Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy, commonly associated with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), is the use of volatile liquid plant materials, known as essential oils (EOs), and other aromatic compounds from plants for the purpose of affecting a person's mood or health. more...

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Aromatherapy is a generic term that refers to any of the various traditions that make use of essential oils sometimes in combination with other alternative medical practices and spiritual beliefs. It has a particularly Western currency and persuasion. Medical treatment involving aromatic scents may exist outside of the West, but may or may not be intended by the term 'aromatherapy'.

History

The word was first used in the 1920s by French chemist René Maurice Gattefossé, who devoted his life to researching the healing properties of essential oils after a lucky accident in his perfume laboratory. In the accident, he lit his arm on fire and thrust it into the nearest cold liquid, which happened to be a vat of lavender oil. Immediately he noticed surprising pain relief, and instead of requiring the extended healing process he had experienced during recovery from previous burns--which caused redness, heat, inflammation, blisters, and scarring--this burn healed remarkbly quickly, with minimal discomfort and no scarring.

Main branches

The main branches of aromatherapy include:

Home aromatherapy (self treatment, perfume & cosmetic use); Clinical aromatherapy (as part of pharmacology and pharmacotherapy); Aromachology (the psychology of odors and their effects on the mind);

Materials

Some of the materials employed include:

Essential oils: oils that are usually expensivedistillation (e.g. eucalyptus oil) or expression (grapefruit oil). However, the term is also occasionally used to describe fragrant oils extracted from plant material by any solvent extraction.; Absolutes: Fragrant oils extracted primarily from flowers or delicate plant tissues through solvent or supercritical fluid extraction (e.g. rose absolute). The term is also used to describe oils extracted from fragrant butters, concretes, and enfleurage pommades using ethanol.; Phytoncides: Various volatile organic compounds from plants that kill microbes. Many terpene-based fragrant oils and sulfuric compounds from plants in the genus \"Allium\" are Phytoncides, though the latter are likely less commonly used in aromatherapy due to their disagreeable smells.; Herbal distillates or hydrosols: The aqueous by-products of the distillation process (e.g. rosewater). There are many herbs that are used to make herbal distillates and they have culinary uses, medicinal uses and skin care uses. Common herbal distillates are rose, lemon balm and chamomile.; Infusions: Aqueous extracts of various plant material (e.g. infusion of chamomile); Carrier oils: Typically oily plant base triacylglycerides that are used to dilute essential oils for use on the skin (e.g. sweet almond oil);

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