lawton: Oh, no! Oh, no! No. And the fact that the molecules are life enhancing and that the molecules can clear cell receptor sites and these one little drop can have between 400,000 and 400 billion molecules and it takes just a teeny drop to improve so many areas of your cells,” That tells me where she got her education, clearly doTerra, Young Living or their lousy teachers. This is total nonsense.
Page 10. 4th paragraph. “My experience has been if you can encourage citrus oils on the bottom of their feet,” Classic YL or DT nonsense.
Page 12. 5th Paragraph. “And the bottom of the feet would be the same thing, put on my cotton socks, walk around for 2 minutes, let the oils penetrate”. Just not true, the oils do not penetrate the soles of the feet. This is again classicYL or DT nonsense.
Page 13. 3rd paragraph: “they have compounds called sesquiterpenes—they’re literally a raft that allows more oxygen to penetrate the blood-brain barrier”, This is theoretical science. The only way to prove or disprove the concept of sequiterpenes penetrating the blood brain barrier would be to take blood samples directly from the living brain and I do not know of such research. As to them assisting oxygenation that is complete fabrication spread again by doTerra and Young Living. In addition, sequiterpenes are in many fruits that we eat or are used in food flavors.
Page 13.“So a few molecules of really good essential oils have the ability to motivate what we call quantum healings. It literally takes your original RNA and DNA, which is like your gold card, your definition of who you are, and clears away the glom, clears away the interfering messages so that your system can genuinely remember how to operate efficiently”. This is truly shocking that a registered doctor disseminates such complete trash.
“There are several techniques that require layering of oils on people that I think are an amazing gift to the entire body”. That tells me this Dr has been sucked in by the trash education of Young Living or doTerra and/or their agents.
Page 19. Dr. Lawton: “Well, I personally recommend AromaticScience.com”. I don't, this site was at one time covered in trash from Dr Hill a doTerra adviser. It seems since the FDA warnings, they have removed a lot of that but I still have copies from the original site.
Essential Oil Safety
Sylla Sheppard-Hanger and Nyssa Hanger
Page 4. A transcription name error. It says “I traveled and I had to go to libraries to look up stuff and go study with people that would let me come and stay with them like Martin Rye”. Anadmitted transcription error,please substitute Martin Watt. Sylla visited me briefly around 1994 following the publication of my Plant Aromatics safety manual. I also supplied her with tuition materials for her students over several years.
THE BEGINNERS’ BOOK OF ESSENTIAL OILS
By Christine Dalziel
I was enjoying reading this as there is some good advice in it. Indeed some looks like it might have come from past articles of mine, or a teacher who has used my materials. Please bear in mind my old .com website was online for nearly 25 years and my safety manual over 20 years. Both contained a lot of the information in this booklet.
Page 14 & 27. “A WORD ABOUT CITRUS ESSENTIAL OILS”.
“Citrus oils are cold pressed from the peels of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruit”. Wrong, the majority are a by-product of fruit juice production and are redistilled. Only small volumes on sale are expressed. “They all have antimicrobial and astringent benefits”. Wrong on antimicrobial activity, they are hugely variable. “Astringent” no way, that is fundamentally wrong.
“Essential oils are considered essential because they are volatile in the air”. Wrong, the definition is a leave-over from the old alchemists.
Page 16. “Organic essential oils however, are a concentrated and highly antimicrobial substance”. All essential oils from plants are “organic”. If they are 'organically grown' there is no difference in the therapeutic activity between commercially grown oils and organically grown oils. Some suppliers call their oils “organic” to fool people into paying a premium.
Page 17. “I also often use virgin olive oil. Your body will absorb the carrier oil along with the essential oil”, This is wrong, there is far more evidence against this idea than for it.
Page 23/24. Oh what a shame, it was fine until this point but then the author fails to distinguish between the use of Lavender oil and Lavender herbal medicine.
