The Best Way to Smell Essential Oils

Here at Aromagnosis, we use oils uniquely olfactorily for emotional, mental and spiritual healing. If you want to know more about why, you can read our manifesto.

In this post, I want to discuss a few simple and practical ways we use the oils.

Firstly, I want to highlight one method, commonly used olfactorily that we don’t advise. That is to use a diffuser. 

The main reason we don’t advise using a diffuser is that everyone in the space has to smell the oil diffused for a long period after its been diffused. Secondly, the person using the oil has no control either over how little or much of the oil they smell or whether they want to stop smelling to or not.

Beyond that, there are also some serious guidelines that need to be taken into consideration when using a diffuser.

1)    A diffuser should never be used in the presence of children under the age of 3.

2)    A diffuser should be used for 5-15 minutes (every 3-4 hours) and then switched off. It should not be diffused continuously.

3)    Certain oils and certain concentration of oils can trigger a attack in people suffering from epilepsy or asthma.

4)    Never put a diffuser on in a room when someone is asleep. Run it for 10 minutes prior to them going into the room to sleep and then switch it off.  

Using scent strips: This is the method we use when teaching, seeing individual clients and guiding people inwards. It is very practical, because you only need a drop of oil. Also they can be re-dipped back into the oil bottle if the top notes, which are lighter and more volatile, evaporate.

You can hold them close to the nose or further away and have complete control over the distance therefore the intensity of the aroma.

You can also use them lying down for guided journeys or meditative session. In this case, we recommend placing the scent strip on your upper chest, so you don’t have to hold it.

Again, you have complete control over the distance from the nose the scent strip is and you can take it away completely, e.g. by throwing it on the floor, if needed.  

Scent strips are cheap and can bought over the internet in bundles of 100 or more (search for ‘Perfume test strips).

The second way you can use oils simply for emotional, mental and spiritual work is by just sniffing them from the bottle. In this way you can carry the bottle in your purse and smell it at different times throughout the day. I use a medicine bag, which hangs around my neck and a 1ml vial. I have several vials at a time that I am working with in my medicine bag and can access them at all times. My French aromatherapy teacher years ago told me that by merely holding a bottle of ‘alive’ essential oil, you will receive its energetic signature, so carrying them around all day in your medicine bag, they are working their medicine without you doing anything.

Lastly, I personally love rubbing a drop of certain aromas on my skin. I usually rub it on the back of my hand so I can smell it easily. The oils change when used in this way as they blend with the oils in the skin. The precaution here is to only use gentle oils that will not burn your skin. All phenol rich oils are a no-no. They definitely need diluting in a carrier oil, because they are dermal caustic. You could do an allergy test before regularly using undiluted oils of any nature on your skin, especially if you know you have sensitive skin: Rub a tiny drop of the oil you are interested in using in the crease of your elbow and wait 24 hours to see if there is any reaction. If there is, obviously refrain from using it. If not, just rub a drop on the back of your hand and smell.

As we use a lot of attars that are distilled into sandalwood essential oil and sandalwood is very soft and supportive to the skin, and we are only using a drop from time to time, we haven’t come across any problems using this method. But please make sure you are not allergic before using oils in this way.

Enjoy and let us know how you use our essential oil. You can use the contact us page.