Today, I'm re-airing my conversation with Holly Brandenberger. If you have ever searched for anything related to essential oils on Instagram, then you likely have come across her aromatherapy account @thescienceofessentials. Holly is the face behind that account, she is a registered nurse and aromatherapist and is at the cutting edge of essential oils research in a hospital setting.
In this interview, you’ll hear from her about the actual science of how essential oils work, what the latest research says about essential oil uses and brain health and pain management and we also dive in to simple ways to use essential oils in your homes, the best oils for hair growth, stress, natural remedies for congestion and kids, sleep, DIY skincare and even the oils short list of oils that Holly could never live without.
In this episode, we discuss:
Connect with Holly:
Disclaimer: The essential oils industry is not a regulated industry and everything that we discuss in this interview, the benefits associated with oils and the published, medical research only apply to pure essential oils. Fragrance oils, solvent distilled oils and fractionally distilled oils found in grocery stores, on Amazon and budget brands are not the oils that we are talking about.
Want to try my favorite essential oils?
Order a Starter Bundle of Essentials Oils (use code SHAREYL for 10% off your first order)
Studies Mentioned in Episode:
Essential Oils and Memory Improvement
Lavender is NOT a hormone disruptor
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Today, I'm re-airing my conversation with Holly Brandenberger. If you have ever searched for anything related to essential oils on Instagram, then you likely have come across her aromatherapy account @thescienceofessentials. Holly is the face behind that account, she is a registered nurse and aromatherapist and is at the cutting edge of essential oils research in a hospital setting.
In this interview, you’ll hear from her about the actual science of how essential oils work, what the latest research says about essential oil uses and brain health and pain management and we also dive in to simple ways to use essential oils in your homes, the best oils for hair growth, stress, natural remedies for congestion and kids, sleep, DIY skincare and even the oils short list of oils that Holly could never live without.
In this episode, we discuss:
Connect with Holly:
Disclaimer: The essential oils industry is not a regulated industry and everything that we discuss in this interview, the benefits associated with oils and the published, medical research only apply to pure essential oils. Fragrance oils, solvent distilled oils and fractionally distilled oils found in grocery stores, on Amazon and budget brands are not the oils that we are talking about.
Want to try my favorite essential oils?
Order a Starter Bundle of Essentials Oils (use code SHAREYL for 10% off your first order)
Studies Mentioned in Episode:
Essential Oils and Memory Improvement
Lavender is NOT a hormone disruptor
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Welcome to episode 34 of the Detox Dilemma podcast. I'm your host, wendy, and today's interview is for you if you are super skeptical about using essential oils in your home. Or maybe you already have essential oils in your home and you love how they provide a safe home fragrance, but you haven't yet dabbled into what else they could do for your health. Or maybe you're somebody who already regularly uses essential oils but you're interested in the current medical research being done in hospitals on everything from brain health to pain management. In this interview, we're also debunking some myths about essential oils, and you're not going to want to miss that conversation. My guest today is Holly Brandenburger, and if you've ever searched for anything related to essential oils on Instagram, then you've likely come across her aromatherapy account, the Science of Essentials. Holly is the face behind that account. She's a registered nurse and aromatherapist and is at the cutting edge of essential oil research in a hospital setting. In this interview, we covered a lot of topics. You'll hear from her about the actual science of how essential oils work, what the latest cutting edge research says about essential oil uses in brain health and pain management, and we also dive into simple ways to use essential oils in your homes the best oils for hair growth, stress, natural remedies for congestion, kids sleep, diy skincare and even the oils that are on the short list that Holly could never live without. Before we dive into this interview, though, it's important for me to say that not all essential oils are created equal. The essential oil industry is not a regulated industry, and everything that we discuss in this interview the benefits associated with oils and the published medical research only apply to pure essential oils. Fragrance oils, solvent, distilled oils and fractionally distilled oils found in grocery stores or on Amazon or by budget brands are not the oils that we're talking about. It's important to do your research and trust the brand that you're purchasing from. If you want to learn more about the brand I use in my home and get a 10% off discount code for your first purchase, head over to wwwiwarrantoilscom.
Speaker 1:All right, let's dig in. Hey there, my name is Wendy and I'm an environmental toxins lawyer who is obsessed with showing women how to toss the toxins out of their life and embrace a more holistic lifestyle. I'll be dishing up bite-sized but binge-worthy episodes on all things detox, low toxin, what's that toxin and what is it really doing to my health? I'm breaking it all down for you, separating the myths from the facts and pulling back the curtain on the products and beauty industry. You'll hear my unfiltered and sometimes unpopular, but honest opinions. No topic is off limits. We'll dive into what's really causing our thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, inferttility and more. Think of it as a crash course for all things holistic living. But for real life, you don't have to do everything. You just have to start somewhere. Let me show you how. This is the Detox Dilemma Podcast. Hey everyone, I'm here with somebody that I am legit a fangirl of. I actually spend a lot of time on social media, obviously on my own Instagram, but I don't consume a lot of Instagram, but, holly, I literally.
Speaker 1:if you were to open the save folder on my Instagram, there would be like 300 posts of yours, so I'm so happy that you're here and just to give my audience a little bit of background on you, even though they just heard an intro. You have been a registered nurse for 18 years and then, right around 2016, you found aromatherapy and I'll let you tell that story. But you became a certified aromatherapist in 2020. And now you really have a passion for bringing essential oils and aromatherapy into hospitals, and I find that so interesting because you're really taking Western medicine right. 18 years as a registered nurse, western medicine and you've totally pivoted to something that is not really accepted in Western medicine, and I see you trying to bridge that gap. So I would love to hear your story.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh. Thank you for the kind words. It's always so interesting to hear someone talk so beautifully about yourself. It just feels, it's just nice. I feel like the world needs more of that. So just thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, so where did we all start? Yes, I've been a nurse for a while and I feel like in nursing school we didn't really learn about aromatherapy at all. Like there was like maybe like one sentence in the textbook about aromatherapy, and even back then I mean that seems back then. I feel like it seems so long ago, but it doesn't feel like that long ago. But it just wasn't so mainstream as it is now and I really wasn't truly introduced to it until like my first year of nursing.
Speaker 2:And thankfully, our hospital did use aromatherapy on one of the floors that I worked with and we didn't have any education about it. We didn't know how to use it as nurses. The only thing that we knew was that as nurses, we just use peppermint to like cover up bathroom odors, basically for patients that were struggling with, you know, gi bleeds or C diff, which is just a nasty I'm not going to get into it, but it just has a very strong aroma. So we would cover up that. Or we had lavender for helping patients, just kind of like calm them down, and we didn't really use them very often, like it was pretty rare that we'd be like oh, here's some lavender. I feel like we use lavender more for like older patients that struggle with like dementia and things like that, but like the traditional patient coming in with like trauma or post-operatively, we didn't use it.
Speaker 1:There's not like for the speaker, doctors being like bring the lavender.
