Have you upgraded to Premium yet? This Sunday is the first of our monthly Sunday Morning Chill and Chat. It is just one of the benefits of upgrading your membership of our tribe for just $6/£5 a month. For Premium members only, we will get together on the first Sunday morning once a month to shoot the breeze, ask questions and perhaps smell an oil too! I might record the sessions as long as everyone is agreeable, so that Premium members who cannot attend live can watch a replay at their leisure or you can watch again.

I wrote this 7 years ago..... still pertinent today. MORE OF A FACT CHECK THAN A RANT. The FDA (USA) has granted a GRAS to the likes of the company below. GRAS basically means 'fit for human consumption'. HOWEVER when granted GRAS status it comes with strict guidelines as Essential Oils are indeed used as food additives in the food industry for FLAVOURINGS or preservatives. These oils are normally deterpinated, meaning that they have increased bioavailability, or/and rectified, which means the 'dangerous stuff' which could be poisonous when ingested has been removed and/or fractionated to remove terpenes, like Limonene (Limonene is one of the most powerful de-greasers known and is extracted and used in many cleaning products and in the motor industry for example) .On top of this when 'essential oils' are added to food it has a MAXIMUM 'dosage' set by GRAS of 2 drops per litre of water/liquid/equivalent. So to take a drop of Lemon Essential Oil in a glass of water is way above the recommendation and has not gone through the above processes to make it safe or dispersable in water. (Think of your Jif lemon juice). Don't even get me started on reps telling people to take these oils sublingually and neat! Back to the FDA. As many of you might know, the 2 companies in question were told they must not make any medical claims that "this oil will cure that" etc. Well, we know that they still continue to do so. Technically speaking, each rep that does this should be reported to the FDA, but of course nobody does, and the FDA would need a hell of a lot of reports to take action. To get around FDA/GRAS laws/rules and regulations, they label their Essential Oils bottles as 'supplements'. Essential Oils are not supplements! Supplements mean that it has nutritional value above what you get in your food. EO's contain no nutritional value whatsoever. So to the UK. The equivalent of the FDA is the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) which is one of 7 which come under the FSA (Food Standards Agency). To have anything which is ingested in the UK you have to obtain a licence from the MHRA before you can supply to the general public. NEITHER ONE of these companies have such a license in the UK and yet continue to label their bottles as 'supplements'. I took this up with CAB...because that is where you have to start for reports to go back to the FSA or MHRA. CAB were very shocked when I gave them the photographic evidence....but did anything get done? No.

Our growing tribe is an ecclectic mix of beginners and novices to Complementary Therapies, to highly qualified therapists in Complementary Therapy. Here is a course you can ALL get your teeth into: Bring out your Inner Green Witch. Online via zoom, (or face to face at my home in Ledbury) on the first Thursday evening at 7pm, once a month for 7 months. For all you budding Green Witches out there, would you like to learn: 1. Simple techniques e.g., reflexology, dowsing, kinesiology etc. 2. Self-help ideas e.g., sit-spots, meditation, colour, sound etc. 3. Alternative remedies e.g., supplements, hydrosols, flower remedies, homeopathy etc. 4. Essential Oil first Aid kit for your family. that you can use on yourselves and family to support and improve your health and wellbeing? In the first hour of each monthly gathering, I will cover a specific topic. This will be some useful physical applications, natural remedies, self-help techniques and more. Where applicable, you will also receive handouts. The second hour will be a 'round-table' for your input of ideas, questions, specific issues etc. We will finish our evening with a relaxing meditation. Please note, I will not be addressing individual ‘issues’ for privacy reasons, obviously. If you are interested in attending the classes starting on the 5th March, and every first Thursday of the month for 7 months, please drop me a message and whether you would like to attend in person or live via zoom at your earliest convenience. Dates are: 5th March, 2nd April, 17th May, 4th June, 2nd July, 6th August, 3rd September. Please also note, if you are attending in person, some of the classes will take place outdoors….. for health benefits! The investment in your emotional/mental/spiritual and physical health for you and your family, will be just £30 per month. But in principle, you will need to commit to all 7 sessions. Bring a notebook! *As a side note, I haven't figured out yet how to deliver most of my classes via the Classroom tab as all my classes are delivered LIVE via zoom or in person. The configuration for courses here only allows me to set up online courses which you complete at your leisure. I personally don't like this format as I feel live interaction is far more beneficial. Bear with me 😊

My students know that if I had to select just one essential oil to take on a deserted island it would be Marjoram. They also know that if I had to say which essential oil represents me as a person, it is also Marjoram. They also know that one of my heroe's of Aromatherapy is Daniel Penoel. " What is the first memory about your first contact with essential oils? My first memory is about marjoram (true marjoram, Origanum majorana). I was very impressed by the powerful scent of this aromatic liquid, and from that moment on, I felt that essential oils would become part of my life. So, 53 years later, it remains to be true!" Daniel Penoel So, for today's lazy Sunday ponderings, which EO exemplifies your personality?

I’m often asked this question and I do have a couple of answers depending on time of day as in my experience night sweats are somewhat different to the bright red daytime flush. My nighttime go to is a hydrosol spritz containing adaptogenic hydrosols such as geranium and lavender with a touch of peppermint for physical cooling. For daytime I think it’s hard to beat reflexology. So what’s your go to, either for yourself or your clients?