I have been a long time fan of addingto my bathwater, depending on my mood. Peppermint, to wake me up. Lavender and or Tea Tree oil to help me sleep, lemongrass and eucalyptus – well, because I love the smell. I did all this for years but a few weeks ago, something happened that means that I never will. Made me realize how unsafe it is to do this.
Before I tell you what happened, let me explain a bit about essential oils. It usually comes in pretty small bottles that have droppers. This is all very deliberate. You see, with essential oils, one is getting the very essence of the plant. Essential oils are very concentrated oils that bear most of the properties of that plant.
One only requires a very little bit and that little goes a loooooong way. So, if you had a 100g bottle of oil and wanted to add essential oils to it, you may not need any more than 10-20 drops, depending on the essential oil and the size of the dropper. Essential oils typically can’t be used neat on the skin. Dilution with carrier oils like coconut oil, almond oil, grapeseed oil etc. is usually required. There are some exceptions, like lavender but that list of exceptions is pretty short. Lavender is one of them.
Let me digress a bit and tell you about when I did not follow this rule. I wanted to get the full effects of the essential oil in the shortest time possible so I applied some essential oil directly to my face. In a matter of seconds, my face was burning. It was on FIRE. I ran to the bathroom and rinsed it off. No joy. I was with soap and this time, flushed my skin for a few minutes with water. The burning sensation abated somewhat but not enough that I did not feel uncomfortable for the next few hours. I learnt pretty quickly that essential oils are not a joke. At all.
Last thing to note is that essential oils are, well, an oil. The clue is in the name, abi? And we all know that oil and water don’t mix. Rather, they stay separate.
You are probably now chomping at the bit, wondering what this momentous thing was. Okay, okay, I’ll tell. I put some essential oil in my bathwater and when I splashed some water on my face, I had the unfortunate luck of having a droplet of essential oil land in my eye. I cannot put into words how painful that was. I was lucky that I didn’t wind up at the hospital.
So, there you have it, no more essential oils directly in my bathwater.