Speaker 2:No, never, never, like, never it's changed, it it's so. I feel like it comes full circle now, knowing that what I've just done in the last couple years and how much more widely accepted it is in western medicine and hospitals, like I mean, oh gosh, like hospitals have changed so much in the last couple years, and just focusing on, you know, patient satisfaction, but knowing that there's other tools that we can give patients to just help relax and calm them, and even the patients are so much more open to it, like they get so excited when we're like, oh well, here's an aroma tab that you can put on your gown before you go into surgery and smell it and if we like, we'll probably get into our sense of smell and all that. But even just like you know, when you go into the operating room and you see all those people around you if you've ever had surgery and it's cold in there and the people are there's so many people in their face masks and you can't see their face, which just triggers our amygdala, and there's all these people and you're nervous already and then you smell that room and it smells so sterile and bleach-like and that can really just make us even more anxious. So it's been so fun to just work with anesthesiologists and being like here's some lavender on your gown and just seeing the patients be like, oh, it has helped so much. Anyways, that was a long tangent, but yeah, so my hospital, we used it, but there wasn't any education on it.
Speaker 2:I didn't really get into aromatherapy though, until I had children, and I had kids and as a nurse I really struggled when they were sick because I wanted to make them better. I wanted to do something for them, and especially small children. We can't give them any medicine Like there's no, you know, cough medicine when they're coughing there's. There's not really anything we can do, you know, for to help promote them to sleep. Like I know people give melatonin, which you know I do not do that and I don't really recommend that for small children, but there's really not much that we can do. And I started just kind of thinking, oh, maybe I'll try a little bit of like eucalyptus when they're congested, or maybe I'll try a little lavender, even for me too, as like a stressed mom, and I started just. I brought in some essential oils and I noticed just that they worked, that they helped, and I think, like the first time I diffused like lavender, lemon and peppermint, because they were not feeling their best. It's just a really traditional blend.
Speaker 2:And not only did we all like seem to like feel a little bit better, I noticed that my kids weren't bickering or crabby or like fighting, and I have three little kids and I was like this is kind of weird. Like I just remember like looking back and thinking this is kind of weird. Like I just remember, like looking back and thinking this is so strange, and then I just wanted to know why. Like I'm a big science person. So I was like tell me the reason why these work and how they work and I would use them for other things.
Speaker 2:Like my husband started using, you know, black spruce and lavender for sleep and he's like I usually get up like five times a night to go to the bathroom and he's, you know he also works in medicine, so it's a very stressful job. So I think you know that stress impacts his sleep. And he's like but I haven't been getting up at night to go to the bathroom and I fall asleep so much faster and I was like that's kind of cool, but why? Like I just had to always know why. So then I started just digging into the research and just reading a ton of research, I ended up getting certified in aromatherapy.
Speaker 2:The irony of it all is that my husband, when I first started using essential oils, he said to me. He said don't become one of those crazy essential oil ladies. And rightfully so, because he I mean, he works in medicine. So he has patients that come in and will not get chemotherapy or a life-saving procedure because they have their essential oils. And that's his view of it, and he works in medicine. So I was like, don't worry, I won't. And now here I am.
Speaker 2:You're totally the essential oil lady. The essential oil lady. I teach aromatherapy certification programs.
Speaker 1:I've written three books.
Speaker 2:I sell some essential oil accessories. You just went all in. I mean I didn't mean to, it just kind of happened. But even then he's completely changed his perspective a thousandfold because he understands the science now and the constituents, and I mean he talks to his partners about them and coworkers and we've gone to different surgical alliance presentations where they talk about aromatherapy and some of the cool studies. So it's been just this full circle, amazing transition and I can't imagine not sharing about the science behind them.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, and on your Instagram you share so much science and I love that. You really break things down. You know, in our you know kind of the wellness space or, for me, the toxin free living space, it's so easy to go online and be like this is bad or this is good, or essential oils do this. What the better thing to do for people is to explain. This is why this is better. Here is the constituent, here's what it does, here's what the science says, and you do that so well.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that for a second, because a lot of people think essential oils are they just smell good. And in my world, the toxin free living world, I do promote the use of essential oils as a safe fragrance, because I want people to get anything that has phthalates or hormone disruptors or any synthetic fragrance room sprays. My big thing is get them all out of your house for your health. And if you want your home to smell like you know flowers or candles, or if you miss those scents in your home, bring in quality, pure essential oils and so people know it's kind of a safe alternative. But when you start talking about the health benefits of essential oils, you kind of lose people. People are like okay, like you said, you kind of get viewed as the crazy oil lady, but there is an insane amount of science, so let's talk about how they actually work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like. I mean, I think everyone kind of goes into essential oils. They're like oh, I want my house to smell good. Right, I know, synthetic fragrances are not great for the body. I want to make my house smell good. And then they experience some of these just amazing transitions either their skin clears up, or they're sleeping better, or they just feel less stressed, or maybe they're able to support digestion or morning sickness or whatever is going on. And then they're like what? How Exactly? How? I feel like we always want to validate what we're experiencing with science. So, yeah, how essential oils work such a big question, right? So they're made up of dozens to hundreds of chemical constituents that have been just shown to have varying effects within the bodies. So they're composed of chemicals. Some people will say, oh, I live chemical-free life and that's not possible.
Speaker 1:There's no such thing as Everything's a chemical. Everything's a chemical. Right Water's a chemical.
Speaker 2:Everything is a chemical. So, yes, they are made up of chemicals, like everything else in life. So if you've ever taken chemistry in the past, you may remember some of the words like ketones and aldehydes and esters and phenols and terpenes and all of those right. So each of those have varying properties to support the body. So some are antibacterial, some are analgesic, some are sedative, some are calming, some influence the nervous system. So, depending on the amount of those chemical families within the essential oil impacts how it responds within the body. So there's like a physiological approach and then there's a psychological approach and they kind of go hand in hand. But they also can be separate, kind of depending on how we're using essential oils. So typically most people use essential oils in one of two ways they apply them to the skin topically or they inhale them. So if we're applying them to the skin, maybe we're applying it, you know, for a headache or muscle tension, something like that. What happens is well, depending on the oil. Some essential oils have like something called like a somatosensory effect, meaning, like peppermint has menthol constituent and when we apply that to the skin it has like that cooling sensation. This is why, like when we chew peppermint gum, our mouth feels cool. That's exactly what is happening. So the same happens to the skin with essential oils and peppermint essential oil. So that can actually, you know, cool that area that can help release tension.
Speaker 2:Other essential oils have anti-inflammatory benefits. So when something is applied to the skin that's been absorbed into the bloodstream, it can reduce inflammation. So like lavender, juniper, black spruce so many examples of that. So many essential oils have anti-inflammatory properties. Determines, like what it is best for what effect it has within the body.
Speaker 2:The other way is the psychological impact of essential oils.
Speaker 2:So that's really like my favorite and I think, what the majority of people use essential oils for, especially at first, because we live in this crazy fast paced world and we just want to like slow down and a lot of us are just stressed on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:So this is really like stress relief is the pillar of aromatherapy practice. The reason why when we smell something it is so helpful for like our emotional health is because of the anatomy of our olfactory system with our limbic system within the brain. So the limbic system within our brain if you haven't heard of it before, it is really like our emotional command center. In a way it contains our amygdala, which is very important for just our stress response, our emotions, our behaviors, our motivations. It also contains our hippocampus, which is really important for just forming long term memories. So this may like kind of trigger some thoughts like oh, this is why scent plays such a huge role in, like memory formation and why, like, when we smell something, we automatically think of our grandma, or we think of maybe an ex-boyfriend, or we think of like a past experience or whatnot.
