The Oil Apothecary

By Porche Berry

If you have been searching for a way to reduce respiratory diseases, ease anxiety, or improve sleep then The Oil Apothecary is the book for you.

The Oil Apothecary was born out of a need to organize and convey important safety information about essential oils.

A personal experience with safety issues and a child created a learning frenzy that had many people messaging with questions.

Answering individual questions takes forever while handing them a book means they can become knowledgable on the topic themselves.

Careful research using a government database, studies, and textbooks such as Robert Tisserand's book "Essential Oil Safety" was undertaken to ensure the most accurate and complete information would be given.

The book has been written so that even a complete novice could understand it while the unique Quick Reference Data Sheet would make it useful even for trained aromatherapists.

 

Quick Reference Data Sheets for each oil.

  These break down the information into 6 sections;

1. The Latin name.

2. The biologically active constituents that are not ubiquitous. For example, water and carbon are excluded because they can be found in every fresh herb.

3. The properties under their technical names.

4. Basic uses, divided by usage type, eg topical vs ingestion. Not an exhaustive list.

5. Cautions including drug interactions and other safety info.

6. And any immediate first aid information that may be needed.

Easy to read lists let you know which oils to avoid for seizure disorders, what is safe to use with your pets, and common medical concerns. 

No specific brands are promoted. Instead, the reader is shown how to navigate the marketplace by learning what to look for in an oil and a company.

With 128 individual oil profiles, this is the most complete book on the topic for laypeople.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Porche Berry
• Release date: Nov 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393486558

Porche Berry

When other children were still gaping at cartoons, Porche Berry’s TV diet included programs on nutrition. Seeing pharmaceutical drugs fail repeatedly to treat the long-term health problems of family and friends spurred an early interest in natural medicine. That interest deepened after she became the mother to a child who reacted strongly to pharmaceuticals. During research to help her child, Berry discovered that she had a knack for translating technical topics into lay language. She hopes to help people take command of their own health through The Natural Path and her website, https://www.porcheberry.com/.

Book preview

Introduction

I need to tell you a story. This story starts off sad and dramatic but ends well so I hope you will read until the end.

Like many other first time parents, I researched everything and that research brought me to do as much as I could naturally. Under the umbrella term of natural are essential oils.

Before we really get into the story I want to clarify that I still love my oils but handle them with a lot more respect.

Back to the story. When my baby was about 4 months old they had a stuffy nose and I wanted to clear it a little for them. I had an essential oil blend for clearing congestion and waved it near my child’s face to help them. In my sleep-deprived state I somehow tipped the bottle too far and a single drop got onto their upper lip.

While wiping the drop carefully away, their father came and wiped it DIRECTLY UP INTO THE NOSTRIL! This set off a dramatic episode with the child screaming, floods of mucus, and the throat swelling closed.

I kept the throat open with my fingers and by the time the ambulance got to us the swelling had already gone away. The effects of all but one of the oils would not be felt afterwards.

That one oil though had a much longer-lasting impact. You see there was eucalyptus oil in the blend. Eucalyptus shouldn’t be used on babies because it will suppress the central nervous system at that age and for a rare subset of epileptics, trigger seizures.

It does not matter if there were no seizures before the exposure.

Unfortunately, the seizures went unchecked until my baby was almost 3 years old, this did enough damage to put them a non-verbal autistic state.

With a great deal of effort the child is almost neurotypical.

There is still more work to do but the point of my story is to tell you about an educational resource I want to give to you for free.

With much research and effort, I’ve built an app that allows anyone to learn how to use essential oils safely and effectively. And now this book as well.

Let me help you avoid a similar story with your own children.

History

Essential oils have been mentioned in historical texts as far back as the 1200s. An Andalusian Muslim by the name of  Ibn al-Baitar documented the production and application of the oils. He was a chemist, physician, and pharmacist of his time.

Some do suggest that the aromatic oils mentioned in Egyptian texts may be the same as essential oils. However, these oils were used primarily for perfume rather than medicinal effects. Additionally, at the height of Egypt’s power, only the priesthood could use them.

Both China and India have recorded texts for medicinal applications of aromatic oils within the same time frame as Egypt. It is difficult to know if they could be classed as being exactly the same as we understand essential oils today in terms of how they were made.

The use of essential oils declined due to the Catholic church denouncing them as decadent during the middle ages. Obviously, this did not affect areas not controlled by the church. During this time the use of aromatic oils and herbs for medicine would be labelled as witchcraft. The church was strong-arming their way into a market largely held by common people, mostly women.

All of that would come to change by the 1600s. Texts on herbs and essential oils would become widespread and by the 1800’s back in common use.

The needed push for standardization of training for medical professionals created a rivalry between different schools of thought on how to manage disease. The current standard model was better funded and they carefully lobbied the USA government during the late 1800s and early 1900s much more effectively than their natural medicine counterparts. This led to many schools being shut down and thus accessible knowledge stayed on the fringe until more recent times. This was also occurring in the UK at the same time.

Safety and Application

There are so many terms used regarding essential oils (EO’s) that it can quickly become confusing. Especially in regards to purity and safety.

The first factor that needs to be understood is the concentration level of EO’s.

Imagine you have a shot of espresso, now fill a large mug with espresso shots, now condense that mugful into a fraction of the original single shot.

For instance, it takes 60,000 roses to produce 1 ounce of pure rose oil.

Second is dilution. 2 oils in the book frequently don’t need to be diluted, however, the rest should be diluted because of the concentration of any EO.

The third major point is purity. This is a point that gets constantly mentioned by MLM reps, and they are correct that purity is very important. Looking for 3rd party tests to confirm the claims of a company’s purity is very helpful. That being said, no amount of purity is going to change the safety of an inappropriate choice of oil. The safety profiles are based on pure oils in the first place.

Fourth is therapeutic grade, this is an unregulated term. Meaning ANY company can put this on their bottles of essential oil.

The fifth is phototoxicity, certain oils increase the susceptibility of the skin to UV damage. If such an oil is used topically then the area needs to be covered prior to sun exposure or 12 hours need to have passed since application.

The sixth point is sensitivity. Long term and/or excessive exposure to an oil can sometimes cause the body to develop a sensitivity to an oil. The severity of the reaction will be different from case to case and is typically associated with excessive topical application or ingestion.

The seventh and last point is age and/or pregnancy. The hormones during pregnancy can make