The Bollocks Page: Books

13. Louise Tucker - An Introductory Guide to Aromatherapy – endorsed by Mike Dowling AOC Chairman; ed. by Jane Foulston. pub. Holistic Therapy Books, Cambridge. pub. Ruben Publishing 2000. ISBN 1-903348-01-3.

Billed on the back cover as "an invaluable learning and reference tool for all students and professionals. Written in an approachable style… ", this book appears so simplified and dumbed-down to me, that I am personally horrified that this is aromatherapy teaching-level material intended for colleges teaching ITEC etc. And a central dilemma is that it is full of errors.

I understand that multiple choice exam marking is intended as the basis of part of the ITEC Aromatherapy Examination process in the future. Several tutors have contacted me asking for advice. Do they knowingly teach students the answers that the ITEC examining markers want, knowing that these may be factually incorrect, or do they teach the scientific truth? I don’t know the answer to this, but I understand that another book intended for use with ITEC courses – An Introductory Guide to Anatomy and Physiology was similarly riddled with errors, and has been re-issued with some errors corrected. Is this so?

After a short while thumbing through the Introductory Guide to Aromatherapy , here are some contentious points – remember this is not an exhaustive list or critique, merely the result of a short study.

p12 "(Essential oils are) similar to animal hormones."

- This is a sweeping statement and scientifically unfounded.

p13. The text on extraction fails to describe and differentiate properly between water (syn. hydrodistillation), water and steam, and steam distillation, and the effects these processes have on the oils.

p15 Resinoid production from gum-oleoresins (the correct term fails to appear in the text) is described using benzene and hexane. The use of benzene was universally outlawed many years ago for carcinogenicity reasons. Aromatherapists should not use resinoids produced from this solvent.

p15. Absolutes: "….more highly concentrated than an essential oil".

- More concentrated in what precisely? Pigments perhaps? (colouration fails to be mentioned in the text). Absolutes and essential oils are not necessarily comparable; absolutes are often produced when the essential oil is not practically obtainable anyway.

p16 Hydro-diffusion/percolation.

- The text fails to note that hydro-diffusion using steam is an important form of distillation, and uses the term instead to refer to some hot-water extraction process.

p21. Mis-use (and maybe misunderstanding) of the word "terpene". I believe the authors intend to convey the classes of compounds monoterpene hydrocarbon and sesquiterpene hydrocarbon here, as the intended meaning. Instead they will just confuse the students as, say, geraniol is a terpene (albeit a monoterpene alcohol).

p21. "…Pennyroyal… (is) banned from use."

-In fact oils are rarely banned from use, but are more often restricted in terms of concentration in the final product (e.g. in flavourings). It is true however that authors like Tisserand and Balacs have recommended that this particular oil is not to be used in aromatherapy.

p22. "Sesquiterpenes – a form of terpene, with the same qualities and effects e.g. chamazulene …"

- In fact I believe that most aromatherapy teachers as well as chemists would differentiate between the effects of monoterpene hydrocarbons, sesquiterpene hydrocarbons and azulenes.

p22 "Oxides: expectorant."

- Oh really? So are caryophyllene oxides, limonone oxides, rose oxides, aenthole peroxide, linalool oxides, alpha pinene oxide etc. etc. (all being oxides found in essential oils) also expectorant? These classifications just seem to be sheer dogma, and should be consigned to the waste bin. Rather, the individual components of essential oils should be examined on their own merit for their relevant physiological effects.

p25 Skin penetration. This section gives the misleading impression that essential oils readily permeate the skin, enter the blood capillaries of the dermis and thence the main bloodstream. In fact during percutaneous absorption of essential oils many components of essential oils are sequestered in the strateum corneum, and may be only be slowly released (if at all) into the systemic circulation. The text fails to mention that a greater amount of applied oil may evaporate from the skin, or that metabolic changes of absorbed essential oil components, by enzymes within the dermis, may frequently occur.

p33 "….solvent extracted oils will contain traces of solvents and may cause irritations".

- Another old wives tale that really has little basis in reality with modern technologically-produced oils. In any case minute traces of solvents are probably likely to present less of an irritation effect than certain components of the oils themselves.

p45 Benzoin: "Resin is used to make the oil"

- Wrong. The oil is virtually unknown, the "resinoid" (produced by ethanolic extract of the gum-oleoresin) is the article of commerce. Mobile resinoids (containing synthetics to keep them pourable) are sold to aromatherapists, and the authors may have confused these for "benzoin oil", perhaps.

p49 "Cedarwood Atlas – where does it come from: USA".

