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| Aromatherapy Safety | The epilepsy contraindicated essential oils are: hyssop, rosemary, sage, fennel and eucalyptus oils while for high blood pressure, sage, rosemary, eucalyptus, thyme and rose.
• Essential oils may cause skin sensitivity to sunlight.
The Citrus Family essential oils (lemon, lime, bitter orange, grapefruit, bergamot etc) increase the sensitivity of skin to sunlight. Therefore, you should always wait for at least 5 hours after using them and before exposing your skin to ultraviolet sun rays; otherwise you will redden and burn your skin.
• External and internal use of essential oils.
Don’t ingest essential oils. Use them just externally. A lot of essential oils are toxic and thus internal use can be extremely dangerous.
Oral consumption may take place only under the guidance of a qualified and specially trained aroma therapist.
• Dangerous essential oils.
The several hazardous essential oils which only experienced qualified aromatherapy practitioners may use them.
Bitter almond, pennyroyal, camphor, sassafras, wormwood and wintergreen oil are only a few of the oils that are inappropriate for aromatherapy.
As a result, always check for the latin botanical name of the oil before purchasing it, in order to certify that you will not buy any dangerous essential oil available at the market.
• Essential oils are flammable.
Practically all essential oils are flammable. Therefore, you should be very careful when handling them.
Don’t put the bottles of essential oils near fire or naked flame and never burn pure essential oils (without water) in an aromatherapy vaporizer.
• Essential oils storage.
The essential oils should be stored in a cool dark place or in the fridge. Try to maintain temperature fluctuations as less as possible in order to preserve their therapeutic attributes. Essential oils are typically sold in small dark yellow, violet or blue glass bottles.
Thus the dark glass protects the essential oils from ultraviolet rays which may deteriorate their potency.
Keep in mind to close tightly the bottles’ lids because essential oils are volatile substances. Appropriately stored oils have 6 months minimum lifetime and 2-5 years maximum.
• Emergency actions. If you spill by mistake an essential oil into your skin or eyes, wash without delay the affected area with much vegetable oil or milk (which works better than water) and request your doctor’s immediate medical care.
If you unintentionally consume any essential oil, drink a lot of milk and go right away to the nearest poison control center for suitable medical care.
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