How Essential Oils Affect the Body

Excerpted from Aromatherapy – Part I: How Do Essential Oils Work? by Danny Siegenthaler.

The Way Essential Oils Affect the Physical Body

When aromatherapy oils are applied to the surface of the body, either using massage, baths, compresses, creams, or lotions, they will have an effect locally (that is, the site at which they are applied), and systemically (that is, throughout the body). The systemic effect occurs when essential oils are absorbed through the skin into the lymphatic circulation, and they are then dumped from the lymphatic circulation into the blood stream.

Once the oils are circulating in the blood, they are carried to their TARGET ORGAN(s), where they exert a therapeutic effect on the specific tissues. Every oil has its own Target Organ; for example, Juniper oil targets the urinary tract and kidneys in particular, with secondary effects on the Digestive, Respiratory and Reproductive Systems. Chamomile Oil targets the Nervous System by way of which the oil can then exert a broad effect on many other body systems, such as the Digestive Tract.

Even when essential oils are inhaled only, say in the form of a steam inhalation for a cold or as a fumigator for a background "psychological" effect, the oils will be absorbed across the mucous membranes of the Respiratory Tract and lungs into the blood stream. The oil’s effect can then travel around the body very rapidly.

If essential oils are taken orally, their absorption through the mucosa of the stomach and into the blood is very rapid. Very few essential oils are actually ‘digested,’ which is fortunate as their therapeutic principles may well be altered if this were the case.

The reason why oils behave in this manner in the body is that the molecules of which they are composed are organic molecules and very small indeed.