Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I'm sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 
We've been covering a lot of natural and practical homemaking topics lately on the podcast which has been so fun! And one of the questions I keep getting over and over: is about essential oils! How to get started and how to use them. 
So today we are covering essential oils 101! Join along and listen in here: 
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My journey to Essential Oils
I've been using essential oils since 2012 and I was a skeptic at first. At the time, essential oils were only barely starting to catch on and most people didn't use them yet. Even today, with essential oils being widely used, there are still so many who don't use them yet. 
So when I first started hearing about them, I really wasn't sure what to think. They seemed like this hippy stuff...how could oils do all these amazing things?! But I had a few friends looking into them and decided to do some searching of my own! 
“Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. They can be both beautifully and powerfully fragrant.” ~ Modern Wellness: What Are Essential Oils
Basically, essential oils are the pure and concentrated oil from that object. Orange oil is  the powerful and concentrated oil from the tree and peel.
” When we peel an orange, walk through a rose garden, or rub a sprig of lavender between our fingers, we are all aware of the special scent of that plant. But what is is that we can smell? Generally speaking, it is essential oils that give spices and herbs their specific scent and flavor, flowers their fruit and perfume.” ~ The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, pg 13.
Ways You Can Use Essential Oils
Knowing how to use essential oils was one of the most confusing things to me about them when I first heard of them. People threw around words like using them “neat”, diluting them in a “carrier oil”, and I wasn’t sure how you actually used the oils – in everyday life!
Here are the 3 main ways that essential oils are used.
Topical
When you apply an oil topically, this is referring to placing the oil on your skin. 
Typically this means you are rubbing the oil on to some part of your body {i.e. the bottoms of your feet, your back, arm, ect}. When you apply the oils directly to your skin {without diluting it first}, this is often called applying it “neat”.
However, most essential oils are so powerful that they should not be put on your skin “neat”. So instead you dilute a couple drops into a teaspoon or tablespoon of a “carrier oil” and then you rub it onto your skin. It might seem that that dilutes the effectiveness of the oil, but actually using a carrier oil can help facilitate the absorption of the oil easier. 
Common carrier oils include fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, olive oil, ect. 
 Aromatic
This is another wonderful way to use essential oils and can have wonderful effects. 
A great way to use oils aromatically is to use a vaporizer, diffusor, or humidifier to easily spread the essential oils throughout the house. There are many essential oils on the market in varying price points. But the one we currently have, and have had for a couple years is Plant Therapy's AromaFuse diffusers and it'...