What Are Essential Oils

The world today is fast paced, where people don’t find time for themselves; forget about friends and family members. Pressing deadlines at work, combined with the stress and tensions that come with it, have resulted in poor physical as well as mental health. In such a scenario, healing therapies, such as aromatherapy, and massages have really become popular. Many of these therapies and massages make use of essential oils for providing relaxation to the individual. The healing touch, combined with benefits of essential oils, completely rejuvenates your mind as well as body.

 

Though most of us are aware of the term essential oils, very few know what essential oils exactly are. Essential oils, also known as volatile or ethereal oils, are basically concentrated, hydrophobic liquids that comprise of capricious aroma compounds. These compounds are extracted from aromatic herbs or plants. Essential oils are ‘essential’ in the sense that the scent that they carry is the distinctive essence of the plant, from which they are extracted. In short, any oil that has a characteristic fragrance, distinct from that of others, is essential.

 

Essential oils are usually made from the process of distillation, of the oils extracted from plants, shrubs, flowers, trees, roots, bushes and seeds. The other processes that might be used in making them include expression (cold-pressing) and solvent extraction. Essential oils have oxygenating properties and help in transporting nutrients to the cells of our body. In other words, they are very ‘essential’ in maintaining our health. Apart from that, they benefit the human body and mind in a number of ways.

 

Benefits of Essential Oils