Speaker 1:Good and bad, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yep, good and bad. I mean PTSD. And smells can be incredibly like triggering to people. So definitely good and bad. But when we smell like an essential oil, those odorant molecules just trigger these like electrical signals to our olfactory bulb, which then fires these nerve axons and that goes directly to the perimedial cortex, which then goes to the limbic system axons and that goes directly to the perimedial cortex, which then goes to the limbic system. So what this all basically is saying is that our olfactory system is just like one synapse away from our limbic system.
Speaker 2:Due to the anatomy it's just so closely connected compared to other senses. It's just not possible with other senses to do this. So other senses, when we touch, taste, see something, hear something, it first is processed through the thalamus of the brain and then it is sent to the cerebral cortex for interpretation. So our sense of smell just straight goes to the limbic system, which is why our sense of smell just immediately triggers just this emotional response. This then has that physiological effect too. So this is where it goes kind of hand in hand. So when we smell something, then it influences us physiologically, so it may decrease our heart rate, our respiratory rate, our blood pressure, it influences our cortisol serum levels. Studies have shown that it changes brain waves and it can also increase deep, slow wave sleep. It can increase like wakeful waves. They also influence just neurotransmitters such as like dopamine and serotonin and GABA, which plays a huge role in anxiety. So that's really kind of the psychological and physiological effect of essential oils.
Speaker 1:That explanation is so great because I think that you just explained exactly to everybody who was like what? They just smell good, like no, it impacts your brain and I think anybody who has essential oils has experienced this as well. We were talking before the interview about, you know, our families and the way we use essential oils, and I used to diffuse a blend when my kids would get home from school and it was joy and orange and I had a friend joke about like oh, this blend is called like babysitter in a bottle, which I didn't really understand at the time. But it's so interesting when you have kids because you can kind of sit back and watch and see how you, without telling them what you're doing, you can see how they react to things.
Speaker 1:And I remember they were in that age where they were just bickering and fighting all the time and everyone was annoying everyone, and you know the little sister poking the older brother, and so coming home from school time was like kind of a wind down time, you know, in our home, or at least that's what I wanted it to be and so I would diffuse those oils and it only took be. And so I would diffuse those oils and it only took maybe three minutes. And then you just kind of watch the demeanor change a little bit, everyone just kind of calmed down, and for a while you don't even believe it. You're just like oh, this is all in my head. But when it starts to happen all the time you're like oh, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:What's interesting about kids is that they have no expectations at all. They don't like, as adults we constantly expect things to work or not work. So we get lavender. We're like, oh, we know it's calming, so that's, you know, the placebo effect of that is actually calming us. But with kids, they have no idea. They have like no predetermined judgment or expectation about that essential oil. So it's almost like we're doing these little experiments within our house with our own kids and seeing how it influences them. I mean even my daughter. We have Melissa hydrosol and when she's just kind of feeling in a funk I'll be like, hey, you want to spray this? And she'll just mist it on her face and I noticed instantly her grumpy face turn into a smile. She has no idea what it's supposed to do. There's no expectation there. So, yeah, it's so fun to do with kids. It is so fun.
Speaker 1:So, in light of the fact that there is all of this science and we'll talk about some of the really cool science in a couple minutes but in light of the fact that we know these things work and they're potent, I do think it's important to talk about safety, because there are a lot of people on the internet that you know you can go buy essential oils, and I highly recommend you only buy from brands you trust, and you know I have a brand I love. Everyone you know. Find one that is not on Amazon. If there is a bottle of frankincense that costs you $7, that is fake crap. You can't even that's impossible. Don't go to Bath and Body Works.
Speaker 1:Those are not essential oils, like you know, and maybe we can reserve this for another time, like how to pick essential oils. But if you're using something that's pure, you're, you have something in your home that is potent, right? These things work for a reason, and so I'm really big on. People should know how to use these safely, and I don't think people talk enough about the fact that they're potent and you do need to use them safely. So let's just kind of walk through some safety things. First is dilution. So, especially with kids. What is some of the key things that you would tell parents when using essential oils around kids?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love talking about safety. It's something that's very important to me as well, especially in this day of age. I feel like you watch some people on the internet and they're just you know basically chugging a whole bottle of essential oil or putting it to their skin. But there is risk. Like anything in nature, there is a risk, right? Just because it's natural doesn't mean that it's automatically safe under all circumstances. I will say that essential oils in general are very safe as long as they're used under normal circumstances appropriate for that person. So when it comes to children, this is someone that we really need to just take this into consideration.
Speaker 2:And dilution is a really big one. So essential oils are potent, like you said, you know, it takes 75 lemons to make one bottle of lemon oil. Or it takes 27 square feet to make one bottle of lavender essential oil. That's a lot of plant to make one oil, so it's a little different than just grabbing a lemon, for example, or a sprig of lavender. So we just want to appropriately dilute those essential oils. Instead of just putting a drop straight on our skin, which just is referred to as neat application, we want to add a carrier oil to dilute it. So fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, olive oil, whatever you have, and just know that one drop is plenty. Two drops does not make it like two times as powerful.
Speaker 2:With kids, less is more. Even with adults, I would say less is more. Otherwise it gets to this point where we're just like overusing and wasting the essential oils, but especially with children, you know, making a roller with one drop of essential oil in this day age. I remember the first time I did it and I was like looking at him, like what, like how is that going to do anything? Cause I feel like we're all programmed to think more is more, the more the better, like of everything.
Speaker 2:Right, but that one drop can do it. I mean, if we can smell it, it still has that psychological impact on us. And with kids especially, they have much more sensitive skin than adults. They have less metabolizing enzymes than adults, so they're going to be more prone to rashes or hives or adverse reactions. So we want to just dilute much further. I actually have a whole dilution guide that's free on my Instagram if someone wants to know exactly. How many drops do I do for this age versus this age versus this age? Same with the elderly too, not only just small children, but also the elderly. We want to dilute appropriately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's so important. When I very first started, I remember the first roller I ever made and I think it had like I'm not even kidding 40 drops of essential oils in it, because I was on Pinterest and I was like, ooh, that is like I mean at the time I want to say it was like that liquid Xanax, right. So I was like looking for something for anxious feelings and I was like, ooh, that sounds fantastic. But it literally had 40 drops. And you know, now I know so much better.
Speaker 1:And so I just think it's important that you're learning from somebody who is actually giving you correct advice, cause I feel the same way about essential oils that I feel about like supplements, like they're not benign. You know you should, you need to use them. They're wonderful and they're pretty. You know, mostly safe, but just be mindful and use them moderately and appropriately. And if anybody wants that kind of advice, they should just follow you, because your Instagram is full of recipes and explanations and safety and yeah, so you know, if anybody needs that guidance, you know, go find you on the internet.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, I even have a whole safety guide on my Instagram that just talks about pregnancy, pets, kids. It kind of gives all of them and gives examples of how to just use essential oils safely, Because I mean, it's not something that we should be scared of at all. We should approach essential oils with curiosity and we should feel free to use them, but just also kind of be aware that anything that is good for the body also can be potentially harmful for the body. And making sure we're diluted. We're careful about photosensitive essential oils.
