The Aromatics International Blog

I find it fascinating to smell and blend with essential oils that were cultivated in the same country. Despite a wide variety of chemical components, plant families and plant parts—plants that grow in the same region have a distinct synergy with one another.

For example, oils from Nepal have very unique aromas that stand apart from all other oils I know.

• Xanthoxylum – Zanthoxylum armatum
  Floral, fresh, fruity and quite exotic!

• Rhododendron – Rhododendron anthopogon
  Balsamic, fresh, sweet and herbaceous.

The oils from India tend to have a softer aroma when compared to the same oil cultivated in another country.

• Lavender – Lavandula angustifolia
  Sweet, floral, soft.

• Cedarwood (Indian) – Cedrus deodara
  Earthy, warm, radiant, woody.

The oils from Madagascar have a medicinal aroma that explains why so many of the Madagascar oils are used for healing.

• Saro – Cinnamosma fragrans
  Camphoraceous, fresh, warm.

• Helichrysum bracteiferum – Helichrysum bracteiferum
  Camphoraceous, fresh, herbaceous.

To take advantage of this special synergy, I create blends using oils that were grown and distilled in the same country.

Nepalese Ease
to calm anxiety
Spikenard - 10 drops
Xanthoxylum - 5 drops
Lemongrass – 2 drops
Add to a blank inhaler and use often.

Indian Perfume
exotic and warm
Jasmine – 5 drops
Lavender – 3 drops
Sandalwood – 10 drops
Black Pepper – 1 drop
Blend into 2 oz. of jojoba oil or unscented lotion.

Madagascar Steam Blend
for tightness and congestion
Saro – 20 drops
Helichrysum bracteiferum – 10 drops
Ravintsara – 15 drops
Niaouli ct 1,8 cineole – 5 drops
Blend into a small orifice reducer bottle and then use one drop total of the blend in a bowl of steamy hot water. Close your eyes, cover your head with a towel and breathe for a few minutes.

If you are interested in exploring essential oils by their country of origin, we have a fun search tool on Aromatics International. Begin by clicking on an oil that interests you.  Then click on the country of origin to view a list of oils from that county. Click on any individual oil to learn more.

Are you using Avocado oil (Laurus persea) in your aromatherapy and massage blends?  If not, you’re missing out on a natural, fresh oil that has a really nice aroma. While you and your clients enjoy the scent and texture of this carrier oil, it goes to work behind the scenes restoring and rejuvenating the skin naturally.

Avocado oil is highly penetrating, deeply nourishing and softens dry skin. It’s known to restore and re-moisturizer the epidermis. Repeated applications of moisturizing butters, oils or lotions made with Avocado oil reveal an increase of hydration of the upper layers of the skin, and an improvement of the skins elastic properties. Whether you’re looking for an oil to use as a carrier with essential oils or to blend with other moisturizing oils in a product, Avocado oil plays well with others.

How is the oil derived from the fruit we commonly know as a salad topping or the main ingredient in guacamole? Avocado oil is expressed from dried avocado fruit flesh. The fruit is peeled, the pit removed, and the fruit is sliced and dried to remove any water. The dried slices are cold-pressed to remove the oil. The process is time-consuming and complex—and true, organic, high quality, cold-pressed, unrefined oil is difficult to find.  The Avocado tree itself can grow to be quite large and bear hundreds of fruits. We have a tree growing in our backyard that has produced over 100 avocados this year (yes, I have eaten more then I thought possible)!

Refined Avocado oil is pale yellow, so it’s easy to distinguish between the refined and unrefined product. True, organic, high quality, cold pressed, unrefined oil is a medium to dark olive green in color, somewhat thick, and very rich in texture. The aroma is similar to the ripe fruit, fresh and somewhat spicy/nutty.

Here are some of the wonderful properties of Avocado Oil:

• Prevents chapping, cracks and stretch marks
• Good hair growth stimulant
• Ideal oil to offer light UV protection for the skin
• Mixed with equal quantities of sesame and olive oil, it offers some light sun protection for the skin
• Excellent skin moisturizer
• High degree of penetration into the epidermis
• Promotes cell regeneration
• Used for skin inflammation
• Used to clean the skin
• Has a high sterol content (about 10%) and is used as a carrier for arthritis pain blends
• Has more Vitamin D than eggs; useful for people living in low-sunshine areas
• Used for post menopausal women who have aging skin

Avocado oil is also high in sterolins, which are reputed to be beneficial in healing scars and moisturizing the upper layers of the skin. The sterolins in Avocado oil have been found to diminish age spots. Oils with the highest levels of sterolins are Shea Butter, Avocado oil, Sesame oil, Soybean oil and Olive oil.

Did You Know?

• Avocado oil has been used as a hair pomade to stimulate hair growth.

• Avocado oil contains more than 20% essential unsaturated fatty acids. It contains vitamins A, C, D and E, proteins, beta-carotene, lecithin, fatty acids and potassium.

• Avocado oil has at least a one-year shelf life, and it is recommended not to be kept in the refrigerator as it may forms deposits and congeal when chilled.

• As Avocado oil gets older, the color will turn from olive green to brown.

