Footnotes

 

*1 If you cannot get an emulsifier, make the blend without it and shake vigorously before use.

*2 You can substitute the same amount of a glycerin soap for the olive-oil soap; this gives the finished product more intrigue, as the transparency of the soap allows you to see the formation of the loofah inside. Olive-oil soap is opaque, and you lose the visual effect but not the benefit.

Endnotes

 

Chapter 1

1. Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991).

2. Dorothy L. Severns, “Chaos and Fractals in Aromatherapy: The Non-linear Dynamics of Essential Oils,” in Proceedings: Third Aromatherapy Conference on Therapeutic Uses of Essential Oils, October 30–November 1, 1998, ed. Kurt Schnaubelt (San Francisco: Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy, 1998), p. 85.

3. Ibid., p. 86.

4. Ibid., p. 89.

5. Kenny Ausubel, Seeds of Change: The Living Treasure (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).

6. Lucette Laflamme et al., “Effects of Organic and Conventional Production Systems on Yield and Active Ingredient Concentration of Medicinal Plants.”

7. Joanna Blythman, “No, Prime Minister,” Manchester Guardian, June 5, 1999.

8. Ausubel, Seeds of Change.

9. Jenifer Kahn, “The Green Machine,” Harper’s (April 1999): 70–73.

10. Ibid.

11. Joanna Blythman, “No, Prime Minister,” Manchester Guardian, June 5, 1999.

12. Garrison Wilkes, “Genetic Erosion,” in The Gaia Atlas of Planet Management, ed. Norman Myers (London: Pan Books, 1985).

13. Ibid.

14. Steven Martyn and Kim Elkington, personal correspondence, February 2000.

15. Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine, Last Chance to See (London: William Heinemann, 1990; Pan Books, 1991).

Chapter 2

1. David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 1997).

2. Ibid.

3. Ian Urquhart, “Brace Yourself for a Water Fight,” Toronto Star, January 10, 2000.

4. Ibid. Ian Urquhart notes that Canada discharges as much pollution directly into its waterways (7 percent) as it treats (7 percent), while the United States treats (13 percent) a little more than it dumps (11 percent). In fact, the province of Ontario and the state of Pennsylvania are the two biggest polluters of the Great Lakes, with combined air and water pollution per annum of 36,532,706 kilograms and 26,340,987 kilograms, respectively. One out of every three Canadians and one out of every seven Americans depend on the Great Lakes for water.

5. Douglas Jehl, “Tampa Bay Looks to the Sea to Quench Its Thirst,” New York Times, March 12, 2000.

6. Paul C. Bragg, N.D., and Patricia Bragg, N.D., Water: The Shocking Truth, rev. ed. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Health Science, 1998).

7. Suzuki, Sacred Balance.

8. Martin Mittelstaedt, “How Bad Is Canada’s Water Problem?” Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 11, 2000, sec. A, p. 14.

9. Ibid. Martin Mittelstaedt remarks, “A 1993 Health Canada study suggests current THM guidelines of a maximum 100 parts per billion do not adequately protect against cancer. In a 1997 Health Canada report on the risks of drinking water, 60% of the experts consulted said bladder cancer was ‘possible’ while 40% said it was ‘probable.’” In the United States the EPA has lowered the maximum allowable THMs in U.S. drinking water to 80 parts per billion, a ruling that will affect about 140 million Americans in the next four years. The EPA based its ruling on cancer rates found in lab animals and has also demanded that all American water utility companies send their customers water-quality reports containing information about THMs. Other research has suggested that the high estrogen levels found in tap water in many developed nations may have a link to the increase in diseases, particularly breast and prostate cancers. Problems of male infertility and reduced sperm count may also be linked to this high estrogen content, which is a result of nearly forty years of pharmaceutical hormones’ being excreted by animals and humans.

10. Nicolaas van Rijn, “What We Have Is All There Is,” Toronto Star, January 11, 2000.

11. Michael A. Mallin, “Impacts of Industrial Animal Production on Rivers and Estuaries,” American Scientist 88 ( January–February 2000): 26–37.

12. Ibid. Fecal coliform bacteria are another measure of water pollution. “The N.C. Division of Water Quality uses 200 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters (200 CFU/100 ml) as the state standard for safe human contact with water bodies. The spill incidents caused very high fecal coliform counts in the receiving streams—including a remarkable 3.4-million-units measurement in the New River following the June swine-waste spill.” As if that weren’t enough, although spills from waste lagoons are illegal and can be penalized, it is legal and normal practice for the waste to be disposed of by application to “sprayfields.” These are land areas adjacent to the farms onto which the concentrated feces and urine is sprayed; the fields usually grow a cover crop such as Bermuda grass. Unfortunately, once saturated with either water or nutrients, or as a result of normal rainfall, the soil can no longer hold or bind the waste and this pollution then makes its way into local water supplies. See Mallin, “Impacts of Industrial Animal Production.”

