Aromatherapy : description and applications.

Also known under the term of "essential oil", the essence of the oil is extracted by distillation. It's a specific technique extracting the chemical properties of that oil in order to be used for treatment.

While there is an arm of aromatherapy doing business with the relaxation features of certain scents, the main focus of the practice is on applying oils to cure disease, and not on creating scents to reduce stress!

This is because the word "aromatherapy" is a little ambiguous term ; an entire branch of industry has evolved around this misunderstanding.

For instance, In United States as in a few other countries around the world, aromatherapy has never been recognized as a possible disease treatment procedure.

Because the active principles of essential oils are in a very concentrated form, it's important to know that they mustn't be used without basic care. That's one of the reasons why in France, some of them cannot be used without a doctor's prescription.

Actually, aromatherapy could be eventually defined as the use of the chemical properties of the oils, and their supposed ability to cure disease, by applying them directly to the patient, as opposed to the strength of their scent.

In disagreement with Aromatherapy

Some experts say that apart reducing stress in nice smell rooms, aromatherapy mustn't be considered having medical value at all. They say that until now, no serious experiments have been made in order to backup what practising therapists assert about the positive result of their treatments.

When most of  the physicians talk about aromatherapy, they rank it as an alternative medicine like acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy etc... However, many therapists affirm that their treatments are very effective and that they often get great results with them.

Because there is no money to be made if conducting a truly scientific study (it's impossible to patent an oil treatment), there will be a very little interest in objectively researching something about oils, treatments and their effects.

Essential oils are, in their most basic form, chemicals extracted from different parts of a few plants.  As chemicals, they can cause a chemical reaction when they come into contact with parts of the body. Because, in order to treat diseases, the practice of aromatherapy often involves combining essential oils into mixtures, there is a risk that if a therapist creates an incorrect mixture or if using this mixture that a patient is unknowingly allergic to, the results can be fatal.

With an alarming number of new therapists popping up these last years,  and since the principal practise, in order to treat disease, consists to apply chemical mixtures on the human body, American medical authorities think there is a danger to aromatherapy. That's why they plan to take a closer look at it as the practice becomes more and more popular here and in other Western Countries.