Page 27. “Lemon is antiseptic. It stimulates digestion by supporting the liver. It prevents contagious illnesses like colds and flu when it is diffused into room air”. There is no evidence that the internal consumption of Lemon oil can “support the liver”. It is highly unlikely that Lemon oil in the air is anti-viral.
Table: Lemon oil is Anti-inflammatory, Astringent. These claimed effects are wrong. Never rely on Lemon oil as an antimicrobial.
Page 31. Peppermint. Once again a whole list of conditions only some of which the oil will help. Others are from the consumption of the herb tea.
Page 31. Tea Tree oil. “Anti-viral”. A common error, it is not.Once again a whole list of conditions only some of which the oil will help.
Page 40. Again a whole list of conditions which it is claimed Rosemary oil can treat and again some yes, many no, because they are uses of the alcohol or water extract.
Page 44. Eucalyptus. As above.
Page 49. Marjoram. As above.
Page 50. Geranium oil. “Anti-diabetic”.That is an extremely dangerous claim and there is not a shred of evidence to justify it. “Astringent” No essential oils are astringent, they do not contain the plant chemicals responsible for that action. Several other claims are similar to the above and seem based on herbal use, yet the plants used for 'Geranium' oils have never been used in herbal medicine.
Most of the other oils listed contain the same errors as above.
Page 62. REMINERALIZING TOOTH POWDER. So where is the evidence for such a major claim?
Page 82. TOILET BOWL CLEANER. “15 drops of orange or lemon essential oil”. The bugs will laugh at this!
Such a shame that this lady has educated herself via such inadequate sources.
Energy, Work, Deep Healing, and Essential Oils
Dr. Todd Watts
No not a relative thank goodness!
This talk is full of trash and much of it I have commented on in earlier reviews. I should perhaps add a bit about his ideas of putting essential oils over the chakras to have an effect on the body. These concepts of “energies” in essential oils are nothing but modern inventions developed by some of the early con artists in aromatherapy. They are based around unsound philosophies over plant extracts which do not stand up to scrutiny. The fundamental issue is that essential oils are cooked in a similar way to our food and thus any original life force or whatever must be totally destroyed.
Page 15. “Some of the other ones I use are artemisia. Artemisia is wormwood, which is great for parasitic infections, especially for kids. It’s great to put it on their feet”.This is pure unadulterated quackery. See earlier reviews over oils on the feet, but this concept tells me who he got his training from.
Page 16. “Melissa is another really excellent oil for antiviral, fungal, antibacterial”. Wrong, the tea is antiviral due to substances which do not occur in the essential oil. In addition, the safety experts at the IFRA advise against the use of this essential oil in products due to insufficient safety data and the risk of sensitization.
“A couple of these I would consider using internally. Like clove bud is really excellent, especially for parasitic larvae”. I wonder if his patients have lab tests to prove the existence of parasites and if so which ones? All parasites are not the same and therefore one cannot assume the same oils will affect all of them. It is now known that some gut parasites can be beneficial to the immune system, if you give oils that kill the undesirable parasites how does that affect the desirable ones? This method is like taking antibiotics where you wipe out the good bacteria along with the bad ones. On top of all that you would need huge amounts of essential oil given internally to have much of an effect on parasites in the blood and other organs. Probably so much that the dose would be toxic. There are recorded cases of parents who have killed their children by administering toxic volumes of Chenopodium oil. This is illegal in the UK but it may be available in the USA.Do not buy or use it.
“Dr. Zielinski: So when it comes to topical application, if we’re dealing with a parasitic infection assuming that we’re dealing with the GI tract, dilute, put over the stomach area? Or are there certain meridian or chakra points that you would try to capitalize on?” There is no way putting an essential oil on the skin can get rid of parasites inside the body.
“Dr. Todd: The feet is always a really good go-to thing”. Quack, quack, quack.
