Essential Oils - How I got here...

I am just starting on my essential oil journey.  It began as I started making the transition from the harsh chemicals found in my cleaning supplies to using more natural products like vinegar and alcohol. Love the ease of using simple DIY recipes to make cleaning products that work.  Love the savings.  It really is adding up.  What I don't like? The vinegar smell!  

Enter essential oils.  I ran down to my local GNC and loaded up on a few essential oils. They were cheap!  I loved that too! And I really enjoy the clean citrus smell that my vinegar and water mixture now has thanks to lemongrass essential oil! And I am finding new uses for essential oils due to the abundance of websites dedicated to everything essential oil!

And there is an essential oil for everything, or so it seems.  I typically take things with a grain of salt, and when I saw all the lofty praises of so many different essential oils I decided to take a longer look. And do my own tests.

I already knew that both the lemongrass and orange essential oils were great at covering that vinegar smell when I added it to my water and used it on the floors.  I also have an alcohol, water and Dawn mixture that is a great granite cleaner. I even use it on mirrors and windows.  A few drops of orange essential oil gave me a fresh smelling kitchen every time I used it. A whiff of lavender or a few drops added to my bath along with Epsom salts is a relaxing finish to a stressful day.  I mean, I really do feel relaxed! Coincidence? Power of suggestion?  There really seems to be something to it.  

As you can see, I am using essential oils mostly as aromatherapy.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg.  I've researched this enough to know that essential oils can provide some pretty amazing benefits beyond just making my space smell good. 

Essential oils have been around for thousands of years.  Open up those cute little brown bottles and the fragrance that you smell is the real deal.  Not a made-up concoction of chemicals created in a test tube. They are natural, powerful and have an astonishing number of uses.  

And as with everything else, quality is important.  It's one thing to add a few drops to my vinegar water to make it smell good.  It's quite another thing to apply something topically or even ingest a product.

So I am on a quest to find the best oils out there, and at a price that isn't going to break the bank.