Essential oils sold through multi-level marketing companies (MLMs) like Doterra are often touted as a cure to a range of ailments when used topically or internally. They may seem like a harmless product, but essential oils may be a lot less innocuous than you think!
I enjoy diffusing and cleaning with essential oils at home but now I feel a bit wary, how do you use essential oils and will you continue to do so?
âPeople have a perception that anything natural is safe and thatâs not the case,â says Adamo.
Some of the most toxic elements known come from natural products or sources. Couldnât agree more with what Adamo says.
We donât use essential oils. I find that many trigger my hay fever symptoms, including some of those spruiked by naturopaths/aromatherapists to ease hayfever symptoms.
Essential oils have been part of human culture for millenia. This class of compound is very important to flavour and particularly aroma in foods and also in perfumes and cosmetics. These substances are neither inherently safe (regardless of claims of being natural) nor inherently dangerous; as with so many things the dose is important.
When very concentrated products are available the opportunity is there to accidentally ingest a fatal dose. Consider the Ozzie favourite of eucalyptus oil, a few mls will make you very ill, a few more may kill you. But we use it for all sorts of things and donât consider it to be dangerous like (say) concentrated insecticide - but it is. We are much more likely to lock up the garden spray than the eucalyptus. Before it is concentrated there isnât a problem, you canât eat enough gum leaves to poison yourself. A gum leaf in your tea will taste funny but thatâs all.
So if you are going to use the concentrates beware how you ingest them. A few drops in a burner, the bath or dispersed in lanolin or similar to make a rub is probably fine but lock away the essence where little hands and careless adults canât get to them. Also check the concentration in the bottle. A recurring theme of ânaturalâ remedies is that too often there is little quality control over the concentration of active ingredient you are getting. You canât tell how strong it is by looking or smelling.
People have used such oils medicinally for centuries too. Some traditional treatments have been shown to work, others not. The difficulty of knowing the exact formula and concentration also apply in this context too, so consider the source of the product before you dose yourself or your family with it. You wouldnât give your child a spoon of some random substance from a bottle in the shed. A remedy with a high essential oil content could be as toxic.
Our go to is a mix of eucalyptus & tea tree essential oils (in a 50/50 mix) as an all purpose anaesthetic & anticeptic.
We have found it works better than any of the off-the-shelf products.
We also have infusers that are fed a variety of essential oils.
We donât ingest any of the oils, so have no worries about toxicity.
You are right that your use is less risky than drinking as the dose will probably be lower but I wouldnât want people to think that topical application, breathing near vaporizers and other methods (eg suppositories) which are all ingestion in the broad sense do not get the active ingredient into your body.
Can esstentiql oils be absorded by the skin. Concensus is yes which means that toxicity can still potentially arise from topical application.
I havenât come across MLM for âessentialâ oils, but have used tea tree oil from the supermarket as a disinfectant on wounds in the past.
I wouldnât describe it as essential though 
Just read this article about essential oils being marketed by Dolterra MLM as safe for external, aromatic and internal use and blah blah blahâŠ
This: "âEucalyptus oil, clove oil and peppermint oil are particularly nasty â
ingesting as little as 2â3ml can cause sedation or drowsiness and 5ml
can cause coma.â Was news to me (and a bit worrying) but more shocking was the relatively mild mention of the MLM itself.
MLMs are scamfests, anything they sell should be assumed to be crap sold by liars and anyone you know who tries to get you to buy from them or worse - become a seller yourself - should be hustled off to the nearest safe space for an intervention and/or kick in the genitals depending on how naive they seem about the whole process.
MLMs should be illegal to operate in Australia.
Pretty sure Six Figure Mentors is exactly the same, just a less physically tangible product.
JP Sears has some âadviceâ on the subject
âPeople think a natural thing canât harm youâ: Essential oil poisons rise
A timely reminder as the gift giving season is upon us.
It is interesting that poisoning incidents are a mix of irresponsible ingestion (as by children drinking the oil), accidental overdose and deliberate (but misinformed) overdose.
An article regarding poisonings by essential oils in Australia.