Speaker 2:Some essential oils contain a chemical family known as ferrocumarines, which just means that when we apply those essential oils to the skin and then we go into the sunlight, we can get a rash or redness. It's kind of like margarita hands. If anyone's ever made a margarita in the beach on a sunny day and squished the limes, you will develop discoloration on your hands from squeezing those limes or worse, a burn or a rash or hives. The same goes for essential oils. So just being really mindful of them.
Speaker 2:So some essential oils to be mindful of for motor sensitivity are like bergamot, lime, lemon. Those are kind of like the big ones. Grapefruit, although grapefruit is a much lower concentration of the ferocumrin, so it's a little bit safer. But still, like anything citrus, I would kind of have a little red flag and this is where we would check the back of the bottle. A lot of really good essential oil brands will say on the back of the bottle avoid sunlight for 12 hours after applying. So use those at nighttime or dilute them appropriately or make sure you're wearing sunscreen things like that just to prevent any of those adverse reactions.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago you probably remember this there was a photo of a woman that was going around and her whole neck was like completely burnt I mean like I don't know if it was second or third degree or whatever kind of burns. And you know the headline, the clickbait going around was, you know, burned by essential oils. And this woman had covered herself in lemon because she was trying to lighten her skin. And then she got into a tanning bed and I remember some people sending it to me and I'm like, yeah, don't put a bunch of lemon neat on your skin and go jump into a tanning bed.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of the safety precautions that are so important for people to know and understand and be mindful and that's always what I say about essential oils is like, be mindful, don't like go crazy. And I've read, like Robert Tisserand's book, which is kind of the Bible of essential oil safety. You know, when you start looking into things like, oh, on kids, you know under a certain age, you know, maybe avoid peppermint, some of those things that we talk about from a safety perspective, that you teach a lot about. And if you guys want to know more about in-depth safety stuff, you can go to Holly's website or Instagram. She has resources and books and courses. But a lot of those case studies are like somebody took a mom, took a whole bottle of a eucalyptus and put it down the nose of their two-year-old like a whole bottle. And so a lot of those precautions are based on kind of these extreme misuses. And so, yes, be mindful, but also don't be scared.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, most of the case studies, most of the case reports are just unsafe practices and even if you look at, like my essential oils to avoid for small children, it's because a lot of those essential oils can be really like dermal irritating to the skin. That's the reason it's not like these like crazy essential oils can be really like dermal irritating to the skin. That's the reason it's not like these like crazy, like really scary things that happen. It's mostly just because they can cause skin irritation and because children have, you know, thinner, more delicate skin. That's why we should avoid them. But I think it's always important. Like, if anyone ever had a question about, like why is this essential oil on this list? Like, they can always reach out to me and I'm happy to share.
Speaker 2:Here's the case report. This is the reason why. Just be mindful of it, even like eucalyptus. Like eucalyptus it's okay for kids to use, but we just have to use it within a certain percentage. Like, we can still diffuse it for any age, but if we're going to be applying it topically, it's not an oil that we want to be, you know, sticking up the nose right Like don't pour a bottle down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so strong.
Speaker 2:And that's the other thing with kids too, always to be mindful of, like keeping essential oils out of reach of children and storing them, you know, on a shelf or a locked cabinet, because like they're beautiful and they smell good, like they're in these pretty little bottles, they smell good, mom's using them.
Speaker 2:She gets happy when she uses them. Like the first thing a child does when they grab an essential oil is they open it and they put it in their mouth Like they want to taste it because it smells good. So that's another thing just to be really mindful of with children, because accidents happen so fast. And thankfully, if you're purchasing from a really high quality essential oil brand, it should have the orifice reducer on the top, which is that little kind of plastic piece on the top that the essential oils drop out of. So that will help protect those oils within not to, you know, have this accidental like ingestion of the whole bottle, but even still, like you put a drop of like clove on your mouth and it's going to like burn right. So just make sure we store them appropriately away from small laundering hands, because accidents happen so fast.
Speaker 1:I always like to warn people too, because I think the inclination like let's say, you do like. I remember one time I was putting deep relief on my temples because I like felt a migraine coming on and then I accidentally got it in my eye. Let me tell you, nothing burns like some peppermint and wintergreen in your eye and the inclination that people have is to grab water and water will make it worse. So I always say milk, jojoba oil, organic oil, keep like a carrier oil and then put carrier oil on it, because water literally makes it worse. I've been there, I've done it. I don't be like me.
Speaker 1:So now I always tell everyone make sure you always have a carrier oil around and don't get it in your eyes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point to bring up about water and essential oils. That I feel like a lot of people don't understand is that essential oils are hydrophobic, meaning that they're water repelling. They hate water. They will do everything they can to get away from water. It's kind of like you know mixing like vinegar and like oil, right, like if you're making a dressing, you know it's always going to float on the top. It's the same Like you got to shake it up to mix it, same with essential oils, and then eventually they're going to separate. So if you add a drop of essential oil to water, it's just going to float on the top, no matter what you do. You can stir it up with a spoon and yeah, then it's just going to go right back to the top or like adhere to the sides of the glass.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people, especially when they're first starting to use essential oils, they're like oh, I know, they're great in the bath, so I'm just going to add, you know, 10 drops of lavender to the bath. Well, what will happen is that that essential oil then will just float on the top of the bath water. So when you get in the bath, then that essential oil is going to oh, there's someone to help me. It's like they're starving and they're trying to get out. They're drowning, you know. So they'll just quickly adhere to the skin, which in some cases it's okay because you're basically applying essential oils, but at the same time it can cause adverse reactions and irritation and sensitivities.
Speaker 2:My pediatrician, when I first started using essential oils years ago, she's like I used to put lavender in my bath but it made me really itchy after and I'm like well, how did you do it? Like, how did you? Oh, I just put a couple of drops in the bath. I'm like, no, like you have to dilute it appropriately. So if you're adding it to the bath, you can mix it with a little bit of like Castile soap or unscented bubble bath or bath gel and then put it in the water.
Speaker 2:Or you could add it with, like carrier oil. So yeah, even if you add it with carrier oil and put it in the bath, it'll still float on top because it's, you know, oil and water. But at least when you get in then it'll be diluted. I actually really like bath oils because it's a great way to like smell the essential oils, but then when they're mixed with that calendula oil or whatever carrier oil you're using. When it soaks up to the skin like your skin gets so soft, it feels so good, really moisturizing. So there's like definitely safe ways to use them.
Speaker 1:I love that. I do salt, I put it in my Epsom salt baths and I always let it kind of sit and absorb and then I put the salt, the Epsom salt, in the bath. That's how I do it. Okay, so let's talk about some science, because there is some cool science going on. One of them I shared far and wide that you recently shared was about a study from Frontiers in Neuroscience that was talking about diffusing essential oils overnight and cognition. Can you talk a little bit about that one?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this is like a really new study that I feel like turned a lot of heads, which I love when these studies come out and do this, because then people are like there's some interest. Even my neighbors texted me and they're a little bit. They're older neighbors in their like older sixties and they're like, did you see the study? Like it's just so funny, Like we're going to start doing this now, which makes me really excited to just see people excited about essential oils. So yeah, it was just published in July in the Journal of Frontiers in Neuroscience, which is a pretty good research journal, and it was a small study. So I will always say that it was only 46 participants, but that doesn't mean that we can, like you know, throw it out the window because it was just a small study. That just means that it may open up doors for bigger studies, especially because these results were so compelling.