• Another oil is produced from avocado seeds, but it is rare and regarded as toxic.

• Try adding Avocado oil to your body butters and lip balms for fabulous texture.

Eucalyptus dives is a unique essential oil that I love having in my collection. It is especially good for reducing thick mucus, great for that cold or flu that you just can’t get rid of and the congestion is driving you crazy! You can steam with it, put it into a chest rub, dilute it in an unscented lotion and massage your feet with it, or simply diffuse it. It has a lovely camphoraceous, minty aroma that differs from all the other eucalyptus species aromas. Eucalyptus dives is great to use with children and adults, and is deeply effective against congestion.

Recipe

Eucalyptus Steam Blend
10 drops Eucalyptus Dives
10 drops Siberian Fir (Abies siberica)
10 drops Ravintsara (Cinnamomum camphora)

This undiluted combination of oils becomes your “stock bottle”. Use one drop total from the stock bottle in a bowl of steaming water. Place a towel over your head and the bowl, close your eyes and breathe. Be sure the water is not too hot and that your skin feels comfortable with the steam. I usually steam for about a minute. Great way to clear your head!

Tags: eucalyptus dives, ravintsara, Siberian Fir, steam blend

The heavy scent of YlangYlang fills our heads during warm humid nights and early mornings. The scent is so strong and carries so far that we have neighbors a few houses down inhaling deeply whenever the tree blooms.  Our little neighborhood is indeed mellow and sweet smelling these days as the tree has sprung an incredible amount of flowers for the new year!

The first time we saw an Ylang Ylang tree was in Belize. It was huge, and beautiful, with a colorful Toucan sitting amongst the flowers. A few years later we visited a house in Sarasota, Florida that had a Ylang Ylang tree and were inspired to plant two of them in our front yard.

Our Ylang Ylang tree is now huge! Last week we were admiring the flowers on the tree and noticed a small owl tucked high up in the branches! I smiled to myself and thought, we have a Ylang Ylang tree in our front year with hundreds of flowers and an owl living in it. What could be sweeter? The owl has been there for a week now, and seems to like when I take pictures! I even got a wink (see picture)!

Tags: aromatherapy, Essential Oils, ylang ylang

Fragrances are experienced through the breath, and greatly impact our experience of the world. Think of how you feel when you step out the front door and take in that first breath of springtime. What happens for you when you bury your nose in a delicious gardenia? We can create deeply therapeutic and purely pleasurable experiences with aromatherapy. When we inhale, bringing in fresh oxygen, we also breathe in the molecules of fragrance. The chemical constituents of each scent have the ability to alter our spirits, influence health and immunity, create and recall memories, and shift our bodies’ chemical balance. Our inner worlds are deeply affected by what we breathe in.

Aromatherapy, both a science and an art, is based upon the knowledgeable application of essential oils. Pure essential oils are extracted from aromatic plants and have been used for centuries in healthy cosmetics, and as natural medicines. The naturally-occurring chemicals that create the signature fragrance of each essential oil exist in delicate and complex balance, and carry the power to create tangible biological and emotional effects.

Essential oils can offer profound emotional, physical and spiritual support in our daily lives. They encourage us to slow down, breathe, and accept a nurturing gift from the world of plants. Enjoy your aromatic journey and happy holidays!

Tags: aromatherapy

What a great year! Are you tempted to reflect at the end of the year? My tendency is to work, learn, create, and then work more… and on the cycle goes.

Sometimes I forget to pause and notice the growth in our businesses over the year. The end of the year does gently remind me to consider all that has happened.

Aromahead Institute has expanded!

• We bought the new land in Ithaca and the teaching space is being built right now. We are excited to live in Ithaca in the summers and teach Aromatherapy classes (Andrea) and advanced bodywork classes (Cindy). We will continue to teach in Sarasota in the winter.

• Aromahead Institute was approved by the Alliance of International Aromatherapists for our 400 hour Scholar’s Program. Several people have completed this program already and many more are in the process.

• We launched our online Aromatherapy Certification Program! We have 35 students enrolled.  Currently our students are from Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa, Canada and the USA.

• The Graduate Directory launched. Anyone coming to the Aromahead Institute website can see what gradates are doing for work, check out their websites and easily contact them.

• The Aromahead Forum was also created, and has been a great place for our students and graduates to ask and answer questions, share recipes, ideas and more. We also added a distillery photo album.

Aromatics International has also had a big year!

• We now import 100 different essential oils from distillers worldwide! We have added many new recipes to the website, and created eight new search functions (see related article).

• We added quite a few new hydrosols to our inventory,  and found over 10 new organic, small scale distillers to work with! We visited our Canadian distiller for the first time, added a whole range of oils from Nepal and added a testimonial page to the website.

• My favorite new addition to the website this year is the shop by aroma link!

• We are in the midst of a redesign for Aromatics International website over the next few months. We will make the website even easier to use, have a faster check out and many fun new features.

So thanks to all of you for the incredible support you give us, we feel it everyday and are continually grateful to do the work we love. May you all have a wonderful new year ahead!

Love,
Andrea and Cindy

Tags: aromahead, Aromatics International, business