Essential Skin Care: An Introduction by Lynda Sorenson
My interest in Aromatherapy stems personally from my beliefs in the healing power of plants and their derivatives and my lifelong obsession with gardening; and professionally from having worked for eighteen years in the beauty services industry, which is turning more and more toward the use of Essential oils in treatments. When I first began to learn about Essential oils as an alternative form of skincare treatment, the conflicting information provided by the various retailers of Aromatherapy products made me realize that if I was going to use Aromatherapy in any kind of professional manner on clients, I had best get a much better education in the subject first. In addition to following a formal course of study in general Aromatherapy, I began collecting all kinds of books on the subject, particularly those relating to the use of Essential oils in skin care. Consequently I have ended up with shelves of books with information ranging from the fruity and dangerous recipe books, to the legitimate examination of the risks and consequences of using Aromatherapy improperly on the skin but that gives one little idea of how to implement the use of Essential oils in skin care safely. So I read the former through the lens of the latter, and thus have slowly begun to feel my way through to providing my clients with Aromatherapy skin care treatments that are as safe as I know how to make them.
I hear and read stories of Aromatherapy treatments others are using on themselves or on clients that absolutely horrify me, because there is no apparent knowledge of Essential oil safety behind their choices; rather the idea is that if they smell good and they come from Nature they must, of course, be not only safe, but good for you! When I say this, most of you assume that I am referring to the practice of Raindrop Technique, and I assure you that this is the least of it. There are many uninformed and unconcerned people using Aromatherapy in skin care and massage who have never heard of RDT.
When I am asked the name of the definitive book on using Aromatherapy in skin care for either personal or professional use, I am at a loss for a single answer. To the best of my knowledge, the single be-all and end-all of the subject does not exist. We have an excellent reference in Martin Watt�s �Plant Aromatics� on one hand, and we have a huge assortment of what he likes to call "Aromatherapy novels" or recipe books on the other, but of what I have seen so far, no one has really put the two together in a usable fashion.
Having said all this, I would have to preface this series of articles with the note that I do not by any means consider myself the great expert on the particular facet of this subject that I am going to be talking about. I am still learning, still finding my way, and much of what I have