Speaker 2:So they had these 46 volunteers ages 60 to 85. And basically they diffused essential oils, seven different essential oils, one of them each a night for two hours. They only diffused them for two hours. So they had I'm trying to remember the essential oils there was lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, rosemary, orange and rose. May have been missing one, but they alternate which essential oil they use, which I thought was really interesting, because a lot of these studies just will focus on just like one essential oil or like a blend of just two essential oils. So it was kind of cool that the results were this even though they alternated which single essential oil they used every single night and they did this for six months and the control group? They still had them diffused, but they had like distilled water in their essential oil bottle, so they were basically just humidifying there in a way, they weren't really doing anything.
Speaker 2:But what was crazy is that after the six months, they did a standard memory test and the volunteers in the essential oil group showed a 226. Like I first I read this and I was like 226? Like that has to be an error, because it's such a huge number, right. So they had 226% increase in cognitive performance compared to the adults that slept with no essential oils. What's really cool, though, so that's like whoa, like compelling, right. But what's really cool is that they did an MRI, like neuroimaging, then, and they found that the aromatherapy exposed to volunteers had a better integrity of the brain pathway that connects the memory part of the brain, where hippocampus is, to our prefrontal cortex, which is important for, like, decision-making and problem-solving comprehension, rational thinking. So there was like this functional change within the brain after doing this, after only diffusing for two hours at the beginning of the night, which I thought was just so cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, when we think about how our sense of smell, as we get older especially, will start to decline and when our sense of smell, as we get older especially, will start to decline, and when our sense of smell declines it's definitely sometimes indicative of just neurodegenerative disease dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. That we could potentially use essential oils to maybe strengthen our memory and cognition as we get older is like really exciting and it's never been studied in this realm before. Like people have studied essential oils, just like you know they've done studies where you smell essential oil, then you do a memory test and it shows that there's this difference. But using them in the way that they're diffusing them every night and showing that there's like this functional change within the brain through MRI neuroimaging is pretty fascinating and compelling. So I'm hopeful this will open up the door for a really large study on this.
Speaker 1:I sent that to everyone that I know. I think you're right. The MRI piece, I think, is what? Like, I have a lot of friends in the medical field that we talk about this stuff all the time and their opinion is, like, I have a lot of friends in the medical field that we talk about this stuff all the time and their opinion is, yeah, essential oils are great for things like relaxation and stress, right Like they kind of. I think now people are more on board with well, yes, use it for things that are like peppermint has that menthol constituent, use it for pain, you know, use it for these things.
Speaker 1:But to go beyond that has been a stretch, especially in the Western medicine, and to be able to show this very black and white, this MRI, I mean my mind was totally blown and I was like you, I was giddy.
Speaker 1:I was so excited because I feel like this opens up a whole new frontier of research, because one of the reasons why I think it's taken so long for essential I mean I have a lot of opinions about our medical system but one of the reasons why I think it's taken so long for essential, I mean I have a lot of opinions about our medical system. But one of the reasons why I think it is so hard is because research costs a lot of money and essential oils. While you have brands, you can't really patent a plant. I mean pharmaceutical companies do where they take the plant and they take the constituents and then they go make it in a lab and then they like patent it. But essential oils don't bring in the kind of money in the medical community and so to get research funded is not easy because you don't have these pharmaceutical companies backing the research and paying for this research. If we had that, I have a feeling that science that we would have on it would be incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. We're working on a clinical trial with a hospital that I'm working with now and just getting the funding has been rough. It's all anonymous donors. There's no grants for essential oil research. I mean, it's pretty rare to find one unless it's a specific brand that is helping fund it, but very difficult and even then you don't really want a specific brand funding it. Helping fund it, but very difficult, and even then you don't really want a specific brand funding it because there's a conflict of interest, yeah, ethical issue. So yeah, it's, it's, it's rough, but you know there's been, there's. So this isn't the first study that has shown like changes within the brain. There's so many studies that have shown, you know, increasing deep, slow wave sleep, just changing brainwave composition influencing neurotransmitters.
Speaker 1:There's so many studies that have shown this as well. Oh, there's thousands. There really is. One of them you shared recently is on essential oils and dreams. I think it was the Journal of Sleep Research and it was like good dreams, bad dreams, right. How scent influences dreams. Share a little bit about that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just love this topic because I feel like previously we've always thought that aromas only impact us if we're consciously aware of them. So when we're sleeping we're not consciously aware of them, right, we're sleeping. So previously people always thought, oh, it doesn't matter, then it's not going to influence us at all. But this study came out that showed that, yes, if we're diffusing aromas into our room at nighttime, it can impact our dreams, which I've experienced. This I mean, there's so many people I'm sure you probably have experienced this in the past. I don't know if it's because we sleep just so much more soundly, so we dream more, we experience, you know, greater REM stage.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure exactly how that works, but the study showed they had a continuous airstream of just two different olfactory stimuli in two different groups. So one group had hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs. I would be really upset if I made it into that group, I can't imagine. And then the other group they used phenyl ethyl alcohol, which smells like roses. And then they also had a control group without any stimulation, and they found that the smell of roses yielded more positively toned dreams and that rotten eggs yielded more negatively toned dreams, which to me that completely makes sense, but it kind of just validated by science. So it just kind of shows that the emotional tone of our dreams can be influenced by, you know, olfactory stimuli.
Speaker 1:You know, when I read that study, what I thought was well, that makes total sense to me, because our sense of smell is meant to protect us. Right? You smell something sour, you know not to drink it, you know like our smell tells us nope, that's bad, don't touch that, don't drink that, don't consume that. And so it makes total sense to me that if you're smelling rotten eggs, then in your brain, in your dreams, it's kind of like no, get away, don't eat the egg. It makes sense. Okay, let's touch on one more that I think has made the rounds, and I answer more scientific questions about this one thing than pretty much anything else.
Speaker 1:When parents are looking into starting to use essential oils in their home, and that is is lavender an endocrine disruptor? I've heard it's an endocrine disruptor they send me these studies which are not studies, and so I've had to do a lot of explaining and then, luckily, the let me find it the Journal of Pediatrics came out with an actual legit study on lavender, on the impacts on kids, and so I was really happy that this happened, because I think it really put to rest, kind of some of the things that were happening behind the scenes, and in my opinion. This is one of those things where when you read a headline or you read something, you really have to dig, and I always tell people who funded the study what was the actual study, what were the parameters of the study. And in the case of the original studies where they said yes, we think lavender is an endocrine disruptor and can cause this, you know, pre-puberty I forget the name of the actual Gynecomastia.
