Aromatherapy » Rose Oil

The Many Uses of Rose Essential Oil

Author — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:32:16 +0000

The rose is not only about beauty and extraordinary smell; it is also about alternative medicine and applications in your day-to-day home remedies for a number of ailments. You have the rose essential oil extracted from the petals of this beautiful plant. You would be amazed to learn that you would need nothing less than one ton of rose petals to make only about 300 grams of rose essential oil, which is why this is very expensive.

This is why many people use (knowingly) another type of Rose for the extract i.e. the Rose geranium, a plant which is also nick-named as the Rose French. This oil is available at a fraction of the cost of the original rose oil – but there is no compromise in the effectiveness in healing the varied health problems.

The Applications of the Rose Essential Oil in Day-To-Day Life

The rose essential oil has the following exceptional properties – it is a great anti-depressant, it is excellent at calming the nerves, and relaxes both mind and body. This oil extract is well known to also help in improving confidence, reducing stress levels and fatigue.

The most popular application is as a perfume. Many people find the scent of a rose totally magnetic. This is one of the best applications and the most well known. Whenever you feel upset, angry, irritated with things that are beyond your control, just put a few drops of this oil on your wrist or garments you would be able to experience almost instant mind relaxation.

In a similar manner, just one drop of the original rose essential oil would be able to steer you away from depression in no time. In fact, if you find that you are prone to symptoms such as these, all you need is to get just one tiny drop and keep it around your nose on which you could sniff at throughout the day with excellent results.

For repairing damaged or rough skin – say on the elbows, ankle sides and knees – take a few drops of rose oil and mix with the same amount of almond oil and then apply wherever you feel it is necessary. In a matter of days you would have regained the beauty of your skin.

You could apply rose essential oil plus a few drops of lemon juice to the face as a lotion, to keep the skin toned and young. You could combine it with Fuller’s earth to make an excellent anti-tan mask for anyone who needs to remove the impact of the sun from their skin.

Love Potions: How Essential Oils Can Improve Your Love Life

Jennifer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:01:26 +0000

Whether you’re in a brand new relationship or a marriage that has lasted for decades, you can use aromatherapy to enhance the romance for your Valentine. A selection of fragrant essential oils can help create a passionate connection between you and your partner.

How do the aromas of essential oils impact romance? The olfactory lobe – the part of the brain that processes scent – is part of the limbic system, which is associated with emotion and the formation of memory. Tom Havran, aromatherapy specialist at Aura Cacia, says essential oils can be used to facilitate a wide range of moods — including romantic ones.

“There are a number of oils that lovers and aspiring lovers might find useful,” Havran says. “Depending on the situation, you might want to create a relaxing atmosphere, or a stimulating or sensual one — and essential oils are the perfect starting point.”

Essential oils have the potential to elicit romance on four different levels. Some oils offer calming effects that reduce anxiety and self-consciousness, thereby opening the path to intimacy. Other oils are known for their stimulating and inspiring properties and can impact the hormonal system directly, increasing sexual desire. Some oils have been used throughout history as sexual attractants — it’s said that Cleopatra, one of the most well known seductresses in history, used a variety of scents and essential oils to create an atmosphere of passion for her relationship with Marc Antony.

Here is Havran’s rundown of the most popular essential oils in each of these romantic categories:

Calming: geranium, clary sage, lavender, sweet marjoram
Stimulating: cardamom, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon bark
Arousing: neroli, rose otto, ylang ylang, rose absolute
Attracting: sandalwood, patchouli, jasmine, cedarwood

A good candidate for the “ultimate love oil” is vanilla essential oil — especially in combination with cocoa butter. “The vanilla and cocoa combination has a tradition as an irresistibly arousing scent that goes back at least to the Aztecs,” Havran says. “And, it has a strong appeal for both men and women.”

Whichever essential oils you choose, they will work best if you create an environment where emotional and sensual closeness can thrive. If you have children, for example, make arrangements with friends or grandparents to take them for the evening, so that you’ll have uninterrupted time to focus on one another. Draw a hot bath for your partner, adding a few drops of essential oil to the water, and light some candles around the tub. Pour a couple of glasses of wine, give your partner a heartfelt Valentine’s Day card, and your evening of romance will be under way.

Preserve the romantic feelings with essential oils as the night progresses. Keep the scents fresh by using an essential oil diffuser or placing a few drops on your pillows, your bed clothes, or on top of the light bulbs in your bedroom lamps. Or create your own special massage oil by combining a seductive essential oil like jasmine with a carrier oil such as almond oil.

Because essential oils are very concentrated, it takes only a few drops per tablespoon of carrier oil to derive their benefits. However, you should never apply essential oils directly to the skin – always dilute them first in water or a carrier oil such as almond, grapeseed, or jojoba. Some oils such as cinnamon bark and clove have the potential to be irritants and should not be used on the skin at all.

