Chemistry

[Guest guest]

Hi Eric

You wrote:

< Can anyone explain a little

bit of the chemistry in essential oils. I cannot seem

to understand it. There's all this esters, ethers,

terpenes, pheonols. What does all this mean? I am not

at all good in chemistry so I would need an elementary

explanation.>

 

I think an understanding of essential oil chemistry helps us to understand how

and

why the eos work as they do. People (myself included) tend to have an innate

fear

of the very word chemistry and shy away from it because they hated it at school.

But if you can put that aside, and accept that a basic understanding will help

you,

it is not too difficult to master. Particularly as we need a *basic* knowledge;

we

do not need to become rocket scientists here.

You can get information on how and why the plant makes its essence from any good

book on aromatherapy (my personal favourites being Shirley & Len Price's

'Aromatherapy for Health Professionals' or 'Essential Oil Safety' by Tisserand

and

Balacs, both published by Churchill Livingstone). Then you need to understand

what

each of these chemical components do - ie apply the knowledge; what effect they

have when the eo is used. Eg: monoterpenes are highly volatile (being

unsaturated

molecules) and anti-viral (amongst other things) so any eo containing a lot of

monoterpenes (like citrus essences) will have a short shelf-life and will be

helpful

in combatting illness like colds and flu (think of lemon). Another example

would be

aldehydes which are sedative, hypotensive and analgesic (amongst other things),

so

eos high in aldehydes (eg lemongrass, melissa, geranium etc) would help when you

need these effects. A useful learning tool is a Venn diagram or spidergram.

Learning the chemical components of eos will also help you to recognise

potential

dangers, eg eos high in ketones like the pulegone in pennyroyal should be

avoided in

aromatherapy, but some are useful to vaporise in cases of coughs and colds

because

there are immuno-stimulant.

It also helps me to choose, for instance, which basil to buy. If it's an exotic

basil high in methyl chavicol, I'll avoid it and rather buy a sweet European

basil

with less of this phenol. And a lavender grown at sea level will probably

contain

1,8 cineol (an oxide) which makes it more useful for sinus infections; whereas

a

high-altitude lavender might not have any, having more alcohols and esters and

making it more sedative.

I hope this makes some sense and answers your 'why?'. I feel some books go

into

too much detail, compounding the issue. We do need to know, but I'm an

aromatherapist not a botanist.

Good luck!

Helen in Cape Town

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/07/1999 1:00:20 PM Eastern Standard Time,

hranger writes:

 

<< I hope this makes some sense and answers your 'why?'. I feel some books

go into

too much detail, compounding the issue. We do need to know, but I'm an

aromatherapist not a botanist.

Good luck!

Helen in Cape Town >>

What a gem you are, Helen, thanks for the refresher course

[Guest guest]

Helen and Frank--

Great explanations on the chemistry part of it. I always

wondered about how all this came together...

 

Now I have to go buy " Aromatherapy for Dummies " ,

which, by the way, can be checked out at

http://www.dummies.com/cgi/fill_out_template.pl?book:0-7645-5171-X:book-Dummies+\

Press::u15078

 

with a sample chapter available there. (I have no connection

with this book, other than seeing it mentioned several times

here, and I thought others would be interested in checking it out too.)

Thanks for all the great info!

Nancy M

 

 

> < Can anyone explain a little

> bit of the chemistry in essential oils.

 

>Then you need to understand what

> each of these chemical components do - ie apply the knowledge; what

effect they

> have when the eo is used. Eg: monoterpenes are highly volatile (being

unsaturated molecules)....