Aromatherapy Workbook

The beauty therapists were not taught how to select essential oils for each individual – selection was a closely guarded secret, for commercial reasons, and all oils used and sold on courses were ready mixed and blended in a vegetable carrier oil. All the courses I attended were like this and, being of an inquiring mind, I began to research the effects of individual oils, using my friends as guinea-pigs. The results spurred me on to prepare a course to teach aromatherapy in a more holistic fashion, teaching students not only to try and discover the cause of the symptoms shown, but to select essential oils individually for each client, and employ other methods of use. (At first I was criticized for giving away ‘secrets’ but soon all accredited courses will teach in this way.) Being already in the teaching profession was a great help, and gradually my classes expanded not only to include students from many different countries but also people from other disciplines, including physiotherapists, nurses, therapeutic massage practitioners and occasionally doctors. Aromatherapy is presently used in many hospitals and a number of beauty therapists now use the therapy in ways other than massage, which, after all, is how it should be!

The book of yet another Frenchman, Dr Valnet, made a great impact on the world of aromatherapy, especially after its translation into English some years ago. During all this time, aromatherapy was being used medically in France (notably by Belaiche, Girault and Pradal), essential oils being prescribed by doctors practising ‘médecines douces’ (gentle, i.e. complementary, medicine – or parallel medicine as it is sometimes known there). Essential oils are stocked by pharmacies, though their purchase price, even when prescribed by a doctor, cannot be reclaimed through health insurance.

The technical book in French, L’aromathérapie exactement, by Pierre Franchomme, an aromatologist, in collaboration with Daniel Penoel, a medical doctor, contains some very valuable and interesting information on essential oils. In most French books the dilutions used are much stronger than a massage-trained aromatherapist would use, or indeed is taught to use. Somewhere along the line aromatherapy, as Gattefossé saw it, has acquired a slightly different interpretation.

Aromatherapy, as we now know it in Britain, has spread to many countries. Norway and Denmark were the first Scandinavian countries to enjoy the revival of essential oils and around the same time it began to develop in the United States and Canada; Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Middle and Far Eastern countries following a little later. We have taught in most of these countries and the demand has necessitated us training teachers in many of them.

It seems right that a return should be made to natural remedies, which have been the mainstay of medicine for centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, with no doubt the best of intentions, knowledge which had been painstakingly gathered together in many different lands was largely cast aside, and had it not been for the dedicated work and interest shown by a few people, mainly in France and Italy, this invaluable knowledge may have been lost forever.

Aromatherapy or Perfumery?

Plant aromas were extracted by solvent means long before distillation came into general use. The resultant compounds were not essential oils in the true meaning of the word, and were not used as medicines as were herbs. This is important, as there are many aromatherapists today who use absolutes and resins in their work; these are perfume and flavouring extracts and though, by inhalation, they can have an effect on the mind (as can any aroma, natural or synthetic), strictly speaking they are not for use in therapeutic aromatherapy. Nowhere in any French book on the subject are they included (except for benzoin) and as the man who coined the word aromatherapy always used the oils in a strictly medicinal way, i.e. in compresses, inhalations, baths, local applications in ointment form, intramuscular injections and also internally – usually in honey water – this is no doubt the reason for their exclusion.

Some therapists use absolutes and resins (which contain a variable proportion of the solvents used to extract them – see chapter 2 (#u6edf141d-1ccf-5213-bee3-eedce4b44e0e)) possibly because when therapists began to select their own oils, these were available – and lent a rich aroma to a mix. At that time, none of us knew enough about the chemistry of such oils, nor about the copious adulteration of the exotic oils in particular (see chapter 2 (#u6edf141d-1ccf-5213-bee3-eedce4b44e0e)).

Research and Clinical Trials

Hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent on research, clinical trials and licensing for each allopathic or orthodox medicine, pill or potion which appears on the market. This is done with the best will in the world – to help alleviate suffering and disease. Unfortunately, medical science has only recently come to the conclusion that for all the care and time spent, these pills and potions often give side effects, sometimes even leading to death.

Although essential oils have not been clinically tested in this way (it would cost billions of pounds to test each oil and synergistic mix for each therapeutic effect of which it is capable) scientists feel that the same tests for proof of efficiency carried out on drugs should apply to essential oils. Drug companies are exceedingly rich and can afford to do costly clinical trials; users of essential oils have neither the money nor the facilities for such work. It seems to me unreasonable not to recognize traditional and repeated beneficial experiences over many centuries, simply due to lack of clinical trials – very important where the use of synthetic compounds of unknown potential is concerned (and also extracts from known poisonous plants such as the foxglove). Surely the same concerns are not as necessary for naturally occurring medicines which have been in use for thousands of years with extremely few recorded ill effects – nothing to compare with the number of adverse results from the use of drugs over barely one hundred years! Concerns over the use of essential oils are certainly not important enough to discourage their use and risk losing the natural heating agents given to us all. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as we all know, and if essential oils had serious side effects they would certainly not have survived to the present day. People do not continue in the long term using remedies which do not work or make them ill.

