Lavender Blue

Ask anyone on the street what single oil they would name in association with aromatherapy and they would state: "Lavender". There are many, many varieties of lavender. There is a lot of confusion about the names, and gardeners have their own names for some of them. Therapists only use 3 to 4 varieties in treatment, so I'll concentrate on these.

In my own practice, I only use True lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), as well as the lesser known Lavendin (Lavandula x intermedia) and Spike Lavender (Lavandula spica/latifolia). These three are related to each other - Lavendin is a hybrid of the other two. True lavender likes to grow high up in the mountains, and the other two will grow happily on the lower slopes. French Lavender, the ones with the 'ears' (Lavandula stoechas) also produces an essential oil, but I find it is very strong and there are other things I can use instead.

True lavender is soft and sweet in its fragrance. It's very gentleness soothes us and sends us to sleep. My children do sleep deeper when I burn lavender in their room - I only use it if they are very restless and excited, have a snuffly nose (with Ravensara or Myrtle) or a drop on the pillow for the older one if she has a headache. I put it on neat on the back of my skull if I have a mild headache, but if it is a strong tension or flu headache you might need to massage it vigorously in the area top of the foot between the big toe and second toe. It is good for chronic grumpiness, maybe I need an automatic spray of it in the morning! Hmm. I'll make up a lavender flower water spritzer to wake me and my skin, and maybe I will have a calmer kind of morning! And it will help with spots or the time of the month. I also use it to clean scrapes and grazes and it helps calm the person who has fallen down.

If I had to choose one First Aid oil for my kit, it would be this lavender. It has a broad spectrum of uses and is gentle on the skin. I keep a special bottle in the kitchen for burns I get from cooking - hot oven, spitting oil. It stops blisters and scars from forming. It is brilliant for healing wounds and clearing inflammation: cooling skin that is red and hot. Like sunburn! Or a sprained ankle, or a hot arthritic knee (with Lemon Eucalyptus). If you are caught out without the Tiger Balm, lavender will help with insect bites. I always put lavender in an eczema blend to sooth the skin - and use lavender with ravensara and geranium to cool itchy chickenpox and prevent from scarring.

The other two do a lot of the same things - lavender isn't only for sedation - it is a balancing oil - which means that if you are hyper: it calms you, and if you are listless or fatigued: it will energise you. Lavendin is that little bit more energising, so I would select it if I was tired but needed to function clearly. I would select it in a blend for aching muscles. If my client had to go to work with a cold I would choose Lavendin, so they would not get too sleepy!

For someone with a seriously bad cold I would move a notch up to Spike Lavender - it has a stronger action on the Lungs and better for infection in that area. I choose it for someone who gets so tense that they get depressed and make themselves ill. It is very heart calming but vigorous. And I use it a lot in muscular blends. It does smell a lot like minyak angin! That is perhaps from its camphor content, which has that familiar decongesting smell.

A lot of the time I have a bigger bottle of L.angustifolia than anything else in my collection. Sometimes I take it for granted, it is easy to use and blends with so many things, often harmonising the mixture and making it more pleasant. For its gentle power and breadth, none can match it. We would be very much the poorer if we could not have lavender in our toolkit.

The Soothing Chamomiles

Matricaria recutita © 2000 Joseph Dougherty/ecology.org.

There are two kinds of chamomile commonly used in aromatic treatment. German chamomile, matricaria recutita pictured above - and Roman Chamomile, anthemis nobilis. The flowers look almost identical, but you can tell the oils apart as they are different. As you can see, they belong to the Daisy family Asteraceae, whose bright-faced flowers like bellis perennis dot English lawns and are ruthlessly eradicated by lawn purists; or dandelions, which are even tougher to get rid of.

Both Chamomiles are cooling and soothing. They calm and induce sleep. They help with pain in the nerves and muscles. They are supportive to the liver, encouraging its detoxification function and regulating the Qi. Both relax the diaphragm and the abdomen, helping with shallow, anxious breaths and nervous cramps. Both ease the frustration held in the solar plexus when we have fixed expectations which are difficult for the unpredictable world to fulfill.

