Читать книгу Aromatherapy Workbook - Shirley Price - Страница 17

Plant aromas were extracted by solvent means long before distillation came into general use. The resultant compounds were not essential oils in the true meaning of the word, and were not used as medicines as were herbs. This is important, as there are many aromatherapists today who use absolutes and resins in their work; these are perfume and flavouring extracts and though, by inhalation, they can have an effect on the mind (as can any aroma, natural or synthetic), strictly speaking they are not for use in therapeutic aromatherapy. Nowhere in any French book on the subject are they included (except for benzoin) and as the man who coined the word aromatherapy always used the oils in a strictly medicinal way, i.e. in compresses, inhalations, baths, local applications in ointment form, intramuscular injections and also internally – usually in honey water – this is no doubt the reason for their exclusion.

Some therapists use absolutes and resins (which contain a variable proportion of the solvents used to extract them – see chapter 2) possibly because when therapists began to select their own oils, these were available – and lent a rich aroma to a mix. At that time, none of us knew enough about the chemistry of such oils, nor about the copious adulteration of the exotic oils in particular (see chapter 2).