AROMAPROFILES

How Do Essential Oils Get Into The Body?

There are several ways of taking essential oils into the body. One of the most effective ways is through percutaneous absorption - through the skin. As aroma molecules, essential oils set off reactions in receptor cells in the nose, leading to enzyme activity and electrical impulses to the olfaction bulb - which is actually an extension of the brain.
Some people, under some very particular circumstances also take essential oils orally, but generally, this is their least effective means of absorption because they end up in the digestive tract with all sorts of other materials, with which they will react ( which is also the case with chemical drugs)

Because of the high absorption of essential oils by the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract, they can be inhaled as airborne particles. In France essential oils are delivered as suppositories and pessaries. The state of the acidity in the delicate mucous membranes allows them to absorb materials into the body very effectively .

There is a particularly absorbent area under the tongue, which is now being utilized in the delivery of 'sublinguals', usually vitamin supplements - the latest medical delivery system. But also, the nose has many surface capillaries, through which molecules can go straight into the bloodstream.

For this reason you can now buy vitamin supplements like B12, for example, which are packaged in gels which you squirt up the nose. Cocaine and the South American drug nu-nu are other substances which may enter the blood stream via this route.

When you have essential oils in your environment, then, they could have an effect on you via many routes. As airborne particles in a diffuser, say, their effect would be very subtle  - affecting the mind via receptor cells in the nose and the olfaction bulb, and getting into the bloodstream when absorbed through mucous membrane - of the nose, mouth  and respiratory tract.

In the bath, essential oils  work both percutaneously and through airborne manners, as they do during massage - which generally gives much higher concentrations. With essential oils more is not always best. Sometimes, less is better. The different methods of use all have their advantages, depending on the circumstances.

In a later section I discuss how essential oils work on the brain, but here it is just worth noting that essential oils manage to do what no other known substance can do - seemingly they move through the body with great ease, passing through the interstitial fluid with no problem.

The ease with which essential oils pass through the body makes them a perfect drug delivery system, a fact fully appreciated  by manufacturers  looking to develop  'the magic bullet' - a drug which will go directly to the place in the body where it's required.

Reference: The Fragrant Mind / Valerie Ann Worwood