Page 17. “And Dr. Jane Goldberg wrote an article in the Huffington Post a couple of years ago that according to her, any application of essential oils anywhere on the body, because they’re transdermal, once it penetrates that first layer of the dermis, within 20 minutes, Dr. Goldberg says within 20 minutes every one of your cells of your body are going to be affected”. How many more dangerous quacks are we going to hear referred to?
12 Essential oil profiles
By Angela England
Lavender essential oil profile. “Lavender essential oil is made by steam distillation using only the flowers of the lavender plant”. Rubbish, I doubt she has ever seen a Lavender harvest. The flowering stalks with leaves are used as even the leaves contain oil.
“Lavandula angustifolia is easier to grow, but the essential oil derived from that variety is slightly more limited in its uses”. Easier to grow is wrong.This Latin name tells you nothing about the oil composition, you need to know which sub variety to get some idea.
“Lavender oil is often sold as "lavandin"which is a poor quality, cheap oil that should not be used for health care at all”. It may be cheaper, but certainly not poor quality. It in fact the biggest “Lavender” crop grown commercially and has wide uses. The range of uses are just different to high linalool types of Lavender.
“Linalyl acetate (30-60%), linalool, geranial, caryophyllene, lavandulyl acetate, cineole, nerol, coumarin, and fat aldehydes”. Without giving the percentages of the other chemicals this is meaningless information. What the heck “fat aldehydes” are I have no idea and I have hundreds of analysis of Lavender type oils; transcription error maybe.
Eucalyptus essential oil. “Another variety is derived from Eucalyptus radiata and tends to produce a less stimulating oil that I prefer to use with children”. To the best of my knowledge this variety of Eucalyptus oil has not been subjected to formal safety trials and therefore safety is not known. That has been guessed at simply by the occurrence of the major components and that is very risky. I would never use an essential oil on a child if it has not been properly tested by people who know what they are doing.
Tea tree essential oil. “Melaleuca alternifolia essential oil is high in terpineol, cineole, pinene, terpinenes and many other constituents”. Wow, looks like she does not know its composition such as the Australian standards. That is even in my most basic oil profiles.
“Melaleuca alternifolia is antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral”. The essential oil is not antiviral.
“While some people can develop a sensitivity to prolonged use of the essential oil, especially when poor quality oil is used, tea tree oil is considered safe for undiluted application to small areas of the skin”. Such a statement indicates a complete lack of knowledge of the issues surrounding sensitization to essential oils. Likewise in the next paragraph on precautions. Oil quality is not the main issue, it is the occurrence of specific natural chemicals in essential oils.
THERAPEUTIC ESSENTIAL OIL COMBINATIONS. “Antiviral (flu, cold and other virus care) - Tea tree, ravensara, or rosemary”. Not one of these oils are proven antivirals in humans. In addition, Ravensara has not been formally tested for safety and much of it was manufactured using 1,8-cineole.
Rosemary essential oil. “The main essential oil constituents of rosemary essential oil are pinene, cineole, camphor, camphene, bornyl acetate, borneol and verbenon”. Which pinene? Does it not matter if it is alpha or beta? Verbenone does not occur in normal rosemary oil, but is a constituent of a sub variety. It can also be purchased as a synthetic chemical and its safety is not known.
“Rosemary has strong effects on the adrenal and other glands of the body”.What the oil?Who says so and where is the evidence?
Frankincense essential oil. “a unique essential oil that is created from the resin of a tree, Boswellia carteri”. Incorrect, different resins comes from a wide variety of trees commonly called 'Frankincense' from Arabia to India.
“Phelladren, a-pinene, actanol, limonene, linalool, octyl acetate, bornyl acetate, incensole and myrcene”. This is just nonsense as without percentages it means nothing, also the composition of Frankincense oils varies widely depending on origin.
Physical effects. “These same healing effects can support bladder infections”. What from use in massage? I don't think so!
“Urinary Support – Frankincense, sandalwood, tea tree, bergamot, lavender, or geranium”.
Dangerous nonsense if people believe this will work from external use.
