The CHEMISTRY reason I became interested in essential oils

A couple of years ago, I made my first attempt at lye soap.  It was fun.  It put me in touch with that pioneer woman side of me.  I got to combine it with a chemistry background, seeing how different oils will cause differences in the texture and even the size of bubbles.  The first time I got to play with this was at a workshop based on this book.  

Then I started making other things, such as lip balms.  Now most of those recipes will call for essential oils.  I thought essential oils were just there add a nice smell or maybe some flavorings.  I thought any fragrance oil could do the same thing.  I was wrong.

In another lab, I have the students make an ester by combining an alcohol and a carboxylic acid.  Depending on which alcohol and which carboxylic acid, a different ester is produced with it's own unique smell.  But the thing was, it never smelled exactly like it was supposed to.  I mean, it might kind of smell like the banana it was supposed to, but not really.  Turns out a banana is composed of a ton of different chemicals (this is a cool chemistry list for you of the ingredients of an all natural banana https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/ingredients-of-an-all-natural-banana/).  So the smell of a banana is not due to a single chemical, but a combination of different things.  

Turns out gasoline is similar.  It is not just one chemical compound, but a variety of different hydrocarbons with a similar boiling point (ok, there is more to it, but this is the simplistic view).

So I started thinking about how an essential oil is derived from a plant.  It is not a single compound, but a mixture of a ton of different things.  Each of those things can affect your body.  Maybe your body doesn't need the most concentrated compound, it needs one of the more obscure compounds, or maybe it needs two or more.  It started to make sense to me.  I started to use that reasoning for other areas of my life.  Prescription drugs are one compound.  That is often why your body has a hard time detoxing as many times it is overloaded with a compound.  At least, in my mind that is what is happening.

So for now, I am going to try to use essential oils to help support my body.  I know that in some cases there will be things I will use prescriptions for, but I am going to try to keep my body balanced so I don't have to use as many.