German Chamomile is a thick blue colour, pungent and viscous. It is rich in Azulene, a monoterpene chemical which only turns blue in the distillation process and bisabolol, an anti-inflammatory agent. Its smell is sweet and earthy with a bitter tone. I reach for German Chamomile in creams and gels to heal the skin: to cool red eruptive rashes, or inflamed edges of wounds and grazes (not on the open wound itself, it would sting!). It has both sedated my toothache - and my anxiety in the dentist chair from having two wisdom teeth out this year - and aided in swift healing after. German Chamomile helped to cool the inflammation of the lining of my lung after my bad bout with the viral flu. It eased the pain of the torn muscles in my ribs from the coughing!

Roman Chamomile is lighter, more appley, still with a bittersweet bite. I use this with children, to sooth their nights, calm their tummies, wash their stings, stop the itching for chicken pox, in their ears for ear infections. As for the rest of us, massage into tense muscles, apply to the abdomen for pms and period pains, stress and insomnia. Lovely in the bath after prolonged exposure to relatives during the holiday season.

The chamomiles blend well with lavender and geranium, also jasmine and rose. For a first aid blend, mix with helichrysum (for bruises) and ravensara (anti-infectious).

These are two oils I always carry with me in my tool box.

Put some sunshine in your life with Bergamot

That hint of citrus in your Earl Grey, that's Bergamot. Essential oil is extracted from the rind of this fruit by cold pressing. Well, ideally it is, certainly if you are a therapist it should be, but perhaps the flavourings people are not going to be so picky.

The best Bergamot should come from Italy - Calabria, in particular, on the toe of the boot shaped country. Support these small family growers by choosing whole cold pressed essential oil from Italy because many perfumers and other big users of Bergamot have turned to synthetics or extracted the Bergaptene from it. What is bergaptene? It is the component which has been identified as causing photosensitisation of the skin. This means if you have bergamot on your skin and you sunbathe, it may cause your skin to burn much faster.

The controversial mistake that manufacturers made in the 70's was to actually add bergamot to sun "protection" cream. Oops. Opposite effect than intended, resulting in bad name for bergamot. So now you can actually buy it without this component in case you are worried your client may go out in the sun and sue you for sunburn. However, education is important and I believe that simply informing your client of these facts, and advising them not to go on a sunbed directly after treatment is the key. Or to bathe small children in it and then let them play in the sun. Perhaps I wouldn't use Bergamot in Malaysia for my skin or on beach holidays, but I'd certainly inhale the gorgeous sunshine scent of it because it would make me happy. And I would keep it whole, no fiddling with the bits, please.

Use it carefully and respectfully, and you will be rewarded with an amazingly relaxing oil - uplifting and regulating to the body. Of course, it comes into its own in cold, grey, snowbound times - or when your soul still feels that way, even if the sun is shining outside. It is an excellent digestive, and good for bloated conditions. I use it for PMS and I've used it to treat cystitis and insomnia. People with knots in their necks also benefit from a dose of bergamot to remind them to breathe in and find a summer meadow to lounge in, even if it will have to be in their mind. Bergamot is uniquely calming, more so than the other citruses, so it is ideal for knotty people. It is under the Wood Element and helps sooth irritable Liver clients.

Safety notes: Always dilute your essential oils. 6 drops in 10 ml of base oil like sunflower is a safe dose for adults. Bergamot is safe for pregnant mothers after the first trimester - during the first trimester, inhaling it is great for dealing with so many hormonal changes. I would use orange and mandarin for children instead, as they have tender skin which burns easily. Bergamot always seems to float in the bath and sting the skin, so dilute it properly in a dispersant or unscented bubble bath before putting it into the water. Some literature suggests full fat milk, but I think that is not enough. Swish it very thoroughly.

Sweet Ylang Ylang

A graceful, exotic name from the Fillipines. A sensual, sweet and earthy fragrance. Ylang ylang embodies the energy of the Sacral chakra, associated with pleasure, love, passion and sexuality. Svadisthana is another name for the Chakra - the dwelling place of the Self - where the spark of our creativity is first lit.

Relaxing and uplifting, ylang ylang connects and balances heart to mind. In TCM, it cools the anxiety which can flare along the Heart Meridian, calms Heart-Fire which can be seen as a red tip to the tongue and tonifies the Heart-Yin. Soothing restlessness and insomnia, it regulates the heartbeat. Heart meridian is of the Fire element. It runs from the inside of the wrist to the armpit. Putting a 6 drops of ylang ylang in 10ml oil is very calming stroked along this pathway. Halve the dosage for children, they like it when restless and it helps them to sleep.

