Where To Apply Essential Oils: Essential Oils 101
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Essential oils can be helpful for use with headaches, immunity support, and other problems as well. Essential oils contain antiviral and antibacterial properties, and can even help with the skin and other problems, such as irritation, congestion, and sore muscles. You can use them in different ways, such as by inhaling their aroma, adding a few drops of essential oil to a diffuser, giving yourself a massage with different blends of oils, or taking a bath with hot water, bath salts, epsom salts, or bath bombs.
Essential oils typically have many benefits when used correctly, but the question for people new to them is “where do we apply it?” That will be our topic today: where to apply essential oils and how to use them in accordance with placement.
How To Place Oils on Your Skin
Before discussing the “where,” it is important to know the “how.” You do not want to place undiluted essential oils on your skin. Our Bubbly Belle essential oil rollers are specifically made for the skin, but our essential oil jars themselves are pure essential oils. So when you do use the jars themselves on the skin, you have to dilute them with carrier oils. The carrier oils include the following:
- Sweet almond oil
- Coconut oil
- Jojoba oil
- Apricot kernel oil
- Olive oil
These different oils have different properties, so it is important to know these before using them with different essential oils. Coconut, for example, can only be mixed with oils if it is in its unrefined form. This means it is natural and not processed to remove the smell and taste.
Coconut oil contains properties best used with skin care and massages, but you must also consider whether the coconut smell would properly mix with lavender, or lemon, citrus oils, tea tree oils, eucalyptus oil, chamomile, cinnamon, oregano, lemongrass, bergamot, clary sage, or any other common type of oil.
Sweet almond oil comes from almonds, and has a strong smell to coincide; this nutty smell might be better to use with floral and more natural scents. The sweet almond oil is great for moisturizing skin, and is absorbed easily in the skin, thus it might be easier for use with essential oils for skin care as well.
For aromatherapy, such as when using peppermint oil for headaches, it may be harder to use this because the strong scent may cover that of the essential oil. You can always apply hot water to a towel and add a few drops of the oil, or add some to a bowl of hot water and let the steam rise.
Jojoba oil is also helpful to the skin because it is able to create moisture similar to the skin-produced oils; this helps to trick the skin into producing less oils, and in turn helps avoid breakouts.
The smell is also a rather nutty smell, but it is less pronounced, making it a good option for aromatherapy. Even so, it still gets absorbed into the skin fairly well, and thus equates to sweet almond oil greatly.
Apricot kernel oil is no different, it contains a nutty scent and is high in vitamin e. It helps with calming irritated skin, but because the scent is sweeter than the others, you may have to consider your options rather carefully.
Grapeseed oil, unlike the rest described, has a neutral scent—meaning it can be used with virtually any essential oil. Aside from this, it is also easily absorbed into the skin, and can help moisturize the areas it is applied to.
So when using it to dilute essential oils, you would not have to worry about potential breakouts or masking the smell. Although grapeseed oil is not as known as sweet almond oil, it is seemingly one of the best options for carrier oils.
In order to dilute, you want to focus on how much oil you are using. Typically, it is recommended you use three drops of the essential oil into two tablespoons of carrier oil. The maximum recommended for safe use would be 6 drops into two tablespoons, or two percent dilution. It is important to not place too much essential oil into the solution, because you want the dilution to help keep your skin safe.
Where To Apply After Diluting
With applying essential oils, you need to know what you are using them for as well. With muscular problems, you can apply in the areas containing tightness and soreness directly as long as the oils are diluted. Though, with other kinds of problems, or other kinds of uses, you can apply them on pressure points, such as the temple.
For muscular placement, you want to apply it on the affected area and let it sit. Yet, you dont want to apply too much. If you are having abdominal pain you can place the necessary oils on the area in the form of dots, or use the roll on product and roll it on the skin following the path of which the pain follows. If you have pain going down your neck, you would start at the top of the neck and roll it down to the shoulders.
With pressure points, it is different. There are different points in the body that can be used to relieve headaches, for example. And different points in which pores are more prevalent, allowing for greater absorption, one of these areas being the bottoms of your feet. These all have different functions.
Pressure points are closely associated with Chinese acupuncture, and help alleviate different kinds of pain according to their location. There are multiple pressure points in the hand—palm facing you—and each different pressure point helps with different situations.
Within the hand you have the lung meridian, which are pressure points starting at the thumb, followed by one directly under the thumb, and three on the wrist. These typically help support recovery from sore throats, colds, and chills.
Following this, there is the hand valley point, which helps pain associated with the neck, shoulders, and head. This point is found in the valley between your thumb and index finger.
More Information on Application
After those two pressure points, you have a point on the left side of the wrist, which is said to help with depression and insomnia. Placing diluted lavender oil here will help aid sleep and relaxation. Right next to this point, at the center of the wrist, you find the inner gate point.
This one specifically helps to aid relief wirth nausea and similar problems. Using the Bubbly Belle Immunity Boost Oil can help with nausea or stomach issues.
Placing the Energizer essential oil here can help increase energy, and placing immunity boost oil can help maintain your immune system as well, but will not specifically have to do with stomach issues like its counterpart.
Like the hand, though, there are also various pressure points in the head, with a vast majority helping with headaches. One is the third eye point, in the middle of your eyebrows, and is specified to help aid relief for pain associated with eyestrain and sinus pressure.
This is followed by the points of consciousness, located behind the head one both left and right sides where the head and neck meet. This pressure point can help relieve headaches associated with tension in the neck.
There are two other locations in the head that also help with migraines and tension in the neck and shoulders. If you need migraine help, that would be the temple and the back of your ears.
These two, despite not having an official name, are two of the most widely known locations for placement, these placements can also help to aid sleep with the proper oils, or help to reduce stress and anxiety, the other pressure point used to help relieve tension in the neck and shoulders is a point directly beside the shoulder blades on either side.
Despite there being more pressure points, these are the most useful when not using a diffuser. Yet, you could also place the oil in areas with more absorption due to increased pores. These are found in the feet, the center palm of your hand, near your scalp, in the pit of your elbows. All of these can help with absorption of the oils, and thus can better aid in helping with the problem at hand, like using them for balance and harmony.
Carrier Oils and Locations Matter
As described here, the carrier oils you choose to dilute the essential oils with, and the location in which you place them have a strong significance. Using carrier oils to dilute them is necessary when placing them on the skin, so in doing so you have to take into account whether the carrier oils will mask the essential oil scent with their own, or rather help it instead. You also have to consider whether the essential oil has mutual benefits with the carrier oil, and how it helps aid absorption.
Then the prospect of where to place it after diluting becomes easier. There is direct placement onto the affected area, placement in the pressure points, such as the third eye, and placement in high-absorption areas like the feet. Taking all of these things into consideration will greatly help ease your way into using essential oils for natural relief and aromatherapy.
Sources:
How to Use Essential Oils with a Diffuser, on the Skin, in Bath, More | Healthline
Pressure Points for Headaches: Tension, Sinus, and More | Healthline