TODO
By Linda Izinthe House
Essential oils aren't nearly as safe as we've been made to believe. When EOs and/or products made with EOs are used in the shower/bath/laundry/etc., keep in mind that there are many different brand new chemicals being created once the chemical compounds in the EOs mix with other things, especially camphene that's found in most EOs - when it mixes with chlorine, found in most water supplies, it then creates toxaphene, which is a banned "forever" pesticide. That's for sure not a non-toxic option.
Also when EOs are oxidized, you then create several toxins like the benzene, formaldehyde, toluene, etc. that folks adamantly say they don't want to be around when they ditch the synthetically fragranced products, not realizing they aren't actually avoiding those (and many other) toxins by using EOs as an alternative. Again, most definitely NOT non-toxic.
The heavily marketed concept of purity indicates there's just a single pure chemical found in the bottle. Mega-companies, small companies, or individuals wildcrafting their own are not adding the 200+ chemicals present in each bottle, these chemicals are what's being naturally extracted from the plants, no matter who makes them. All of this info, along with much more research, can be found in the research-based book, Essentially Deadly: The Unspoken Dangers of Essential Oils, by April Graham.
Also, don't forget the plastic inserts/droppers in those little EO bottles continually leaching the plastic into the highly volatile oils, and the diffusers full of leaching plastic parts polluting the air with the toxins being created from the oxidization, as well as microplastics, wherever they're being dispersed.
There's a lot of details the companies, users, sales reps, people who promote them in wellness arenas, etc. leave out, be it by simple ignorance of not yet knowing the facts, or by willful ignorance after being made aware and not wanting to decrease the sales potential or numbers of followers, etc.
April shares in her book that it takes 63 pounds of peppermint leaves to make a tiny 5ml bottle of EO, and that you'd have to drink almost 9 gallons of peppermint tea in one setting to naturally encounter the chemical levels present in ONE DROP of peppermint EO. That's no longer anywhere "natural", for sure. Dilution is delusion - and sadly, that's typically the only safety advice you get about EOs - being to "properly" dilute.
The book also shares instructions/ways to much more safely use the whole plant matter to benefit from the medicinal and other aspects of the whole plant rather than just extracting the highly potent volatile oils and tossing the rest of the plant aside - which is also much more respectful to the plants, overall. I'm not affiliated in any way with April or her website, I'm just damn grateful someone finally put the info out there that no one else seems to be willing to discuss.