Use bitter almond essential oil with care; it is a powerful essential oil. These days, many people are familiar with the features and benefits of essential oil therapy. Whether used in aromatherapy or applied directly to the skin via an essential oil body spray or during a massage, essential oils can promote relaxation, cooling, stress relief, and harmonic balance of the mind, body, and spirit.

Problems with Bitter Almond Essential Oil

Bitter almond essential oil, however, brings a note of controversy to the essential oil industry. Many reputable manuals on how to use essential oils, and many massage practitioners; believe that bitter almond essential oil should not be used under any circumstances because it is toxic in its undiluted or under-diluted form.

Bitter almond essential oil contains cyanide, which is a deadly substance when it is released in gaseous form. Since aromatherapy works when we inhale the aerosol or gaseous form of essential plant oils, it comes as no surprise that inhaling cyanide is not recommended to promote harmonic balance and healthy.

Other essential oils that should never be used for aromatherapy include wormwood oil, pennyroyal oil, onion oil, camphor oil, horseradish oil, wintergreen oil, rue oil, and sassafras oil. Some extremely skilled and well trained aromatherapy practitioners may elect to use bitter almond essential oil for therapeutic uses under some limited circumstances, but, as the saying goes, “Kids, don’t try this at home.”

Bitter almond essential oil contains prussic acid, whose active components are benzaldehyde and hydrocanic acid. Ingestion of just 7.5 ml of bitter almond extract has resulted in human death. This is nothing to play around with.

Synthetic Oil

In spite of the dangers associated with bitter almond essential oil, consumers continue to demand the scent of almonds in their essential oils. Therefore, oil distillers have responded to their requests and provided “bitter almond” essential oil marketed under the bitter oil name but being derived instead from cherry pits.

Some of the procedures used to produce synthetic oils for soap, candles, and perfumes involve high technology methods like gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, and rotary vapor extraction methods.

Bitter almond oil is also marketed under a term known as “Nature Identical,” meaning that the natural aroma of the oil has been synthetically or naturally reproduced without the toxic element – prussic acid, in the case of bitter almond essential oil.

Consumers who want the soothing, refreshing aroma of almonds in their homes, their soaps, their candles, or their essential oil body sprays are going to have to settle for artificial bitter almond oil scent. Anything else is poison.

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