I use ylang ylang to remember joy. It was one of the first two oils I ever bought - the other one was Bergamot. In my practice, I save using ylang ylang for someone so overwhelmed by their mind they have forgotten their body, which is their vehicle in this world and needs to be looked after. Or I use it simply for someone who needs some more joy in their life. Ylang ylang is also good for the stressed out student, for both those reasons! Use it with moderation because the heady scent can quickly become headache-y if used too often. It blends well with the citrus oils - grapefruit, sweet orange, bergamot, lemongrass. It also goes well with the earthy oils - sandalwood, vetiver, patchouli, spikenard. It is kind, cooling and soothing to the skin, good for complexions which get red or flush easily.

When using essential oils, it is good to take a break from them. Even I try to have a day off - or a weekend off , if I am using them consistently. If I am using them for treatment and I have a dose 3 x a day - I usually do weekdays and break on the weekends before resuming the dose. If I need to continue the treatment, I would mix a totally different blend for the next phase. If you have them for the occasional bath, this is not the case. We are surrounded by scent everywhere we go - much of it synthetic and chemical, a good bit of it pollution. Our noses and systems become very overloaded, and this sensitises us and makes us allergic to many things. Using too much of anything can make us sensitive to it - so to prevent myself from ever becoming sensitised to essential oils - I use them carefully and with respect, when I need them. I enjoy them fully and follow the adage, "Less is more."

Frankincense, Acupuncture and the Individual Prescription

Frankincense resin and the tree

My favourite essential oil is distilled from Frankincense resin. You can imagine its sweet, calming, heady smell. Frankincense has been used for many religious rituals, it stills the mind for meditation. One of my clients, a lapsed catholic, said that once he had got over the fact that it reminded him of priests, he then liked it very much! I was using a combination of Frankincense and Cardamom for his Spleen at the time. Frankincense is both an Earth oil and a Metal one. It's sweetness nourishes the earth but there is a quality to it which makes us breathe deeply and strengthen the Lungs, which is a metal element quality. Being an earth oil, it helps the mind be calm - which makes it an ideal oil for exams and anxiety. I get a lot of comfort from Frankincense - it makes me stop when I am in a stressed and hectic place, it helps me to look from a higher perspective and let go of the little niggly details, it's sweetness warms me and reminds me to also breathe in the sweetness of life.

Frankincense is a great wound healer and famous cosmetic element in skincare and anti-ageing creams. It is often mentioned in the same breath as Cleopatra, well..and also embalming! It's great, especially if you have dry, irritable skin - it can be soothing and hydrating.

I am using Frankincense and Roman Chamomile for cough at the moment. Frankincense for its Lung strengthening and soul soothing properties - Roman Chamomile for its antispasmodic effect on muscles (relieves spasm - a cough is like an involuntary spasm of the muscles) and its very calming effect. I've put them in a base oil of St John's Wort - a lovely red rich herbal oil (made by soaking the chopped herb in sunflower or olive oil). It has anti-inflammatory properties and is soothing to skin - but don't go sunbathing in it as it has the potential to make the skin more sensitive to the sun. This blend is right for me, because of the kind of cough I have, my emotional state and the fact I don't live in a very sunny country at the moment. It won't cure just any kind of cough. Aromatherapists like me believe very strongly in the Individual Prescription - the blend has to be crafted for you and your immediate situation. No two persons blending the same recipe will result in exactly the same smell - this is known as an energetic signature - a theory that the person who handblends for you puts a little of their energy into the blend which makes it unique. There, a little aromatherapy mystique for everyone.

My friend Hux used to wander around Borneo as a young man with his acupuncture needles, I must get the full story from him sometime. He has just returned to practice after a break of 10 years - he says himself he doesn't know why - as we have been all asking him this because he is so good at it. Now I don't particularly like the needles myself, no no. Only Hux could persuade me, as he is very open minded and also trained in Tui Na (Chinese Massage) and agreed to put the blend on me as well as the needles. Here is a picture (yes, this is my actual hand):

Hux has put the needles in the Lung Meridian - Lung 9 and 10. He also put them in lots of other spots but we don't need pictures of those too! I felt like a pincushion. Then he also twanged them! I could feel the deep swirling and tingling sensations go through the channels. This is the first time I have been able to look at the needles without flinching - and take a picture! Perhaps it is also a testimony about how brave blogging has made me. Let's hope I get better soon - with a little help from my friends!