Here are some honest-to-goodness true stories of times I wasn’t careful with essential oils.
- I asked a massage client if she wanted to smell the an essential oil while she was on the table. I removed the cap, tilted the bottle toward her. There was no dropper to plug the opening and ….viola! right down her nose and throat. After 10 minutes of coughing, sips of water, giving her crackers and a promise of a free return massage, she was okay. Lesson: Always check that your bottle has the orifice reducer inside before you use it!
- I rubbed my eyes after pouring peppermint essential oils. I had some on my hands. OWWWWW. NEVER do this. Lesson: Do not touch your eyes – or your mouth and nose for that matter – when you’ve got essential oil on them. Peppermint contains menthol that is very irritating to the skin and mucous membranes.
- I was in a hurry to “freshen up” and put lemongrass, neat, in my underarms and nearly screamed from the burning. Lesson: Never use oils high in aldehydes, like Lemongrass, on the skin without a carrier. Learn your essential oil chemistry.
- Soaked a tampon with tea tree when i learned it was good for yeast infections. DO NOT SOAK the tampon as a few drops are plenty. My husband nearly had to peel me off the ceiling. Lesson: Be extremely careful using essential oils in delicate areas with mucus membranes. Less is more.
- I put my son – then 5 – in a bath with eucalyptus oil when he had a cold. I neglected to first mix the eucalyptus with a veggie oil and the eucalyptus sat on top of the water. When I put him in it burned his little butt. Lesson: Add essential oils to whole milk or vegetable oil before adding to bath water.
- In a hurry to heal a sore throat I added Oregano essential oil to salt water and gargled. It burned my tongue and the inside of my mouth. Lesson: Never use essential oils high in phenols, like Oregano, on delicate mucuous membranes. Another reason to study the chemistry of the oils.
- I left a bottle of Thyme oil on my workbench instead of putting it away. My son and his friend (both 8) played nearby and got curious. The next thing I heard was much yelling and calling “MOM”. They had opened the cap to sniff and touched the bottle to their noses. Thymus vulgaris is highly irritating. Lesson: Never leave essential oil out where kids can get them.
- This one was a friend: she got in the dry sauna at the gym and threw eucalyptus oil on the rocks and nearly burned the place down. Lesson: Essential oils are flammable.
ESSENTIAL OIL SAFETY GUIDELINES
Essential oils are very concentrated. Please use them with care and respect. Just because they’re natural doesn’t mean they are harmless. Before you experiment with these oils, get some education: take a class, or check out this safety page on the NAHA website.
1. Keep out of the reach of children.
2. Keep away from the eyes. If oils accidentally touch the eyes add a couple of drops of vegetable oil to a kleenex and swipe over the eye. The essential oil will grap onto the vegetable oil.
3. Do not use essential oils undiluted on the skin (exceptions may be lavender and tea tree and even those should be diluted to avoid becoming sensitized to the oil).
4. When an allergic reaction is a possibility, do a patch test 24 hour prior to use.
5. Extra precautions should be taken during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester. If you wish to use aromatherapy during your pregnancy, contact a qualitifed aromatherapist.
6. Do not take essential oils internally without the guidance of a physician or trained aromatherapist.
7. Certain essential oils such as camphor, eucalyptus and peppermint should be avoided while taking homeopathic remedies as these oil will counteract the effects.
8. When using essential oils in the bath, swirl the water well to help disperse the oils. For children, or if you have sensitive skin, it is best to disperse your essential oils in a tablespoon full of vegetable oil or 1/2C of full fat milk.
9. Do not use essential oils before going out in the sun as many, especially some citrus oils, are phototoxic.
10. You can become sensitized to an oil that you use over and over, especially undiluted. Change the oils you use, try new ones.
Now it’s your turn to share.
Have you ever had any “oopsie” experiences
with essential oils?
Fess up!
We can all learn from each other’s mistakes!
Liz,
I love a lot of what you write, but this article really nailed it. Hearing from somebody as educated as you are about essential oils, and knowing that even educated people can make mistakes makes it that much more important to learn, research, and never base ANYTHING on what somebody ELSE says as the gospel truth. Accidents do happen– that’s why they’re called accidents, but this article clearly needed to be written to point out that anybody can make mistakes. I applaud you for writing it.
