Essential oil
Description
Called essential oil, or sometimes vegetable essence, the concentrated and hydrophobic liquid of the volatile aromatic compounds of a plant. It is obtained by mechanical extraction, steam distillation or dry distillation.
What is aromatherapy?
Aromatherapy refers to the treatment of various pains, disorders and pathologies with essential oils extracted from plants. This term is recent. It was invented at the beginning of the 20th century by the French researcher René-Maurice Gattefossé. In 1964, the French doctor Jean Valnet published a detailed work on the use of essential oils for therapeutic purposes entitled Aromatherapy, Treatment of diseases by the essences of plants. Essential oils are obtained by distilling the whole plant or part of the plant. There are approximately 4,000 species of plants from which essential oils used in aromatherapy are extracted.
Depending on the plants and the disorders to be treated, essential oils can be administered in different ways:
oral route
respiratory tract (inhalation, olfaction, diffusion)
rectally
dermal route (massage).