For more on creating your own love potions and how to inspire or rekindle the spirit of love with essential oils, join Aura Cacia’s online chat on February 6 at 7 p.m. CST. To join the chat or access information in advance, visit www.auracacia.com/chat. For more information on aromatherapy and a complete selection of pure, high-quality essential oils, visit www.auracacia.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

The Best Essential Oil Recipes

Jennifer — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:56:40 +0000

Of course you can go out to a store and purchase your essential oil recipes, but if you really want to have some fun and be creative and make your own essential oil recipes, then you should know that the process involved here is really not all that difficult, as long as you have at least a basic idea of what you are doing and where to start.

Exotic Recipes

Arabian Nights

This is one exotic essential oil recipe in particular that is sure to create a romantic mood, for which you will need 3 drops Coriander, 1 drop Frankincense, 3 drops Juniper, and 4 drops Orange.

Egyptian Empress

Another exotic essential oil recipe, this one can really make you feel as though you are in another world, and all you need to do for it is mix 2 drops Cinnamon, 3 drops Lime, 4 drops Rose, and 5 drops Ylang Ylang.

Happiness Recipes

Besides exotic essential oil recipes, there are also happiness essential oil recipes that you can create, which will help you to feel that warm and blissful state of pure happiness and joy. These particular recipes can help to brighten the start of every day

Bliss Recipe

You need: 2 drops Bergamot, 1 drop Jasmine, 1 drop Rose, and 2 drops Sandalwood.

Joyfulness Recipe

You need: 2 drops Basil, 1 drop Geranium, 3 drops Melissa, and 2 drops Sandalwood.

Confidence Recipes

Then there are also various confidence essential oil recipes to choose from, with the four most popular recipes in particular being: Poise, Decisiveness, Self Belief, and Wedding Nerves.

Poise

For the first, Poise, you need 2 drops Basil, 3 drops Bergamot, 1 drop Coriander, and 4 drops Petitgrain.

Decisiveness

For the Decisiveness recipe you need 2 drops Benzoin, 3 drops Frankincense, 1 drop Geranium, and 3 drops Orange.

Self Belief Recipe

You will require 2 drops Ginger, 3 drops Myrtle, 4 drops Rosemary, and 3 drops Verbena.

Wedding Nerves

You need 4 drops Jasmine, 2 drops Lemon, and 1 drop Patchouli.

All of these essential oil recipes work very effectively, and have a pronounced relaxing and soothing effect that no other recipes in the world can offer. Essential oils are truly profound and wonderful, and regardless of whether you make your recipes from scratch or go out and buy them from a store, the point is that you are going to be doing yourself some serious good by using them.

You Cannot Afford Pure Rose Oil

Jennifer — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:30:31 +0000

One of the most expensive of aromatherapy oils is also one of the best known – rose oil. These roses are usually garnered from two species – rose otto and rose absolute. Now, you can walk down the street and find a greenhouse’s worth of roses all over gardens and parks. Why is the oil of a common plant so incredibly expensive? They’re not exactly an endangered plant species. Sadly, a rose petal only puts out a microscopic drop of essential oil. It takes 1000 POUNDS of rose petals to make one once of rose oil. Now you know why it’s so expensive.

By Any Other Name

There are always alternatives to forking out a small fortune for pure essential rose oil. You could see if you can find it blended with a carrier oil, so it is only 10% rose oil and 90% vegetable carrier oil. This will still give you many of the benefits of the pure oil, especially the smell. Another alternative is to make your own rose essential oil – but you need a lot of roses.

The best alternative is to just use oils that cost less. This depends on what you want the rose essential oil for. If you just want the smell, then you are better off buying rose-scented air fresheners, candles or actual roses. But if you want a specific medicinal or psychological attribute, you need to do a little research. If you want rose oil’s renowned powers for improving mature skin, then you should be able to find blends for your skin condition that contain mostly other oils but a drop of rose oil. Many commercial skin products for mature skin contain rose essential oil – that is one of the reasons why they are so expensive.

If you want rose essential oil for any other of its properties, you can try to substitute palmarosa oil. This does smell like a geranium-rose mixture. Some aromatherapists think that geranium essential oil is a more than adequate substitute for rose oil. So, pick what attribute of rose oil you want and go through an aromatherapy oil book to find another oil with the desired property.

Attributes

Rose oil is an antidepressant, an aphrodisiac, antiseptic, antispasmodic, uterine (helps the female reproductive organs stay healthy), nervine (calms the nerves), an overall health tonic to strengthen the body, is also an emmenagogue (keeps your menstruation regular) and is hepatic (helps keep the liver of either sex healthy). It does quite a lot!