Margot
Thank you Margot! And yes, if even we well-educated and careful “experts” make mistakes, can you imagine what’s happening with beginners with no training? Your lovely words, made my day!
I had to laugh! I have done the same thing with oregano essential oil! Might I just say – OOOWWWW! NEVER again! I now always dilute!
Ouch Sara! You see what I mean? My tongue was literally bright red. That was a hard, but effective lesson in safety, wasn’t it?
Woo! Sure was a lesson! And a learned one at that!
Being a newbie to the essential world, I had someone tell me that it was okay to put some lemon essential oil in water and just “drink it down.” Yeah. Right. I did that and afterwards the back of my tongue and throat felt like the were kind of burned. UGH!
Ack! I dont’ understand folks who just tell other people “here, do this” without significant training! At least your experience was temporarily uncomfortable and not damaging. Thanks for sharing!
I accidentally dropped too much peppermint (with no carrier or milk, of course) into my bath one day last year and thought, “Ahh…it probably won’t be that bad.” Um…can you say pain? Burning but freezing cold at the same time? What was I thinking? Never again! This was before my aromatherapy studies. 🙂
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Liz,
What is your recommended amount of lemon essential oil to mix in water to drink? Also, I read that peppermint essential oil makes great tea. Do you have recipes or wise suggestions?
Thank you!
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl, Actually I never recommend adding any essential oils to water because of the lipophilic nature of the oils. That means they don’t mix with water and will go into your stomach undiluted. Not a safe practice at all. Better to squeeze a lemon into your water or add lemon or lime hydrosol to your water. Classic Peppermint tea makes the best tea, not essential oil. You could add a little peppermint hydrosol to your tea if you wanted. Be very careful taking essential oils by mouth Cheryl, especially if you’re a beginner. Better to use plant medicine that has a long history of safe ingestion like tea, hydrosol, tinctures, herbs. Thanks for your great question! Liz PS you can read more about hydrosols here: http://aromaticwisdominstitute.com/what-is-a-hydrosol/
Thank you Liz! You are truly a wealth of aromatic wisdom!
Cheryl
Awww thank you Cheryl. You just made my day!
I was told to put oregano oil in my nose for a cold. I did not realize that there was a difference between oil of oregano and oregano oil. I have had bad headaches for days and throbbing in and behind my nose. Do you think I have done permanent damage?
Hi Angela, No I really don’t think you’ve done any damage. You probably simply irritated the mucus membranes. They will settle down. If you still have discomfort after two weeks though I would see your doctor. Liz
My “baby” (she survived my mothering and is 23yo now) had a fever. I put a bit of peppermint oil in the bath water, not sure how much but enough to practically freeze the child. Scared me when she was shivering and turning blue…I nursed her and wrapped her and held her to me until she warmed up. On the one hand I learned how effective peppermint was in cooling a fever on the other hand, I learned how to be careful with oils, especially around children. Really it scared the hell out of me!!
Thank you for sharing your story Austine! So many of us make this kind of mistake with our oils until we know better. The important thing is that there were no long-term repercussions and that you gained valuable insight from the experience and can share with others!
I had a question, I put 1 drop of Oregano with one drop of coconut oil on my 6year old throat and behind ears, he told me few minutes later, it’s burning and it was red… so I rushed to diluted even more with coconut oil and red went away and so did the burning… but his throat still hurts… But my question is, can he have any other side effect from that that he may not tell me, like headache, etc? Thank you inadvance
Hi Eva, thank you for sharing this experience. The reaction your 6-year-old had was phenolic irritation. There is a molecule in Oregano called carvacrol that is highly irritating to the skin. Even though you did well to dilute the oregano, it is still an essential oil that is too strong for children, even diluted. We can almost always use a more gentle oil and get great healing responses from children. No need to go with the phenolic oils. I’m glad you acted quickly and further diluted the Oregano oil. I’m sure you saved him much further discomfort and skin damage. I’ve never heard of Oregano causing a sore throat unless swallowed. Did he have a sore throat to start with?
I drank oil of oregano mixed in water. Apparently too much. It burned horribly..I drank milk, aloe vera juice and finally it stopped. Now I am having a hard time talking, like I have a severe sore throat. It doesn’t hurt a lot just hurts some when trying to speak. Could I have caused damage and will my voice return. Is there anything I can do to make this better. Thank you for any help you can give.