Essential oils are a fairly in depth topic. Basically they’re oils extracted from flowers, plants, grasses, roots, fruits, and leaves.
You can buy essential oils almost anywhere, but your best bet（最好的办法）is a specific essential oil shop, a natural food store, or co-op. You want organic 100% pure essential oils. There are tons of synthetics（人工合成）out there. Synthetic oils are ok for scent alone, but don’t hold any real health benefits. The absolute best way to know that you’re buying a brand of pure essential oil is by price. If you see a shelf of essential oils and they’re all the same cost – they aren’t pure. Some essential oils are very expensive to make while others, even pure ones, you can find at a relatively low cost. In any case, if each bottle of oil is $10, move on.
You should also look for dark bottles. Light can ruin the therapeutic（adj.治疗的）benefits of essential oils. Reputable companies almost always bottle their oils in dark glass. Another way to avoid fake oils is to shop with blotting paper（吸墨水纸）. Real oils, contrary to what you may think, are not all that oily. If you drop a few drops of real oil onto your blotting paper it will evaporate and leave no mark. Lastly, once you work with essential oils enough, you’ll be able to tell if an oil is fake by scent alone.
Aromatherapy Safety
Whenever you use essential oils you need to dilute(v.稀释) them first. In aromatherapy texts, you’ll often see the term, “Carrier oil” or “Base oil” this is the diluter. For example, if you’re going to use lavender（n.薰衣草） to treat a headache, the recipe may say, “Add 2 drops lavender to your carrier oil.” I almost always use sweet almond oil(甜杏仁油) as my carrier. It’s not too expensive, it’s light, but not too light, and has a good scent. You can also try apricot or ask at a natural health store about other options. One note: if you’re allergic to nuts you cannot use carrier oil made from nuts. This may seem obvious, but I’ve seen a couple people actually use nut oils when they’re allergic. Instead, use a fruit oil, safflower, or sunflower oil instead.
