There have been several promising but so far, small scientific studies indicating the effectiveness of using lavender to alleviate anxiety and improve sleep quality.
Whether you find yourself wound up in a tight knot at 3 a.m. wondering if you will ever be able to fall asleep normally again or you would just like to relax, unwind and enjoy the wonderfully soothing benefits that pure essential lavender oil has to offer, this natural lavender massage oil recipe is perfect to help you relax and melt away the stresses of the day.
It’s quick and very easy to make and best of all, it’s 100% natural with no nasty chemicals added!
Lavender essential oil, as with all essential oils, should never be applied to the skin undiluted. This 1% dilation recipe will give you the wonderfully relaxing sweet aroma of lavender, without being too overpowering.
You Will Need:
6 Drops of Pure Lavender Essential Oil – Steam Distilled see below for a guide to choosing your essential oils
- 1oz/30ml of Organic Sweet Almond Oil or Organic Jojoba Oil
- 1oz/30ml Aromatherapy Cobalt Blue Glass Bottle for storing your Natural Lavender Massage Oil
Method
Now with a steady hand, add 6 drops of pure lavender essential oil to your carrier oil – and that is it! You now have a wonderfully sweet lavender massage oil ready to use. Store your oil in a cool place away from direct sunlight, or better still, keep it in the refrigerator.
Carefully fill one cobalt blue glass bottle with the carrier oil of your choice. I recommend Jojoba or Sweet Almond oil but there are others that would work equally well.
Jojoba it lighter than Sweet Almond and is rich in Vitamin E. Sweet Almond which is my favorite doesn’t smell of almonds, in case you were wondering but it is rich and deeply nourishing.
Make sure you don’t overfill the bottle. The best way to do this is to hold the glass bottle up in good light, you should then be able to just see through it enough to avoid overfilling.
Please note: you should always store your carrier oil in the refrigerator.
How do you know this is a 1% dilution?
This is easy to calculate. It would take 600 drops of essential oil to fill a 1oz or 30ml bottle and 1% of 600 drops is 6. To make a 2% dilution, add a total of 12 drops of pure lavender essential oil to your carrier oil. This will give you a much stronger scent which is suitable for smaller areas, such as your feet or wrists. Personally, I find this dilution is a little too strong for me.
How to Choose Your Lavender Essential Oil
Be cautious when buying essential oils, there are a lot of fakes and/or questionable selling techniques out there!
Be cautious when buying essential oils, there are a lot of fakes and/or questionable selling techniques out there!
Tisserand is a well known and trusted company. Robert Tisserand is well known, author, international speaker, and consultant on aromatherapy. Tisserand has a website that has clear and transparent information about their products and all of their essential oils are 100% pure organic, wildcrafted or ethically harvested.
Tisserand is the brand I have used many times over the years and the one I am using at the moment.
Tisserand is available in the US here, or for the US organic version, click here.
And if you are in the UK, it’s available here.
Firstly, always read the label. Choose your essential oil by its botanical name.
Don’t buy anything that doesn’t say 100% pure essential oil on the label. There are many cheap synthetic copies out there that are made mostly from petrochemicals.
The companies that make these synthetic copies, artificially reproduce the smell of the oil.
Obviously, you don’t want these chemicals on your skin and you don’t want to breathe them in either.
But also make sure the label doesn’t say anything like “blend” as it will already have been diluted and mixed with something else.
In the case of Lavender Essential Oil, look for “Steam Distilled.” If you were buying citrus essential oils you would look for “Cold Pressed.”
Therapeutic Grade: There is no regulation what-so-ever that decides what is therapeutic and what isn’t.
So basically the word is meaningless. To be magnanimous you could say that the company is trying to convey their product is produced in a way to preserve its therapeutic benefits, but the words mean nothing on their own.
USDA Certification: The USDA do not regulate essential oils, if they did, it would be for food standards and these essential oils are NOT to be taken internally.
USDA Certification can, however, be applied to the growing conditions of the plant or flowers used to make the essential oil.
It should be noted that harvesting that takes place in countries other than the US would be unlikely to be awarded USDA Certification regardless of whether they are organically and ethically produced or not.
And finally, you would think that as long as you can spot a synthetic oil, the world of essential oils would be fairly free of controversy, but you would be wrong.
I will just say that personally, I would never recommend buying any product from an essential oil company that uses Multi-level Marketing (MLM) techniques.
While I have no reason to think that there is anything wrong with the essential oils these companies produce, please do not ever allow yourself to be pressured into paying to become a distributor, unless you want to turn all your friends and family into prospective customers and then have to try to convince them to become distributors too.
If you are interested in learning more about aromatherapy, Susan Burgess has a great little ebook with some easy to follow recipes to get you started.
View here.
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