10
Sensible Aromatherapy Practice, Phenolic oils and Ron Guba.Copyright Ó
Tony Burfield August 2004.
Reasons for Concern.
Ron Guba’s paper "Toxicity
Myths – The Actual Risks of Essential Oil Use" possibly gets the prize
for the most published paper ever in Aromatherapy, since a number of journals
& magazines carried it at the time. This commentary relates to a small
section of the paper concerning Irritant Oils and Aromatherapy Practice, although
in fact some oils mentioned are now classified as sensitising oils, as we
discover later. Paraphrasing from the 2002 Centre for Aromatic Medicine version
of this article, page 12, the author comments that the IFA recommended list of
oils in aromatherapy practice, included (at the time) oils of red thyme
(invariably a synthetic Spanish concoction, now largely discontinued in
aromatherapy usage) ajowan, cinnamon bark, cassia, clove, oregano and mountain
savoury, all which were in the “not to be used at all” category. Although it
still seems pretty good advice to me, Guba contrasts this forbidden set of oils
for aromatherapists, with the fact that an untrained person could use Tiger Balm
which might contain 60% of oils including the banned oils of cassia, clove and
camphor (in fact I am more used to seeing Tiger Balm as a fragrant grease sold
in tiny tins containing methyl salicylate, camphor and eucalyptus). But even if
it were true that untrained people have been foolhardy enough to spread these
materials oils over unwitting clients bodies, it doesn’t mean to say that it
is advisable practice for aromatherapists to do so, so I don’t see that
particular comparison carries any persuasive weight.
My
cartoonist’s impression of Guba’s safety philosophy seems to involve
practicing in a world where the threat of litigation through bad or unsafe practice isn’t a consideration at all,
and toxicology is reduced to a mortality check (did the subject die or not), or
lack of an immediate violent reaction to an applied chemical insult. And we sure
do see some chemical insults… in a section entitled "The Phenol
Suggestion" Guba advises that essential oil strengths of up to 10%
concentration are OK for topical applications - using 9 parts of low irritancy
oils - quoted as including lavender, Eucalyptus radiata, or tea
tree, to 1 part of a phenolic oil from origanum, thyme, cloves, cinnamon,
savoury etc. So, the final concentration of phenolic oil is applied is 1% (plus
9% of another "low irritancy" oil). If cinnamon bark or cassia oil is
used (heaven help you!), the proportion of these in the final oil composition
used should not exceed 5% and should be used with clove bud or other high
eugenol containing oils (this advice is based on the quenching idea, which is
now unsupported by IFRA as ineffective – see below).
But there's worse to come from Mr
Guba. For 10 years, he relates in the article,
he has been using undiluted concentrates of 90% essential oil and 10% phenolic
oils on 900 people attending seminars. As a professional aromatherapist keeping
records of all these treatments and following up in order to make these claims
must have been incredibly painstaking work (Guba admits to four positive
reactions out of 900 lasting 10 to 20mins). I remember reading a paper by a
dermatologist describing how difficult it was in his judgement to estimate the
degree of the inflammatory response from topical irritants in different subjects
because of different skin colouring, skin condition, response time etc. and how
estimations of irritancy varied from assessor to assessor. Presumably this has
never been a problem for Guba who additionally must have been assessing
reactions, not under idealised laboratory conditions, but from day to day in all
sorts of scenarios and different lighting conditions. Absolutely remarkable.
Further we are told that for small
areas of the body it is permissible to use up to 60% (or even 100%) oils with a
30% phenolic oil content. On hearing this a colleague of mine remarked this was
pure folly, and how unfair it was on the individuals to expose them to such
risks. Earlier in the article we were informed that Mr. Guba was introduced to
the practice of Aromatic Perfusion by Dr. Daniel Peneol, and subsequently he has
used up to 20 ml of undiluted essential oil on the skin of subjects for specific
conditions. Mr. Guba doesn’t actually indicate if the specific conditions
include rigor mortis, or whether Aromatic Perfusion is just another term for
embalming! This aside, it is a very different proposition legally in many
countries if a doctor carries out such a practice, compared with an
non-medically qualified person.
The use of undiluted essential oils
is vetoed by every professional aromatherapy organisation of which I am aware.
Furthermore none of the described practices involving phenolic oils appear to be
safe. I don’t remember hearing of any heckling from the audience, or advice
from the stage by officials of aromatherapy professional organisation along the
lines of “don’t try this at home” when Mr. Guba has been speaking at
conferences. I wonder why not?
And now for some guidance.
1.If it wasn’t obvious before, eugenol is now listed as an allergen in the 7th Amendment to the EU Cosmetics Act. Eugenol is a major component of clove, cinnamon leaf, pimenta berry and leaf, and bay
oils.
2. The limit for eugenol concentration in fragrances intended for the skin is now 0.5% for leave on products (38th Amendment to the IFRA standard). These two facts now put many of Guba’s above suggestions into unsupportable practice.
3.The phenomenon of a “quenching effect” between cinnamic aldehyde and eugenol is now unsupported by IFRA (38th Amendment to the IFRA standard).
4. Guba decribes sensitisation reactions as “relatively rare” and only individuals with hypersensitive skin develop cosmetic and fragrance sensitivities. The broad consensus of opinion now seems to be that the frequency of fragrance allergy in the general population is about 1%.
5.Guba (p13) inadvisably describes carrying out a patch test with sensitising oils first, especially for those with allergic conditions. As many safety commentators have remarked, this is a particularly ill-advised thing to do, because it can sensitise the patient, who may develop a full-blown reaction to the oil the next time they encounter the material (in the form of a whole body massage).
6. Oils containing cinnamic aldehyde (cinnamon bark, cassia) which is a powerful sensitiser, should not be used in aromatherapy, period. The 38th Amendment to the IFRA Standard states the limit of cinnamic aldehyde in the fragranced finished products should be 0.05% maximum.
Closing Comments.
It’s a very different prospect to
expound one’s person philosophy at length (and the article contains the first
person singular rather too much for my taste) but it’s a different prospect to
submit treated subjects to unfair health risks, or to try and influence other
people to similarly follow inadvisable practices.
My opinion is that this section of
the paper (I haven’t studied the rest of it) was thoroughly ill-advised at the
time, and looks increasing like folly now. Its best to tear it up and move on
perhaps.
Tony.