Speaker 1:That's it Thank you that they took a look at kids who were using products that were scented with lavender and as people went back, you know later and scientists were asking for the data on it, they found that in fact there weren't essential oils in the products at all. They were scented with synthetic lavender, which we all know. Synthetic lavender is probably full of all kinds of things like phthalates and other undercurrent disruptors. So again I'm like well, of course a synthetic scent has undercurrent disruptors, but it was too late. By that time it had already not only hit the news and social media and it had gone everywhere. But I have to tell you, so disappointingly, I have read multiple research articles since then on this topic that refer back to the original research and have stated yes, in fact, lavender is an endocrine disruptor, and then cited that original study. So it's getting bled into the future research that's being done. So let's talk about this particular, the latest, the Journal of Pediatrics, and what that showed and what that said.
Speaker 2:It's funny because when you look at those original case reports, there's so many rebuttal letters to the editor to get it removed, so it removed, so it just. It just makes you wonder, like what's the underlying motive behind this all I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's just it's. It's interesting, why are those journals keeping them? And so why haven't there been like a retraction? I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:No, no one has time to go back and look at the studies in detail. Like nobody, like even my, like pediatrician they just hear something and they're like, oh okay, there's okay, They'll look at the app, check. Oh okay. And then they're like, okay, well, that's, that's. Yeah, we probably shouldn't use lavender.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my friends are like. My pediatrician has told me not to use lavender on my son because it'll give him boobs. It'll give him boobs and I'm like, oh my God.
Speaker 2:Not to be mean to those pediatricians, but they I mean they they don't have time to like look at all these studies or they hear it from a coworker that they trust and then they don't see the updated research. So, oh, it's so hard and you're so right. Like the past, they weren't even studies, case reports, like if this was an issue, we'd be seeing it. Like so many kids use lavender essential oil, we'd be seeing this so much that we would have to stop it. So it's just funny, these older case reports, they are very small sample sizes three kids, three kids, yeah, or maybe four in that one in 2019, which is interesting, because even in that study no-transcript, I mean they didn't even mention until the end that one of those participants, one of those case reports, had a fraternal twin that didn't experience any of this. So I don't think we. So what this really means is we haven't really talked about that part. What it actually means is that these earlier case reports were potentially showing a risk of prepubertal gynecomastia, which that word, I know it just flows off the tongue so beautifully. But what that means is that they had enlarged breast tissue. And what's really interesting, all those studies, or not even studies. I don't like to even say studies, they're case reports. They're super, super small. So they have, you know, three to four case reports total in each of them. One of them, the 2007 one, had a fraternal twin that did not experience any prepubertal gonocomastia at all, which they don't state. To the way end of it, like there's so many issues with these studies in general, like you know, two of the girls in 2019 still experienced early puberty. Even after removal of the products. They found that they you know the lavender containing soap didn't actually contain lavender pure essential oil. Just like kind of, like you said, there's just so many issues.
Speaker 2:But finally, you know, after all these rebuttal letters and just this, I feel like uproar. There was this beautiful study that just came out in 2022. So a new study, but really like the gold standard study when it comes to looking at is there a potential risk? And it was the first epidemiological study done to determine, like, if there's a risk with these essential oils, are they potential endocrine disruptors? In particular, do they cause gynecomastia, this enlarged breast tissue? So this is really the most direct and relevant evidence to see if there's associations for risk and disease, and it was a cross-sectional study. There was 556 children in it and they showed there was no additional risk of prepubertal gynecomastia or any other endocrine disorders for children who are regularly exposed to lavender or tea tree essential oils, which I feel like this kind of like. Is the judge putting the stamp on it and being like, okay, that's the end of that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Mic drop, stop sharing, stop. It's like spreading. I don't like using the word misinformation, because I think people should be able to say whatever they want to say and that's how we have good scientific rhetoric. But, yeah, you have one set of case studies that is. There's so many things wrong with it.
Speaker 1:It was so circumstantial. I wouldn't even call it science. It was literally just an explanation of, oh, these kids are using products that have a lavender scent in them and then they also happen to have these health issues, without taking into consideration their diet, their genetics, their background, their lifestyle, anything. And then you published that. And then people were like, oh my gosh, these kids that had these health problems, they used a scented lavender product. And then you have this, like you said, gold standard, legitimate, published, peer-reviewed study that was like, actually, kids that are regularly using these products are at no higher risk and where we don't see this endocrine disruption. So I share this issue a lot with people because it is a concern that has spread far and wide. So thank you for the explanation and saying words I can't say.
Speaker 2:I can't pronounce. I can always tell if something was just like published in the news about it, because I'll get like a ton of messages about it as well. It's just I don't know. People often refer to it and it's not even just this study. I mean, there's been in vitro studies. There's been animal model studies that have also shown that lavender is not like a estrogenic agonist. You know, in 2000. 13, they did like a ureotrophic assay with rats and they used really, really high doses of lavender essential oil and they found that it didn't statistically induce like uterine weight, which it just correlates with impacting estrogen. So they showed, you know, it's not an estrogenic agonist at all. But people just keep referring back to these case reports that really are extremely flawed and have their issues. But thankfully we have this great study that was just recently done in 2022.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whoever funded that. Thank you, Appreciate it. Yeah super helpful. So what do you? What's like coming up? What is what is on the horizon for essential oil research? What are you most excited about right now?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So I watched the clinical trials like a hawk. That's just like the end of the day. You know, people are like watching Netflix. Now I am like you can tell that I just love what I do. So I'm always reading what the latest research was just published that day, like if there's a study that came out, like I know about it. Like I just love reading the research. But I also love looking at the clinical trials and, oh gosh, I've been watching this one like a hawk. They finally just completed the trial in June, which means that hopefully the published study will be coming any day now.
Speaker 2:But I talked about this like a year ago, about this preliminary study. So I'm always really interested in anything done at bedside in clinical settings, because that's just where my heart is and it's just if something shows in a hospital that it's helpful for someone, that's amazing, because that's a super high area of stress, that's when we're outside of our routine. If that can show benefits, then what amazing benefits we'll get within our homes, right? So I always get really excited about the clinical settings. But this study was done at the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh and they started it in January 2020 at the Presbyterian Shadyside Hospitals, and it was for patients undergoing total hip replacement and those that were in the active group that were showing that they were anxious about the surgery. They used, obviously, like a grading system to show how anxious they were prior to surgery, but those that were in the active group actually received like a Roma tab Kind of talked about that earlier a little bit. It's just a little tab that we stick on their patient gown with lavender and peppermint essential oil, and what's cool about this study, though, which I thought is just so awesome? It's about a hundred patients in the preliminary study anyways, but they showed that they had a greater decrease in anxiety in the first 48 hours, but they also found that those that were in that active group the aromatherapy group had a 50% lower opioid use than the placebo and the control group, so they used 50% less pain medication, which I know.
Speaker 2:Anesthesiologists I work with a lot of anesthesiologists, and I know they're like, yes, because they don't want to be the drug pushers. They want the patient to thrive without this. You know chance of addiction, without all those side effects that come with it. You know constipation and nausea and all of that. So to think that you know something that a patient can smell can potentially reduce opioid use by 50% is awesome, amazing, what a gift, yeah, yeah. So they presented this at the European Society of Anesthesiology last year as a preliminary.