Ravensara essential oil. “is derived from a tree native to Madagascar”. In theory yes, in practice it can be entirely manufactured. The safety of the genuine oil is unknown as no formal testing has been done. Instead the safety has been guessed at by its chemical profile. This oil was introduced to aromatherapy after being hyped by certain con artists originating from France, and then passed on by aromatherapy authors in their popular novels. Almost all of the claimed properties are inventions and are not backed by traditional uses. To be safe ignore all of these claims and use oils with a sound historical and research background for dealing with these conditions.
Bergamot essential oil. “is an anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral, antiparasitic, and antiseptic” It is not antiviral, it is not antiparasitic.
“....It is also helpful for urinary tract health and is strong against UTI's or cystitis”. It is not useful for these conditions. The use of essential oils in a bath or as a douche for such conditions was proven ineffective by researchers years ago.
“It also inhibits herpes and other viruses”. It may help soothe and heal such skin eruptions, but there is no evidence that it kills the viruses.
“Urinary Health”. What the heck does that mean? Are the readers supposed to guess?
Geranium oil. “it has the ability to both raise and lower the blood pressure”. If caused by stress possibly but not if the BP is due to a physical problem.
“Geranium essential oil can balance blood sugar levels and regulate the systems of the body. Geranium oil has also been used as a diuretic”, This is dangerous nonsense.
“In fact, according to Aromatherapy A-Z”, Oh so that's where some of this nonsense comes from - one of the trades best works of fiction!
“The diuretic effect of the oil means you shouldn’t use it if you have kidney issues”. Maybe if it was drunk, but not otherwise.
“Water Retention – Geranium, petitgrain, or bitter orange”. Beauty therapy trash!
Peppermint essential oil. The photo is not of Peppemint.
“Fever – Peppermint, lavender, basil, cypress, rosemary, tea tree, or chamomile”. Not one of these oils will affect a fever because these are the actions of the herbal infusions.
Sandalwood oil. “Sandalwood has been used historically as a treatment for gonorrhea and genital or urinary infections”. Yes, but only Mysore oil which has not been available for years. To do such treatments nowadays would be illegal in many countries. This is because such infections can be reportable sexually transmitted diseases.
Lemon essential oil. “The major chemical compounds are pinene, limonene, and phellandrene”. Wrong the major chemical is d-limonene.
“Lemon essential oil is highly anti-microbial and has been shown in studies to kill Salmonella and Staphylococcus”, Only the very fresh oil or ones in which antioxidants have been added. This is a typical case of twisting scientific research to suit.
“Its detoxifying properties make it great for use in lymphatic massage”. It is not absorbed by the skin in sufficient volumes to have any effect on the lymphatic system. This is classic beauty therapy hype.
“Detoxifying – Lemon, fennel, juniper, frankincense, or grapefruit”. Not true, no essential oils used externally can possibly have such an effect.
Quest for the Cure
By Ty Bollinger
Not a lot to be said about this one as there is not much on essential oils. Instead we get a mash of fact and fiction mixed up with scare mongering. It sounds more like a evangelical sermon rather than anything to do with complementary medicine.
Some Audio files follow:
Chris - Joybilee Farm
Audio
Wow at long last a lady who talks sense and knows her stuff, I expect starting 30 years ago she has learnt a lot.
Very good info on the differences between animals and the dangers of using essential oils on the wrong species (unlike other speakers).
Good advice on putting essential oils on clothing rather than the skin.
Good advice over the short life of citrus oils which completely flies in the face of earlier speakers who say they last for years.
Only thing I would be concerned about is her use of Lemon Verbena oilwhich is a powerful sensitizer and banned in cosmetics by the IFRA.
Otherwise great stuff.
Heather from thehomesteadinghippy.com
Audio
This blogger is not an oil seller but gets paid via links to Amazon a company that does not care what it sells as long as they get their cut.Some of the sellers on there are scam artists selling junk.
