Anointing the spirit and the essential oil industry.

Bible quotes! and grapefruit!

I mentioned a post in the works about the essential oil industry - it got too long again. While I am still processing what I’ve learned, I summarized for myself key points that I remembered without rereading the whole too long post.

• All essential oils made with decent quality standards and testing are going to be far superior to mainstream medical treatments — so as an industry or advocate, we need to speak as one regarding that point —> My competitor’s essential oil may not be my favorite, but I would rather see you using it than commercial medications as any quality essential oil is a gift from nature to be treasured for its effectiveness and safety.

• The MLM industry has a negative reputation because of some unfair companies, but possibly also because mainstream media is subtly giving a negative impression because their ad budget comes from big box store consumerism. Their media might only highlight negative news about direct marketing and not publish much about the successes of that type of marketing approach.

“Omit needless words.” - Strunk & White, Elements of Style.

Compared to mainstream “medicine”, ALL essential oils made with decent quality are far superior for health than most pharmaceuticals.

It would be a good thing for essential oil advocates to avoid giving anyone the impression that other company’s essential oils are not good products - because essential oils are super good in general. Clove oil is going to help a toothache, sucking on a clove bud can help numb the pain and treat infection in the mouth microbiome.

Essential oils can help us make more helpful anti-inflammatory proteins, and to stop making unhelpful, inflammatory ones.

Compared to medications with toxic ingredients - ALL essential oils are super awesome and magical even in the way they can modulate protein expression in ways that improve health and reduce inflammation. They can affect or regulate our microRNA which controls with messenger RNA will be made into a new protein and which will be destroyed instead of being transcribed (used as a template to make a protein).

Anointing someone is to cover them with oil. It might be applied on or over the head and body.

In the Bible, (Rodgers, 2018):

“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.” - James 5:14

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” - Psalm 23:5

Essential oils used to be the normal thing to use throughout daily life - anointing sacred spaces and people in the Biblical era and also used in other cultures in ancient times.

Use of essential oils for health, cleaning and skin and hair care dates back to ancient times. Steam distilling can be done with fairly simple equipment and a wood fire.

Myrrh and frankincense are tree resins which are already a lot closer to a distilled oil product than bark, leaves or flowers are. In ancient times they would have been useful without needing distillation. Essential oils as a gift to baby Jesus and Mary would have been for their health care and prevention of infection at the umbilical cord. That would have been common knowledge at the time. The gift of gold would have been to help support them financially.

In the Bible specific building instructions were given to line the interior of a sacred area with cedarwood and the floor with juniper or cypress wood (translation varies). Specific recipes/amounts of essential oils were given for anointing sacred areas and priests. The oils would have sanitized surfaces where animal sacrifices were made. I am not that familiar or comfortable with religious ‘sacrifice’ so I was interested to learn that it was/is also the custom to eat the sacrificial animal, (after cooking it). It is giving us a blessing from God and nature. (Rodgers, 2018)

Buildings that use cedar for interior surfaces would have years of improved air quality because of the slow diffusion of cedar essential oils into the air.

Early research studied therapeutic/medical use of essential oils but that shifted to research on perfumery and mood effects of essential oils. Cleaning products often used essential oils for mood effects and cleaning power.

Early research focused on medicinal use of essential oils but as Western style medicine became focused on drugs, essential oils were relegated to the perfume industry. Research shifted to focus on mood effects of essential oils and many cleaning products contained essential oils for cleansing properties and mood uplifting effects. A happy homemaker is going to buy more of the fragrant cleaning product that can sanitize surfaces and lift the mood too. (Rodgers, 2018)

Pinesol TM is a concentrated cleanser made with pine essential oil. Citrus oils are frequently used in dish soap for the grease cutting power and the invigorating scent. Flowery scents like lavender with linalool have a relaxing effect.

Direct marketing is a good business model for selling essential oils because we need some education, quite a bit of education even, to really understand why and how to use them throughout the day for personal care, household cleaning, and other tasks. In ancient times it would have been common knowledge to use Frankincense and myrrh for skin healing and infection prevention.