Speaker 2:So now I'm like I've been watching when it actually is published and like the final results of it, because this was like a really you know, eye opener. I know there's a study in France going on right now that they're recruiting to see if there's an influence of using aromatherapy inhalers so just basically like breathing an essential oil on the consumption of benzodiazepines and potentially reducing the use of benzodiazepines. So for those that are in medicine, benzodiazepines are used for anxiety, so this is like Ativan, valium, those kinds of medications, so could using an aromatherapy inhaler potentially reduce the consumption of those? It's kind of exciting to kind of watch. So those are kind of the big ones that I've been watching For those of you seeing this on video.
Speaker 1:I'm holding one of your inhalers. This is new to me and I've seen you talking about this, and one of the ways that I use my essential oils all the time is on focus. I have ADHD. I have, you know.
Speaker 1:I didn't know until I was an adult, but now, with kids being diagnosed, it's become a big part of like okay, how can I help myself focus when there's things I need to get done, when I'm not in that like hyper-focused state and I have a really busy job, a stressful job, plus I run a business, plus I have kids, plus I'd like to have a life and so balancing all of that and I diffuse bergamot, orange and vetiver when I'm working, when I have to do something and my brain is racing and I am like, no, I have to sit down and do this, I have to write this blog post, I have to record this podcast, or I have to write this you know, legislative review, which takes a lot of brain power.
Speaker 1:I need it and I can tell that when I turn it on and I kind of like, you know, take it in and I wait a couple of minutes and then I'm like, okay, and I can feel that it's easier for me to focus, so that I call that my focus blend. But now that you know I have this little fancy inhaler that has you know, I've been putting those drops on this inhaler and then I have this with me. Yeah, and it's been. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I like have this with me in my purse and I love this, and that's a good segue into what are some of the practical ways people can use essential oils, because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this being like, well, that's cool, all this is really cool, but what does it look like in my house? What does it look like on a regular basis? So let's just quickly run through so stress you know somebody who's feeling overly stressed maybe is having some anxious feelings. What are some of the best things they can do for that feelings? What are some of the best things they can do for that?
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Speaker 2:I think with essential oils we have to remember like we don't need to overcomplicate them. I feel like we tend to overcomplicate everything and then it almost like we overthink it and then that like paralyzes us and then we don't use it Right, like especially if we're stressed. When we're in a stress response, we don't even eat, we don't drink water, we have a hard time going to sleep, we don't take care of ourselves. So picking an essential oil is like oh, I don't even know what to pick, I don't even know how to use it, but we know it'll help us. But we can't even drink water when we're stressed. So don't overcomplicate it.
Speaker 2:Literally, grab an essential oil. It doesn't have to be this fancy product, I don't even need a diffuser. Like just grab it and smell it, open the bottle and smell it Like it's so simple, that's all it is. It's so simple. It's literally, you know, for our patients it's adding that drop to our gown. Or it's adding a drop of lavender to your pillow at nighttime, adding a drop to our gown. Or it's adding a drop of lavender to your pillow at nighttime, adding a drop to a cotton ball and having that near your desk and smelling it.
Speaker 1:I do that in the car. I like stuff a cotton ball, like, if I'm, I have a drive, if I, if I want to be awake like I'm, if I'm driving at night, I'll take a cotton ball and I'll put some peppermint drops on it and I'll stuff it in my air conditioning vent and I'm like, whew, wide awake. It's very energizing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, something like that. We don't need to complicate it. So if we're feeling stressed, just breathing it from the bottle If we have a diffuser, being proactive if you know you have a stressful day ahead of you. I'm a huge fan of this filling up the diffuser first thing in the morning with a calming blend, maybe a grounding blend. I'm a huge fan of this. Like filling up the diffuser first thing in the morning with like a calming blend, maybe, maybe a grounding blend. I love tree oil, so maybe for me it would be like black spruce and like lavender or bergamot. Bergamot is one of the best, especially because, like it can, sometimes it can make people feel sleepy and they use it for sleep. But I also feel like it's just so great for just like calming you, but also like uplifting you and some of my favorite studies are on Bergamot talking about, like anxiety and depression.
Speaker 1:Even there there's a lot of studies that show that uplifting, mood inducing properties that Bergamot has.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, bergamot's a great one. So just you know, putting the diffuser can help with stress, maybe adding a drop to your pillow at night, making like a linen spray or like a room spray. Using an aromatherapy inhaler like we talked about, which is basically essential oils just added onto a wick within, like a little tool that you smell, but it's something that's portable. You're not carrying around a bunch of liquids with you that you can just hold a couple inches below your nose and take slow, deep breaths, which helps you just automatically, like release tension, but also helps you just take deeper, fuller breaths, taking a moment to be more present, and it makes a huge difference, just that 30 seconds. I feel like inhalers, especially, are just gaining popularity because they're just an easy, safe way to use essential oils. Plus you're not safe way to use essential oils, plus you're not getting the photosensitive essential oils and worrying about them in the sun and all that. You can use bergamot in an inhaler easily.
Speaker 1:I do it in my hair too. I put a lot of bergamot in my hair because I find that even hours later I can smell my hair. And I can still smell it. My hair is a natural diffuser.
Speaker 2:Yes, yep, yep, because the hair is porous, so it will soak in aromatics and this is why, if you're by a campfire and the next day you smell it, you're like, oh, my hair still smells like campfire. Our hair works awesome as a diffuser and literally one drop is enough to put in your hair. I mean, some people put it at the top of their head to, like stimulate their hair growth.
Speaker 1:That's really popular right now is rosemary, so I've known about it for a long time, but now it's making the social media rounds. You know, putting on your second shampoo because most people who are using natural shampoos are having to like shampoo twice and just putting some rosemary into your shampoo and really giving yourself a scalp massage, is it like shows to increase the hair growth? I don't know if it's like a circulatory, like a blood circulation thing. I'm sure you could explain it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to stimulate healthy hair growth. Yeah, I mean, it's been shown as effective as Rogaine using rosemary in hair products. Such a good one, wow, okay everyone.
Speaker 1:Go get your rosemary. You can put it in your shampoo. I love that. Okay, so those are some practical uses. What about skincare?
Speaker 1:People are usually surprised because I test and review toxin-free products, because there's a lot of really amazing toxin-free products being sold and there's a lot of really crappy ones being sold. So I buy them all, I test them all, I check their ingredients, I work with brands and then I have a toxin-free shopping guide and so I have all these options, but I don't use any of them. I make my own face serums and it's so simple. I literally use jojoba as my base, I have some lavender, I have some geranium and I have some frankincense and if I'm feeling frisky I will add like a little bit of castor oil or maybe some helichrysum, or I love some myrrh in the winter.
Speaker 1:But I have been making my own face serums now for years and I have tested some amazing products. But I go back to making my own. Two reasons. One, I can control what's in it and exactly what's in it and it's so cost effective, like I can make a dropper bottle of an amazing, luxurious face serum even if I'm using like an expensive oil like blue tansy, versus buying the same one from a company that has pretty much the same ingredients for pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean skincare. Oh, oh, yes, absolutely. I will never like I make my own toners and face serums and like blemish controls masks, like I do it all with my own essential oils because it is so nice to be able to alter that too, depending on what's like going on with your skin. If you have more dry skin and you know the wintertime, maybe choosing more moisturizing essential oils and carrier oils. If you have a scar, like I had an accident last summer and I had this big scar on my face and it was awesome to use those cell regenerative essential oils on that scar frankincense, helichrysum and then rose hip oil just kind of help with that scar. They're awesome.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why essential oils are in so many skincare products. There's a reason why we see rose water, floral waters, as toners. There's entire skincare lines that are based on helichrysum. Like the entire skincare line is just helichrysum. Yeah, they're so great for skin and they're I mean a lot of essential oils that are great for the skin are derived from flowers, which are just really gentle on the skin. The skin loves flowers flower essential oils.