God’s world (a fantastic achievement) has existed hundreds of thousands of years already. Humans learned in their early days to use plants not only as food, but as medicines, long before modern civilization as we know it rocketed into being during the last three or four hundred years – particularly the last 100. How can we possibly think anything we have done in the last 100 years is ‘proved’ to be better? We are only just beginning to discover the harm we are doing to our own environment, to the atmosphere, even to our own bodies in this short time span – with such things as car fumes, fast foods, steroids, synthetic vitamins and the unnecessarily bright and poisonous food colourings which the majority of people consume each day.

I am not saying here that all plants are without risk, simply that the clean record of traditional use together with up-to-date hospital research projects, trials and general case studies should be sufficient. Misuse is a different matter and is covered in chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo), as are the differences between herbal medicine (in which many very toxic plants are used, e.g. boldo, tansy, etc.) and aromatherapy (which does not use the oils from any of these potentially dangerous plants).

Good, wholesome food is of itself a medicine, and it is a well-known fact that the development of many diseases is in direct proportion to the development of additives and synthetics together with the use of growth hormones and fat inhibitors to produce bigger and better plant and animal foods.

When looking back in history for the origins of aromatherapy, it is as well to remember that aromatherapy has but a short history, the word being coined only relatively recently. The history we have been looking at has been that of plants, their extracts, compounds and essential oils. Although the latter are the essentials of aromatherapy (in the therapeutic sense), they are not limited to this particular aspect in their use, being extensively used in the perfume, cosmetic, household and food industries.

‘The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth and he that is wise will not abhor them.’

FIGURE 1.1: A 19th-century French lavender still (by courtesy of Raspail of Saillans)

2 Extraction Methods (#ulink_6e5486a4-9925-52a5-b9ee-ce159912258c)

Although the basic principles for extracting essential oils from plants remain the same as hundreds of years ago, tremendous advances have been made in the techniques used and the methods employed. Distillation is, and no doubt will continue to be, the most important of these.

Steam Distillation

Essential oils are contained in the glands, veins, sacs and glandular hairs of aromatic plants. Flowers, leaves and non-fibrous parts need little, if any, preparation prior to distillation. Tough stalks, woody parts, roots, seeds and fruits, however, need to be ‘comminuted’ (cut up, disintegrated or crushed – wood is grated) in order to rupture the cell walls, allowing the easy escape of the volatile oil. (Volatile is derived from the Latin volare – to fly.)

Distillation is still considered to be the most economical method of extracting essential oils from plant materials.

(#litres_trial_promo) Some plants have to be distilled immediately they are harvested, for example melissa; if left even a few hours, the essential oil is lost – the yield from melissa is, in any case, very low. Some plants are left a few days, e.g. lavender, so that surplus water in the plant can dry out – this, by the way, slightly affects the yield. Some, like black pepper seeds, clary (clary sage) and peppermint, can be totally dried before distilling without losing any essential oil. It can be seen from these few examples that there is an art to distillation and that, especially for low-yield plants, much skill is needed. The role of the distiller is to achieve an oil as close as possible to the oil as it exists in the plant.

We distil water every day each time we boil a pan or kettle – the heat lifts molecules of water from the surface and they evaporate into the air, or condense as distilled water on the pan lid.

During distillation, only very tiny molecules can evaporate, so they are the only ones which leave the plant. These extremely small molecules make up an essential oil. Oils containing more of the smallest and therefore most volatile of these tiny molecules are termed ‘top notes’ in the perfumery world; those containing more of the heaviest and least volatile of the tiny molecules are called ‘base notes’. Those in between are known as middle or sometimes ‘heart’ notes.

FIGURE 2.1: Steam distillation

When plants are heated by steam in a still (alambic in France), the essential oils present in the plant material are freed, evaporating into the steam. These tiny molecules are carried along a pipe together with the steam and as they get further away from the heat source they begin to cool. To hasten this process, the pipe passes through a large vat of cold water (the important addition to distillation contributed by Avicenna around AD 1000) and condenses back into liquid form. As the density of essential oil differs from that of water, it either floats on the top or sinks to the bottom (mostly the former), where it can be drawn off. The result is a pure, genuine, whole and natural essential oil – an aromatherapist’s dream! This is the oil used in any reference or research carried out before the 19th century, when there were no synthetics to adulterate or ‘ennoble’ nature’s gifts.

Distillation is more complex than I have made it sound (books have been written on this subject alone) but the underlying principle is simple to understand and remains unchanged.

