The Problem with Ingesting Essential Oils
Have you ever heard that you should put essential oils in water?
Do your essential oils friends encourage and even educate on casual ingestion of essential oils?
The problem with these recommendations though is that it’s highly unsafe to be practicing ingestion of essential oils in this manner. People tend to recommend the casual ingestion of essential oils and that can be vary unsafe. Especially when the recommendation comes with saying “add the oils to water” or to “drop them straight into your mouth” without any regard for ensuring that the oil is properly mixed or that you aren’t causing irritation to a sensitive area. The reality is that essential oils are highly volatile substances, and highly concentrated, and there isn’t really a need for ingestion of them anyways.
So why are so many people telling others to ingest them?
Honestly this lie was born straight from the essential oil MLMs. If you are unaware MLM stands for multi-level marketing-where people pay money to join a company and then sell the products. They have to meet certain quotas and even buy a certain amount of product themselves each month to stay active. The reason that someone selling essential oils is telling you to ingest them, even at alarming rates, is because this is how they were trained to sell even more oils. The more oils that someone uses, the more they will buy and the more money the company makes. So naturally the company encourages ingestion as one of them any ways to use these essential oils, and they recommend others do so often and in large quantities. I have seen people recommend ingesting upwards of 10 drops, multiple times a day. To put some perspective on that, one drop of peppermint essential oil is equal to like 30 cups of peppermint tea. On top of that any essential oils can be very irritating or have extra considerations when ingested. It’s wise to seek the help of a professional (a clinical aromatherapist) that has been properly trained on ingestion and not just take the advice of someone selling essential oils on the internet.
It’s incredibly hard to combat this advice however:
While most people are willing to listen when you mention that, there are still the people (who sell them presumably) that get irrationally angry when I mention that this is not a safe practice and should instead seek professional help or utilize other methods of using the essential oils. This isn’t advice that I just pull out of my hat however, with 2+ years of experience and training as well as a certification to boot I do know what I am talking about. For further reference here is the statement from the NAHA (National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy) about ingesting and what they recommend as standards for the United States:
"Do not take essential oils internally without appropriate advanced aromatherapy education and understanding of the safety issues involved in doing so.Essential oils are commonly used internally throughout the world. Some individuals are doing so without the appropriate knowledge or understanding of safety concerns. NAHA does not support the indiscriminate or uneducated internal use of essential oils. If essential oils are used internally, we recommend doing so under the guidance of a knowledgeable health professional."
This is direct from their website you can view their safety statements here. Which would be the standard that I was trained in and follow while practicing in the United States. Other countries might vary, but it is from my understanding that even then they still do not encourage the causal ingestion of essential oils with things like drinking them in water or using them undiluted in the mouth.
So why do I advocate so much against casual ingestion?
Honestly, because it can be extremely dangerous. But the thing is, that a lot of people are fine when doing this. Nothing immediate happens or they don’t have any adverse reactions. To which I would reply they are lucky, quite honestly. With a lot of things, it’s a choice and they can weigh risk vs benefit and all of those things. There might be studies for each side, opposing views etc and things that people can explore to make an educated decision. HOWEVER in the case of casual ingestion there really isn’t an opposing side, there is the aromatherapy standard and then there is the MLM standard. I have only seen these kinds of recommendations come from companies selling essential oils. While I don’t believe that there is never a place for ingestion, I would encourage people to look at sources beyond their company and see how that company has skewed safety standards for essential oils. AKA there isn’t a safety standard when it comes to MLM companies and a lot of the advice that they share is wrong, dangerous or incredibly ignorant in the use of essential oils.
How can it be dangerous?
To start with, essential oils need to be properly diluted in a proper carrier. Water is not a proper carrier. We want oils to be diluted to avoid adverse reactions and sensitization. When you drink an oil in water, tea, juice or drop them into your mouth they are not diluted properly. So it doesn’t mix with the water and therefore can come into contact with sensitive parts like cheeks, gums, tongue, throat/esophagus. This risks a reaction, a burn, sensitization (this is when you develop an allergy to something despite not having an allergy to it beforehand) and that alone can cause a whole ton of issues. Many essential oils have medication interactions, some can cause liver or organ failure. Some need to be done in small dilutions and some should just never be ingested due to their chemical makeup. Companies have no regard for this however, their only goal in mind is to sell more. How do they get people to buy more so they can sell more? By making up ways that people can use oils more regularly. If it seems like it’s safe to add 5 drops of Lemon to your glass of water, and you drink 8 glasses a day, that is 40 drops of Lemon essential oil. at 8$ a bottle retail for lemon, which is a 5ml and that holds about 100 drops, you will burn through that bottle in about 2-3 days. That is if you ONLY use that for ingesting and not all of the other things they tell you to do with Lemon essential oil.
Let’s do some more math, so at 30 days in a month and 1 bottle being used up about every 3 days, you will need 10 bottles of Lemon essential oil a month. That is 80$ a month on drinking Lemon essential oil and everyday. If I am being honest, that is one of the cheaper recommendations, not including the immunity bombs, vitamins, drinks and supplements that these companies offer as well. You can add up quite the bill following this advice when in reality you can go buy some lemons or lemon juice concentrate and add that to your water instead. It will save you money and also not overload your body.
Realistically do I believe that there are people drinking essential oils to that extent? Debatable. At least I would hope someone isn’t drinking 5 drops of Lemon in their 8 glasses of water a day. I do know that people do this daily however, and mix multiple different oils and ingest them in large quantities upwards of 10+ daily. That’s an awful lot of essential oil to be eating in a day, especially when we remember that they are highly concentrated.
So what is the take away?
The takeaway is to just don't. Use an herb instead, contact a professional of you feel like you need to ingest essential oils. Don’t sacrifice your health because a company told you that ingestion essential oils was an okay thing to do. Get educated on what is safe, what isn't safe and don’t be a victim to the consumerism that is over buying essential oils
Thank you so much for reading, your support means a lot. If you have any questions feel free to email me at holisticary@gmail.com or call/text me at 641-631-6355This blog post was meant to educate and entertain, it is entirely my opinion and not meant to treat or diagnose anyone or to be taken as absolute unwavering fact. Please seek proper medical care and advice. 