Essential Oil Usage - Chamomile (Roman) Essential Oil

Chamaemelum nobile

Chamaemelum nobile is Roman chamomile.  Unlike German Chamomile it is not blue but rather a light yellow in color (the blue of German Chamomile is striking indeed).  I like both the chamomiles.  Well there are more chamomiles actually but the two most popular I have at least used.  They can be pricey.  If you wish to try them and you are just starting out I recommend buying a very small bottle.  A little - a few drops - goes quite a long ways so that a small bottle may last you a full year anyway.  By small I mean 1/6 of an oz which would run you about $35.  I recommend folks purchase at a place called Appalachian Valley Natural Products (av-at.com) when they are buying in small quantities.  They only sell small quantities there and at VERY reasonable prices and they can be trusted.

Side Note - in the sale of essential oils there is ALOT of hanky-panky so to say.  Folks mis-price both up and down.  Things that are marked at unnaturally low prices you can count on being either diluted or adulterated in some way more often than not and things that are marked up - well lots of places mark up prices unnaturally (that is not in alignment with current economic up and down-swings.)  Checking out the prices of essential oils at a place like av-at.com which stays very consistently on the lower end of current market prices is a good practice.  But when buying in larger quantity theperfumery.com or stillpointaromatics.com are good (theperfumery.com has better prices but one must have a business licence to buy from them.)  Also libertynatural.com, florihana.com ...- keep in mind these are places if you are buying in order to use the oils for healing.  There are other uses for the oils.  When you are using them for healing you want only THE BEST oils but if you are using them to say fragrance large quantities of something I personally think it is ok to go with the second best in terms of quality and the reasons are pretty technical and kinda go beyond this blog but maybe I'll take one blog post and go over it shortly.

In any case, Roman Chamomile is a good antiseptic oil but I wouldn't waste a more expensive oil to use cleaning your home rather it is used commonly to calm folks.  So if you are feeling edgy put a few drops in a tbsp of liquid soap and then into your bath or you can add it to milk that has at least some fat in it or oil (oil isn't the best to use for the tub as it tends to stay at the top of the water and not get dispersed throughout like soap would.  Soap is made from oil/fat (this is why it makes a good carrier) plus lye or potash (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) - you DO want to use REAL soap when mixing in essential oils not surfactant based "soaps" or I should say rather cleansers as only SOAP is made with lye or potash and other cleansers with detergents or surfactants - so soap I make or dr Bonner's would be fine - otherwise check the ingredients on your bottle.  Also oil makes the tub slippery but it is fine to use too.  Whatever you mix it into, mix it well.  Solubol or polysorbate 20 is fine to use in this application as well.

Okay so it is used to semi-sedate one or as a sleep aid and it can be used in cleanser (it is far from the first one I'd reach for in this mode but it does have antimicrobial action).  It also is used to treat emotional shock (mix with a carrier and then massage into your solar plexus - that is right between your ribs a couple inches to the right of where a standard heart is located), for cramps (again mix into a carrier - that is lotion or an oil see dilution chart - one would want to only go with 2% as chamomile can smell cloyingly strong and massage your abdomen with it), for anxiety (1-2% in a carrier on your neck or again solar plexus or temples keeping at least an inch away from your eyes as it will sting like you wouldn't believe if you get it in your eye), for itchiness (in the same fashion), it works also as an anti-inflammatory (so on a bruise or strain), to relieve the itching from bug bites (here go more like 5% if you are using it on only a very small area - if you happened to get bit all over - you poor thing go more like 2-3% just because you'll be overwhelmed by the smell although if you're bit all over you might not care.  A 5% solution all over will make one VERY drowsy but that might not matter in that case - just don't drive.) and finally when one is mixing up a blend for someone chamomile can be used a whole variety of ways that are too numerous and frankly too dependent on the situation to go over here.

See my website for some handcrafted by me SOAP at cyncreations.com!!

Just for any soap-makers who might read this as I tend to hang out with soap-makers and hence they are more likely to run into this blog ::  The reason why fragrancing soap you may not want to go with THE most expensive oils is rather obvious - the soap would be priced astronomically high.  Ok for folks wondering though why not - well most places that sell to soapers have pretty darn good reputations actually.  Bulk Apothecary, Essential Depot, New Directions Aromatics, Bramble-Berry, and all the rest as far as I am aware do sell quality essential oils but what I am not aware of is how they test out in the real world as far as purity goes.  For instance I feel like some of these places are better than others for various subtle reasons and I tend to buy at New Directions but Flroihana, Stillpoint Aromatics, The Perfumery, Mountain Rose Herbs, NOW (which is one of the places I'd put way down my list and actually tested the same as Mountain Rose Herbs which I would have put as far higher up the list) as well as several others have been independently tested and based on the places like Stillpoint and Florihana testing perfect I feel like they are 100% safe and ok for use when doing first aid whereas the other are most likely fine only - not perfect!  (By fine I mean for the very most part of the time they are indeed real and pure - they ALL say they are Certified Therapeutic - this is a marketing ploy started by Young Living - there is no governmental body or group that certifies essential oils.)

Also just by the by when places DO adulterate oils they tend to use natural products that are cheaper like a carrier oil or another chemical like d-limonene (which is a natural substance) that they got from another essential oil so that while these "fine" places might not be perfect they are good enough when your goal is only fragrancing.  I personally feel comfortable with them whereas there are some out there that I just wouldn't buy their oils for anything and I feel like you might as well use fragrance oils that's how bad they are.  But I could be wrong of course.  Until they all go through independent testing it is only one woman's opinion but who is going to pay $15 for a bar of soap??  Not many folks I know.  And knowing that they are natural is enough and they do price out as higher than the fragranced by fragrance oil soaps that I make because they are made with essential oils.  I have two lines - "fun/fancy" and "all-natural" (a bit of a misnormer for anyone technically minded as folks everything in nature has chemicals in them too!!)

The information on this website has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.