Speaker 1:Just make sure you dilute appropriately. Yes, yes, throw that in there. I do buy tallow. My friend Sarah Willamoon makes the best, cleanest tallow. I do in the winter, especially like add tallow, but that's it. I got my essential oils, my carrier oil, and then I got some tallow and I'm good to go. Yeah, okay, two more questions. One if you were on a desert island, or really, if you just had to make a choice, what are three essential oils that you would not live without?
Speaker 2:Oh, this is so hard, for sure I would pick a tree oil Like. So I would probably choose spruce, black spruce, or I like white spruce too, that's tough. Or like fir, like Douglas fir. I just I grew up on a Christmas tree farm so I have that memory set association with trees, but also they're so grounding. I would probably always choose lavender. That would be one of them, just because it does everything Swiss army knife of oil, yes, bug bites, skin calming, relaxing, hair growth, it's like everything it would help for. And then the last one is tough. I feel like I would probably choose something. It would be a toss-up between peppermint and eucalyptus. Oh gosh, I'd probably try to sneak them both in if I could, just because peppermint, you know. Yeah, I mean, they're both great for like easy intention. But then eucalyptus also has just that strong respiratory benefit I mean so does peppermint. It would be a tough call between those two.
Speaker 1:All right, you can have four, so I am looking at my favorite. I mean, I love everything you create, honestly, but when I teach my toxin free in three course to students who are trying to detox their life, one of the modules is on you know how to use essential oils in your home and I gift them this book every single student. I give them this book when they graduate, and so I love it's called Science of Essentials, which is you, that's what your company is called, and it's your best recipes. And this is just this little book that has. It's so simple. It has all of the best recipes, dilution guides. You even have like carrier oil guides, but then in tips and tricks.
Speaker 1:But you have yoga sprays. I love that. You have scented pine cone fire starters. That's what everybody's getting for Christmas from me, so be prepared. But bug off spray, carpet freshener, insect repellent guide, like hand cream. You know, massage oil. Everything you could ever want to save money and just like put together and DIY in your house is in this book. So tell everybody about your resources and your aromatherapy course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the best recipes I just wanted something handy to have that was like hold held all of my favorite recipes that were easy to make Like none of the recipes in that book are hard.
Speaker 2:Like all of them take maybe five minutes max to make. So that was actually the one of the second like recipe books that I made. So the first one I made was signs of essentials best blends, and I also I always was looking for like a coffee table style book that I could literally just flip through and find a blend to use for whatever's going on, instead of like overthinking and just staring at my oils and being like, oh, which which smells good together, like what would be helpful for calming. Like I always wanted like ideas. So I kind of just compiled all the recipes that I already shared on Instagram and put them into a book. So my best recipes has like over 300 essential oil blends that you can use, from everything from like sleep to stress, to allergies to headaches, to inhaler blends all in one book, to allergies to headaches, to inhaler blends all in one book. And I also released Science of Essentials, my big book, which is Big.
Speaker 1:Rabbit. I have this. I have a digital, I don't have it hard copy. It's so good. I feel like anybody who just got their first starter bundle of essential oils, or you just got some and you're into it, this book that you're about to explain. I feel like every beginner should have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So thank you for saying that. Yeah, the Science of Essentials the essential guide for using aromatherapy to promote health and healing. And I made it hardcover because I wanted to make sure that it would withstand people looking through it again and again and again for information. So years ago, when my husband and I were just kind of talking about what I was going to do in the future and I was like I should write a book and I'm like I don't know exactly what I would write it about, and he was like, write the book that you always wanted to read. And I was like, oh, I'm like, okay, and I know there's a lot of essential oil books out there, there's so many essential oil books, but I found that it was really hard to find one essential oil book that compiled both practical but also the science. It's for the people that are like tell me why I don't like the scent of this essential oil. Tell me why this essential oil is doing this to my body and making me feel so calm. Tell me why you know this essential oil is doing this to my body and making me feel so calm, like, tell me the science behind it. For the people that want to know the science.
Speaker 2:So this includes both the science, I mean, as far as like, why do we have memories and associations? What does it mean if we don't like the scent of essential oil but also like what to look for when purchasing essential oils, what essential oils to use for this, what are the top 10 essential oils that you would get if you were just starting and how to use them? Like about safety, pregnancy, pets, like this just kind of contains all the information in one book, but also in a way I feel like that is easy to understand and read, because a lot of science books I feel like are just, I mean, I love reading them but the average person is like that's like way over my head, like explain it in a way that I understand it. So that's kind of where the big science of essentials book kind of stemmed from. And then I also teach aromatherapy certification programs through the school for aromatic studies, which I have been like loving. It's a 14 week program and you have a course opening soon, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so right now I'm in the middle of one with 112 students from all across the world and I will be starting the next course. I only can do two a year because it's just, it's a lot for me to take on and I love it and I like to pour everything I have into those students because we have a student forum and there's a lot of questions and we meet every single week and then I, you know, we write case studies together and we make recipes together. So I will be enrolling again the end of January, so we'll be opening up again in February to hopefully be completed before the summer hits here in the Northern Hemisphere. So it's been so much fun. Oh, I just yeah, I love my students so much.
Speaker 1:I love it and you have such a gift and I think the reason why I always gravitated towards you for years I have followed you for years is because you remind me a little bit of me. You know, we're in these industries and we have these jobs and these interests and these talents where we understand these very complicated things that are happening behind the scenes. Talents where we understand these very complicated things that are happening behind the scenes and we are able to boil it down and make things really simple and then share them with everyone in a way that people can understand and appreciate and that they can help them take action. And you just do this so well. When I read that book, I just remember thinking everybody needs this book, like everybody, every single person. So I'm just so excited you were here.
Speaker 1:I know everyone is going to get so much out of this interview and I will put in the show notes links to your website, to your books that I love so much, and as well as your Instagram. I think that everybody should follow you. You are full of information and joy. You always show up on your social media with just the smile on your face and you can tell that you just love this so much and it really is infectious. So thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, we appreciate what you're doing too, Wendy. It's just, yeah, it's been so fun to connect and just share the love of essential oils for everyone.
Speaker 1:I'll have to have you back. We'll do this again. Yes, yes, okay, take care, ollie. You, my friend, have officially finished another episode of the detox dilemma podcast and, if you want more, head over to wendycatherinecom to get all the show notes and links to discount codes from our amazing partners. If you're looking for something specific to help you detox your home, make sure you check out my toxin-free shopping guide at toxinfreeshoppingguidecom. It's organized by category and makes detoxing your home simple. I'll see you next week and until then, I hope your life is getting just a little less toxic.