13. Robert Root-Bernstein and Michele Root-Bernstein. Honey, Mud, Maggots, and Other Medical Marvels (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Deni Bown, Encyclopedia of Herbs and TheirUses (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995).

17. Ibid.

18. Dawnelle Malone, “Killer Spices,” Herbalgram 46: 16.

19. Joe Nasr, personal correspondence, November 5, 1999. Nasr, of British distiller Avicenna, also makes aromatic tinctures,which he calls distilled tinctures: “These are produced by distilling half the total amount of an aromatic herb in spring water to produce a volatile oil-rich aromatic water [hydrosol]. The remaining herb is then cold macerated in a solution of its aromatic water and alcohol. This process ensures that a gentle and adequate amount of the volatile components of the plant are present in the tincture alongside the water soluble components not present in pure essential oils.” Avicenna supplies distilled tinctures of dill, caraway, fennel, geranium, and aniseed.

20. Donna Karan Cosmetics provided the following product recall information. Product Nectar Watermist a nonalcohol body spray made from natural distilled water extracted from blossoms of orange trees packaged into .5-ounce, 4-ounce, 8-ounce, and 16-ounce glass bottles. Recall #F-807-7. Code The codes under recall consists of all product codes shipped prior to July 28, 1997, and includes the following items: 4 oz. Nectar WaterMist Item #FG 8120D-00 Packaging Lot #s 71611, 71621, 71631; 8 oz. Nectar WaterMist Item #FG-8123D-00 Packaging Lot #s 71641, 71651; 8 oz. Nectar WaterMist (tester) Item #PG-7427D-00 Packaging Lot #s 71641, 71651; Bulk lot #s 0.5 oz Nectar (tester) sample Item #PG-7421D-00 Packaging Lot # 7F09A (only given to sales reps); Dramming/Nectar bulk (3 x 16 oz.) Item #PG-7740D-00 Packaging Lot # 7F09A. Manufacturer Allure Cosmetics, San Leandro, California Herba Aromatica, Hayward, California (importer of scented floral water). Recalled By The Donna Karan Beauty Company (DKBC) New York, New York, by telephone visit and fax beginning on July 28, 1997, followed by letter on August 1, 1997. Firm-initiated recall ongoing. Distribution California, New York, Washington state, Oregon, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Texas. Quantity Item #FG-8120D-00 –3,606 units – 4 oz Nectar Item #FG-8123D-00 – 1,967 units – 8 oz Nectar Item #PG-7427D-00 –713 units – 8 oz Watermist Item #PG-7426D-00 – 4,028 units – 5 oz Nectar Item #PG-7440D-00 – 65 units – Dramming bulk (3 x16 oz) were distributed. Reason Product is contaminated with Burkholderia cepacia, a pathogen. FDA, Recalls and Field Corrections: Cosmetics—Class II (FDA Enforcement Report, September 17, 1997). An Australian distiller, Bill McGilvary, was enlisted as a consultant on the product and its recall. He says, “The Burkholderia was present in the hydrolats as received, and most of the hydrolats were recovered by ultra filtration and subsequent preservation. If they had been properly looked after and managed during transit and storage, the problem would not have occurred.” McGilvary, private correspondence, May 1999.

21. Greg Farrell, “Bottling Botanical Essences,” USA Today, date unknown 1999.

22. In an article in the Journal of Essential Oil Research titled “Extraction and GC/MS Analysis of the Essential Oil of Achillea millefolium L. Complex,” researchers discuss the following distillation parameters: “We observed that several monoterpenes appear in the first two fractions; after 60 minutes, they mostly vanished. On the other hand, the concentration of chamazulene, which is less than 0.3% in the 0–15 min intervals, is higher than 30% in the 30–120 min interval and its concentration remains approximately 20% after 240 mins. The concentrations of sabinene, camphor and beta-thujone decreased steadily as a function of time while that of eugenol increased from 0.19 to 9.3% after six hours. . . . The most productive interval in oil production is obtained during the first 15 mins: 755 mg of oil is then collected (70% of the total obtained after six hours). After 60 min., the concentration in chamazulene reaches its maximum value of 34% while the total yield in recovered oil already reaches 83% of the total essential oil extracted after six hours.” Jean-Marie Hachey et al., “Extraction and GC/MS Analysis of the Essential Oil of Achillea millefolium L. Complex,” Journal of Essential Oil Research 2 (November/December 1990): 317–26. A skilled distiller armed with this knowledge can select the best part of the distillation for hydrosol collection based on the content of water-soluble chemicals coming off the still. One can also see how this information would be used in industrial distillation when the desired end product is the isolated compounds of chamazulene. Industrial distillation would most likely be stopped after a sixty-minute run, whereas therapeutic distillation would continue for the full six hours.