Then we need to take action and make the switch to essential oils and stop buying and using the synthetic chemical products that are common now. They may smell good but the synthetic fragrance isn’t going to have healing or mood lifting benefits.

And the synthetic chemicals become part of our air and environment and really are not good for us - adding to allergies and asthma risk, migraines and other chemical sensitivity symptoms. Anything increasing inflammation is making us sicker and our weak points show the added strain earliest. Using essential oils instead, would be sanitizing our surfaces and air in a way that doesn’t harm beneficial microbes and while also providing health benefits for us at the same time.

MLM marketing has a negative reputation because of some unscrupulous pyramid schemes, but possibly also because mainstream media only highlights negative news?

Essential oils have become a big business but not one we hear about on mainstream media - except maybe in the negative regarding direct marketing businesses that are structured around Multi-Level Marketing. What we aren’t going to hear about is how effective, easy to use, and safe essential oils are for improving health and preventing illness. While many essential oils (and other water and alcohol based plant extracts) would be potent aids against CoV and other infections - the FDA will get you in trouble if you say that about a commercial product.

The tone of the following article is quite interesting in that the interviewer is focused more on the fact that doTerra is a direct marketing company that received a complaint from the FDA about a social media post that showed an image of two doTerra essential oils along with hashtags ~ #prevent #Covid, than about the research study that was performed by the scientists at the University of Mississippi. The researcher being interviewed responds very clearly that he isn’t going to not work with a company simply because they chose a Direct Marketing structure. He adds though, that the company was making statements about the research findings that don’t reflect the reality of the findings.

The doTerra company wanted quality testing of comparable essential oils from a number of different companies. The research findings showed that almost 50% of the samples did have some quality control issue - however that doesn’t mean that the doTerra samples were the only samples with good quality ~ 49% of the samples had no issues found. That doesn’t prove that the doTerra sample was the best on the market, it makes it one of ~ 49% of the best on the market.

• (Minta, 2022) Minta, M., Ole Miss strikes $5 million research deal with company warned for claiming essential oils can cure COVID, April 12, 2022, https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/12/ole-miss-doterra-essential-oil/

Whole foods and water/alcohol extracts are also beneficial and needed for water soluble phytonutrients or the bulk fiber of citrus or pomegranate pith.

The more I have dug into the topic of essential oils and the businesses that are selling essential oils, the more impressed I am with the health benefits of the oils. They can’t replace a water or alcohol extract for water soluble phytonutrients like many of the potent ones found in pomegranate, however when the phytonutrients of interest are fat soluble, then essential oils are fast and potent. They can provide acute care relief for pain, anxiety, respiratory, digestive, and skin health and provide antimicrobial benefits.

The shelf life of essential oils varies from as long as a decade to as short as six months. Investing in frankincense for your medicine cabinet can be a long term investment. Citrus needs to be used promptly and replaced more frequently.

Depending on the type of essential oil some can maintain aromatic and health benefits for a decade. Longer lasting essential oils include tree oils like cedar or sandalwood and sesquiterpene rich oils like Ylang Ylang. Citrus oils have a shorter shelf life and may lose aroma after six months.

Since a competitive market tends to compete with each other, product lines all tend to have similarities - citrus and mint oils are popular, potent and inexpensive. They are used in many essential oil blends and products. That is a topic in my too long for email draft. Stay tuned, more on essentials oils is in the works.

Grapefruit, tree ripened, unwaxed - tasted really good and the peel tastes like grapefruit. It adds a grapefruit accent to meals to add a little grapefruit zest or minced peel to a main dish or hot vegetable at the end of the cooking time or at the table. Overheating breaks down the aromatic chemicals. The fragrant aroma is part of the ‘taste’ of a food. Citrus zest is also stimulating our bitter taste receptors on our tongue and providing therapeutic actions at bitter taste receptors located in other areas of the body. (image credit: J. Depew

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.

Reference List

Rodgers, E., Oils + Scripture - a modern perspective on ancient tools, 2018, Oil Supply Store, https://oilsupplystore.com/collections/oils-scripture-book/products/oils-scripture