Aromatic Waters

These are a by-product of distillation and contain some of the properties of the essential oil, even though it may be thought that because essential oils float on water they are not water-soluble. Some essential oil components do dissolve in water, and these, together with larger molecules from the plant (too large to vaporize, but soluble in water), form the aromatic water. Because of the presence of these other molecules, genuine waters have a different aroma from the essential oil of the same name.

The water from plants with a high yield of essential oil is normally discarded – directed into the nearby stream (large stills are always located beside a stream or river). However, with low-yield oils like melissa, rose and neroli, producers cannot afford to lose a single drop of the precious essential oil, so a special method called ‘cohobation’ is used, requiring a highly technical still and an experienced distiller. The basic process is as described above, except that, instead of using fresh water for each new plant load, the same water is piped back into the system, and used over and over again. Eventually, this water becomes saturated with the water-soluble elements from the plant (and water-soluble essential oil components). At this stage, every particle of volatile oil condenses and is collected at the end of the process to make a complete oil.

This saturated water is very concentrated and this strength is good for transport, as it saves on freight costs: it needs to be diluted with pure water to be comparable in strength with other plant waters. Lavender, clary and other waters from normal distillation are not as cheap as one would think (considering they are thrown away unless specifically ordered in advance), because of the cost of packaging and transport.

Before Avicenna’s improvement to distillation and before cohobation was thought of, rose and neroli flowers were distilled simply for the water – the amount of essential oil obtained was negligible. In Tunisia, our friend Manoubi’s mother, like many Arab women today, has her own tiny still, in which she makes orange flower water for her own medicinal and culinary use.

Unfortunately, unless one has a good connection in the country of origin (which, fortunately, we do), it is as difficult to buy untampered-with aromatic waters as it is to buy untampered-with essential oils (almost all rose water available in pharmacies is made with synthetic substitutes).

Aromatic waters can be made from plants which have no essential oil, by using diffusion.

Carbon Dioxide Extraction

This is a fairly new method of extracting essential oils, introduced at the beginning of the 1980s, utilizing compressed carbon dioxide. The technology calls for very expensive, complicated equipment (initially three or four million pounds’ worth), which utilizes carbon dioxide at very high pressures and extremely low temperatures. With this method, more top notes, fewer terpenes, a higher proportion of esters (see chapter 3 (#u35d87537-07fb-5c2f-9af9-cb22524f5805)), plus larger molecules, are obtained. The aroma of the resultant oil is more like the essential oil in the plant, as many terpenes in a distilled oil seem to form during the distillation process, which also breaks down some of the acetates (esters) in the plant material.

Carbon dioxide (CO

) extracted essential oils are pure and stable and have no residue of CO

left in them. However, the therapeutic possibilities need to be verified for each oil on account of their different compositions and until there has been some research on this, it may be wise not to use them yet in aromatherapy.

At the moment the price is high; perhaps after a number of years, when the initial cost of the equipment has come down, the prices will be lower.

Hydro-Diffusion or Percolation

Percolation is even newer than CO

extraction and in 1991 we visited a unit in France. It was extremely interesting; most of the resultant oil had an aroma nearer to the plant than a distilled oil. The equipment, unlike that for CO

extraction, is very simple and the process quicker than distillation, the plant being in contact with the steam for a much shorter time.

This process works like a coffee percolator. The steam passes through the plant material from top to bottom of the container, which has a grid to hold the plant material. The oil and condensed steam is collected in a vessel in the same way as distillation. The colour of oils I have seen is much richer than that of distilled oils and time and tests alone will, as with the CO

method, reveal their true value in aromatherapy – it is certainly exciting! Percolation is not suitable for all oils; there are still a few practical difficulties to overcome (sometimes an emulsion is produced), but I am tempted to do a research project on one or two myself!

Expression

This method of extraction is used exclusively with citrus fruits, where the essential oil, located in little sacs just under the surface of the rind, simply needs to be pressed out. You can do this for yourself on a small scale: squeeze a succulent section of orange peel within an inch of a candle flame or lighted match and the tiny droplets of essential oil will ignite like baby fireworks. This shows not only the volatility of essential oils, but also that one needs to keep them away from a naked flame, as they are highly inflammable.

Expression is usually carried out by a factory producing fruit juice, thus maximizing the profit from the whole fruit. Most essential oil of orange comes from the USA, where millions of oranges are processed for their juice. The best essential oil does not come from there, as in order to maximize the crop, the trees and fruit are sprayed with chemicals, and these toxins reach the essential oil glands. This would not be so important if citrus fruits were distilled, as most pesticides and fertilizers, being composed of larger molecules, do not come through in the distillation process. Nevertheless, as expressed oil is taken directly from the fresh peel without heat, it is best that citrus oils for therapeutic use be obtained from organically or naturally grown produce.