Chapter 3

1. A case in point is sassafras oil, which causes huge debate in the aromatherapy world. Two completely different plants both have the common name sassafras: Ocotea pretiosa, and Sassafras albidum, so already we have a problem. However, the oil is our concern, and the concern with the oil is a chemical (phenol-methyl-ether) called safrole, which is metabolized into a toxin in the liver of rats. As Kurt Schnaubelt says, “After calamus and sassafras oils were fed to rats for a period of twelve months carcinogenic effects were observed. These experiments should be viewed as curiosities, and one need not panic at the sight of a bottle of sassafras oil. Validity of these experiments with respect to normal human use is limited because they rely on massive overdoses.” (Advanced Aromatherapy [Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1998].) The calamus oil in the test referred to contained high levels of beta-asarone. Then consider the work from Bastyr University, described by naturopath Joseph Pizzorno in his book Total Wellness (Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1998). It shows that although safrole is metabolized into a hepatotoxin in the liver of rats, it initiates phase I liver detoxification in humans. Since nicotine also initiates phase I liver detoxification, it becomes clear that the suggestion of internal use of low doses of sassafras oil as an aid in quitting smoking makes sense. We can’t always apply the finding and effects of experiments on animals to humans, nor can we assume that the effects a substance has in isolation compared with those that it has in its natural form and combinations, such as in a hydrosol or essential oil, are the same. Sassafras may not be an everyday oil, but it is very useful in treating gout and kidney stones and detoxifying the body when giving up tobacco.

2. Living embalming is a French aromatherapy practice in which twenty drops or more of undiluted essential oil are applied to the entire surface of the skin except the mucous membranes and face. Using nondermocaustic but powerfully antiseptic and antiviral oils like palmarosa, tea tree, ravensara, or thyme CT thuyanol, this procedure can be repeated several times in one day and can usually stop an infection before it takes hold.

3. Ear candling, or auricular coning, is an ancient practice in which a cone or hollow candle is used to introduce smoke into the ear canal and create a vacuum that then draws out the smoke and whatever else may be in the ear channel. Samples of ear cones made of clay have been found in Egyptian sites, and many aboriginal tribes around the world use smoke blown into the ear canal as a way of healing ear problems.

Chapter 4

1. Rudolphe Balz, The Healing Power of Essential Oils (Twin Lakes, Wis.: Lotus Light, 1996).

2. Jean Valnet, M.D., The Practice of Aromatherapy (Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, Rochester VT, 1990).

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Hitoshi Masaki et al., “Active-Oxygen Scavenging Activity of Plant Extracts,” Biological Pharmacy Bulletin 18, no. 1 (1995): 162–66.

Chapter 5

1. Masaki et al., “Active-Oxygen Scavenging Activity of Plant Extracts.”

2. K. Knobloch and H. Strobel, “Effective Concentrations of Essential Oil Components to Scavenge Oxygen Radicals and Inhibit Lipoxygenase Turnover Rates,” Planta Medica 59, supplement 7 (December 1993): A669.

3. K. Masaki, T. Atsumi, and H. Sakurai, “Protective Activity of Hamamelitannin on Cell Damage of Murine Skin Fibroblasts Induced by UV Irradiation,” Journal of Dermatological Science 10 (1995): 25–34.

4. C. A. J. Erdelmeier et al., “Antiviral and Antiphlogistic Activities of Hamamelis virginiana Bark,” Planta Medica 62 (1996): 241–45.

5. H. C. Korting et al., “Anti-inflammatory Activity of Hamamelis Distillate Applied Topically to the Skin,” European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 44 (spring 1993): 315–18.

6. U. Kastner et al., “Anti-edematous Activity of Sesquiterpene Lactones from Different Taxa of the Achillea millefolium Group,” Planta Medica 59, supplement 7 (December 1993): A669.

7. Kurt Schnaubelt, Advanced Aromatherapy (Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1998).

8. Olof Alexandersson, Living Water (Bath, England: Gateway Books, 1990).