1 cup sea salt
1 cup epsom salts
1/2 cup cider vinegar
Essential oil of your choice
Soak for 1/2 hour

A detox bath will assist your body in eliminating toxins, as well as absorbing the minerals and nutrients that are in the water. A friend of mine got this recipe from her spiritual teacher. She was instructed to take this bath every night 3 days before an event and every night 3 days after and she says, “I always feel great afterward.” I usually add about 10 drops of a 100% Pure Essential oil into the mix. There are many oils that are pleasant and relaxing, such as lavendar, or ylang ylang, or there are others that will assist in the detoxification process such as tea tree or eucalyptus.

For more resources on 100% Pure Essential Oils, check out these articles:

• Therapeutic Essential Oils for Aromatherapy – However, this doesn’t mean you can buy essential oils online and go at it. The first thing you need to do is educate yourself on Aromatherapy essential oils and how they work. Also, do your homework when using Aromatherapy on someone …

• Healing With Aromatherapy – Don’t buy essential oils that contain vegetable oil dilutions. You can test the essential oil you are purchasing by dabbing a small bit of the oil on paper and checking to see if there is a residue left over. If there is an oily feeling …

• Relax with essential oils, aromatherapy – If you can not afford a professional you can buy essential oils and have your partner give you a massage at home with them. Soaking in the bathtub is a luxury many of us do not want to learn as much as us. …

After a year or two, it seemed like different friends and healing practitioners were coming out of the woodwork telling me about Young Living Oils and espousing the benefits of therapeutic and 100 percent pure essential oils.  So my partner, Bill, and I decided to give them a good ‘ole college try.  We splurged and went in on buying a couple of sample kits: the Start Living (Enrollment) Kit and the Essential 7 Essential Oil Collection, a bunch of single oils along with an Essential Oils Pocket Guide.  All from Young Living except the guide (I can’t remember which company from which we purchased this).  

My first experience with the oils was when I started feeling a migraine headache coming on.  Bill ran to the Essential Oils Pocket Guide and looked up “headache” and then handed me some 100 percent pure lavender oil and 100 percent pure peppermint oil.  All I had to do was smell the aroma and the symptoms disappeared.  I am not kidding!  The migraines I get are Classical Migraines, the kind where all of a sudden I can’t see or speak correctly and I can’t really function.  It’s not until that starts to wear off that I feel any kind of pain and it’s slight.  So, for a scent to ward this off is nothing short of a miracle.

I will say that although Young Living is the most widely known for selling high quality, therapeutic-grade essential oils (and I’m giving them tons of back links here ), I highly recommend some others too:   

http://www.originalswissaromatics.com/
http://www.aromavera.com/
http://www.sunrosearomatics.com/

We’d love to hear your stories and experiences with high quality, 100 percent pure, therapeutic-grade essential oils.  Please comment here and tell us about them!

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The The Essential Oils Desk Reference (EDR) (The Bible of Essential Oils), is a great essential oils guide and reference compiled by Essential Science Publishing.   The book is broken down into sections so you can look things up by ailment, emotion, single oil, etc.  It gives you a “First Recommendation”, “Other Single Oils” and “Other blends”.

This 558 page, easy-to-access reference volume was developed by Gary Young and other doctors and researchers after many years of research.

It contains clear and useful information and gives a variety of recommendations, application options, amounts, chemistry, safety and use for therapeutic-grade essential oils.

Click here to learn more.

Seek out vendors who test their oils, supply samples, and give you confidence in their knowledge. Look for the Latin or botanical name of the plant and the country in which the plants were grown. Most reputable companies will provide this to prove the oil is authentic and to ensure you are getting the right essential oil. For example, there are many species of lavender and this shows they are marketing to knowledgeable people as well as the general public.

Is there a statement about purity? You should be informed if it is not 100% essential oil (meaning, it has been altered or mixed with something else).

Is there information about organic growing or wild crafting (gathering wild plants)?

The key to producing a quality essential oil is to preserve the delicate compounds of the aromatic plant through expert distillation. Make sure oils are 100% pure steam distilled plant oils and are free of carriers, diluents and other input. Even better if all of the essential oil distillation process is supervised by someone who is accredited as a Certified Aromatherapist.

See if the vendor follows the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) guidelines. These are guidelines for packaging, conditioning, storage, labeling, sampling and testing.

Try to avoid essential oils that are impure. They can cause harmful side effects, or at best provide only minimal therapeutic benefits.

Young Living Oils are all the rage in many circles, however, I know several people who do not like the company for differing reasons so here are some other companies that sell high quality, therapeutic-grade essential oils:

• http://www.originalswissaromatics.com/
• http://www.aromavera.com/
• http://www.sunrosearomatics.com/

There is a theory and much research that suggests essential oils can be detrimental to felines. Their livers can’t process the terpenes in the oils. This topic is beyond the scope of this article but I encourage cat owners to read the following articles: Aromatherapy and Your Cat, The Lavender Cat – Essential Oil Safety and Cats, The Lavender Cat – Essential Oil Safety and Cats, Dr Khan DVM, DABVT, Essential Oils and Cats: A Potentially Toxic Mix.

Some believe that high quality hydrosols can be used as an alternative to essential oils. Usually, you can purchase high quality hydrosols from the same companies that sell high quality essential oils. Some U.S. sources recommended by Sandy Arora of Holisticatare are:

• http://www.naturesgift.com/hydrosol_order.htm
• http://www.av-at.com/hydrosol.html
• http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/fwater/fwater.php
• http://www.flutterbyearomatics.com/hydrosols.htm
• http://www.auroma.com/catalog/FloralandFruitWaters/
• http://www.organic-creations.com/servlet/the-Hydrosol-Waters/Categories

Sources outside the U.S.:

• http://www.oshadhi.co.uk/cat–Hydrolates-Floral-Waters–hydrolatesfloralwaters.html
• http://www.kobashi.info/Hydrolats.html

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