There is information about essential oils getting in the eye and advising the use of fixed oils rather than water. A much better solvent is full fat milk. Especially if straight out of the refrigerator.
Some sensible advice given by Heather. "Don't just take a bloggers word for it". "Talk to a naturopath" Well since most at this conference are doTerra distributors I would caution against that. She also mentions about “doing your research on the internet”. My advice is ignore everything on Young Living and doTerra distributors blogs and sites.
Honey from honeyslife.com
Audio
Honey says: "Clary sage oil can induce labor and cause a miscarriage". This based on past herbal use to expel the afterbirth and typically this has been corrupted by aromatherapy authors into the oil does the same. There is no sound evidence for that.
“Jasmine is good for the uterus” but she does not say how it gets there and what it is supposed to do.
Continued.
“Ragweed oil can cause an allergy”. I have never heard of such an essential oil so any small producer distilling it has no idea on its safety and is playing with fire.
“Orange oil is good for good for flu rubbed on the feet”. Well that indicates who she has been learning from; a multi level company of course!!
“Cinnamon oil a friend put in toilet water caused burns” Yes I am sure if it was Cinnamon bark oil that it did, but these people never say which cinnamon oil they are talking about!
She mentions Jasmine oil for when breastfeeding.This is fundamentally wrong as published research has proven Jasmine flowers can inhibit lactation. It is a common error found in popular aromatherapy books, but shocking if a mother can't breastfeed due to such a huge error of facts.
Jessica from The 104 Homestead
Audio
Jessica talks “about the fun making things with essential oils”. Yes this is fine but only if you understand the issues involved in making safe products. Unfortunately this is not the case with many of these homesteader bloggers.
She used google to find out about essential oils. On google the first many pages are links to suppliers where reliable information is rarely found. Just the mention of “blue oil”tells me where she got a lot of her information from!
She says “I do not wear gloves while blending essential oils and I am still here”. This indicates a total lack of knowledge of how skin sensitization happens.
The constant “do your research” mostly means online where sound research is rarely found, or you need to know where to find the sound research. I only know of one web site where comprehensive safety information is available, although most is aimed at essential oils in products. It does not cover medicinal uses or toxicological information because that is in scientific journals or 'member only' online databases that cost thousands of Dollars.
Kat - Simply Living Simply
Audio
Definitely a multi level company oils seller and probably doTerra.
She talks a lot about this one company she uses and the wonderful essential oil compared to others. The fact is without analysis an individual simply cannot determine the quality of an essential oil. It is all hype to sell oils.
She talks about layering essential oils, another term used by multi level oil sellers.
“I always put lemon (oil) in my water....i like to have that little bit of detox”. Why use Lemon oil in water when the juice would be better and safer? Detox is just beauty trade hype.
Talks about spraying several essential oil on plants as bug repellents. What she clearly does not know is that some of these oils contain the same chemicals that occur in the bugs and are used as attractants for mating. So they will just love your precious plants!!
Katey - MamaKautz
Audio
Another doTerra oils distributor. With the same old stuff from their hype.
Kelly - Simple Life Mom
Audio
Sells various products and essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues.
Leah - Fabulous Farm Girl
Audio
Sells various products including essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues.
Lesa - Better Hens and Gardens
Audio
Sells various products including essential oils on her web site. That's not a problem if they are complying with cosmetics regulations and correct safety issues. She certainly will not learn that from the bloggers on this conference.
Tammy - Trayer Wilderness
Audio
Another doTerra oils distributor.
Typical do Terra nonsense about oils on the feet and on the neck.
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Summary. As a retired natural therapist I despise companies such as doTerra who denigrate our wonderful healing plants by spreading false claims over what the plant extracts can do. That is clearly what this conference was designed to do. It promotes quacks as experts and uses amateurs to ensnare others into spending huge amounts of money to become distributors. It is also designed as a way to side step the FDA and their warnings over previous illegal medicinal claims made on doTerra and its distributors web sites.
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