About Essential Oils

Essential oils are an excellent alternative to the harmful artificial fragrances that are used today in most perfumes, room sprays and some cosmetics. In addition, they can be used as home remedies for various ailments and should therefore not be missing from any medicine cabinet.

What are essential oils?

Essential oils are extracted from many different parts of plants. These can be flowers or leaves, but also barks, roots or resins. By the way, they are not ordinary oils and therefore do not leave any unsightly greasy stains.

The essential oils are the plant scents - captured in liquid form. This liquid dissolves instantly as soon as the essential oil comes into contact with air. The oil dissipates and the fragrance remains, but only for a short time before it too disappears into the ether. Therefore, always close your bottles with essential oils very carefully.

Essential oils contain the concentrated life force of the whole plant. They have a direct effect on the brain and can positively influence both physical and psychological processes in the human body. Essential oils are also versatile, and are not only suitable for the aroma lamp, but also for relaxing massage oils, fragrant herbal and flower baths, healing poultices, inhalations and much more.

How is essential oil produced?

Most essential oils are extracted using steam distillation. This process involves temperatures of up to 70 degrees, as in the case of  Stannary Hills Certified Organic Tea Tree Oil. Another method is cold pressing, which is a very gentle production method - compared to distillation - as no heat is used. Nowadays, however, only a few plants are cold-pressed, such as citrus peels, to obtain lemon, lime or orange oil.

How do you recognise good quality essential oils?

When buying essential oils, you should make sure that they are 100 percent pure essential oils. If the label does not clearly indicate 100 percent pure quality, the oil has been diluted and possibly also scented with synthetic fragrances. Of course, these oils do not produce the same effect as pure essential oils.

Good quality essential oils are derived from plants that are either wild-collected or certified organic, as at Stannary Hills Farm. Plants that grow up in a healthy environment (i.e. free from pesticides, weedkillers and artificial fertilisers) are strong and healthy plants can pass on their life energy to humans in the form of healing essential oils.

Of course, high-quality essential oils have their price. However, this is off-set by the fact that only a few drops of this oil are needed. Always check where the oil comes from and trust smaller local brands, such as Stannary Hills Organic Produce, because the controlled and certified organic cultivation ensures the quality of the oil.

How long have essential oils been used?

Even in ancient times, people knew about the healing properties of essential oils. The ancient Egyptians associated purity, divinity and power with the scents of aromatic medicinal plants. To be close to the gods, the pharaohs in particular perfumed themselves with the most precious aromatic essences, which they had brought to their palaces by camel caravans from the Far East.

In the meantime, many of the traditional healing applications and other uses have been confirmed in modern studies.

What are the possible applications?

Essential oils - mixed with high-quality base oils such as jojoba oil, almond oil, sesame oil or avocado oil - make healthy and completely natural body or massage oils.

Depending on the dosage, essential oils can also serve as a perfume. If you add essential oils to a little alcohol, you get effective room sprays that you can breathe in with a good feeling. For compresses that can be applied to aching joints or tense muscles, essential oils are added to water (hot or cold, as needed), then the compresses are soaked and can be applied and applied to the corresponding parts of the body.

Especially for skin problems, essential oils can be used highly successfully, such as for acne, examples can be found at this link. So is our Stannary Hills Certified Organic Tea Tree Oil.

In particular, the use of essential oils in aroma lamps makes it possible to treat some emotional problems, such as anxiety, depression, tension or stress, without having to fear unpleasant side effects.

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