Essential Oils and Ayurveda

We have recently read an article from an Ayurvedic practitioner warning people off of the use of essential oils other than in the form of inhalants and incenses.  The claim is that as the essential oil is the fire element of the plant, that across the board, they will aggravate pitta dosha if ingested either in foods or in products applied to the body.

The warning is a good one, in so far as in the West we tend to think that if a little is good, more should be better.  Thus there are people, even companies, which encourage people to use essential oils with little discrimination or reservation.  I for one can attest to what happens when too much is used in a product.  While visiting a spa in Australia, a technician who did not know the proportions of how much peppermint essential oil was to go in a seaweed body wrap froze me to the core.  I shook for about 30 minutes.  Worse still, it shut down my bowel function for 3 days!

But the fact is that when used in the dosages that are recommended by classically trained professional aromatherapists, this caveat need not be taken wholly to heart.  For example in Tisserand's stellar works, one is given proper dilutions of essential oil to base oil, etc...  And within the context of Ayurveda itself, I have attended a class with Dr. David Frawley who said that if the vaidyas had had access to essential oils the way we do today, they would have been using them rather than always using the decoction methods.

We are delighted that this issue has come up.  It is a serious one.  We hope that as Ayurveda develops in the west, that people will avail themselves of the knowledge it takes to use these gifts of nature properly.