- Perhaps the Atlas mountains (Morocco) would have been a better answer (!) as it is native to this location, it is only naturalised in N. America, and some parts of Canada.

p56 Fennel: "Sweet fennel should not be confused with bitter fennel which is not recommended for use".

- Bitter fennel oils is permitted in flavourings, phyto-medicines etc., just the same as sweet fennel oil, and has no extra contra-indications. The basis for not recommending bitter fennel oil is therefore regarded as unsound.

p58 Geranium: "…mostly geraniol and citronellol, with traces of limonene and menthone"

- Is in fact mainly citronellol, geraniol, esters like citronellyl formate, geranyl formate and a great many other individual esters, and isomenthone. Limonene hardly figures, and may well be absent in some oils. And so the classification given in the text (Alcohols, Terpenes, Ketones) is wrong.

p60 Grapefruit …."only photo-toxic when distilled".

- Absolute bollocks! The expressed oil is photo-toxic, the distilled oil is not photo-toxic (but is such an inferior oil in olfactive terms, that it has limited uses).

p62 "Juniper is an abortifacient".

- Unbelievable that this old tale having being very extensively exposed, is now being resurrected in this book for new teachers and students to repeat the error sll over again! However we all know better by now don’t we! All together now "Juniper used to be confused with Savin Juniperus sabina"…." There, that should do it!

p69 "Myrrh (oil?) is mostly heerabolene and limonene, plus eugenol and cinnamaldehyde".

- This is totally misleading. Most authorities consider myrrh oil to be composed principally of sequiterpene derivatives e.g. furanosesquiterpenes like lindestrene. The listing of limonene, heerabolene and eugenol looks like it was taken out of context from an old 1972 analysis quoted in Yeung & Foster’s Encyclopaedia of Common Natural Ingredients pub Wiley-Interscience 2nd edn p382.

p71 Orange. "Expressed sweet orange oil is safe but the distilled version causes photo-toxicity."

- Its’ the other way round if anything, although expressed sweet orange oil is perhaps amongst the least photo-toxic of the citrus oils.

p72 Patchouli. "Patchouli is mainly patchouli alcohol, patchulol, and patchoulene" (no isomer stated).

-In fact patchouli alcohol and patchulol are the same thing.

Part plant used for oil : "dried grass"

-Patchouli isn’t a grass. The fermented leaves are used.

p75 "Scotch pine is generally safe"

-In fact peroxides build up in pine oils and cause skin sensitivity problems. Delta-3-carene and limonene in some pine oils are especially prone to produce peroxides and aromatherapists should only use fresh pine oils with zero peroxide values to which anti-oxidant has been added.

p77 Rose oil. "The best oil comes from water/steam distillation.

-In fact water-steam distillation produces an inferior oil. Rose oil is actually produced in a 2-stage process, hydrodistillation is used in the first stage and the total condensate collected. The oil from this first distillation is termed direct oil or first oil. The distillate is then redistilled. The oil that floats to the top from this second distillation is decanted (termed water oil or second oil) and the aqueous phase is diluted with distilled water and marketed as Rosewater. The direct oil and the decanted oils arfe combined and become the rose otto of commerce.

p79 Rosewood oil:" …look for Rosewood from controlled and cultivated plantations", quoting Patricia Davis "A-Z of Aromatherapy".

- In fact there are no sustainable plantations, and the oil will disappear just like Kenya Cedarwood oil did, at the present rate of usage.

p80 "Sandalwood sesquiterpenes as suggested as santene and santalone."

"Sandalwood has no known contraindications".

- In fact the authors probably mean the sesquiterpenes alpha- and beta- santalene, not santene which is a nor-monoterpene. Santalone is not recognised and may be a mis-spelling. Sandalwood oil is a common cause of pigmented contact dermatitis

p81 "Tea tree is mainly terpinene (isomer not stated), cineol, pinene plus other sesquiterpenes".

- In fact tea tree is mainly gamma-terpinene, alpha-terpinene and terpinen-4-ol. Cineol-containing oil types are not popular now, and are not generally sold into aromatherapy. If your tea-tree oil has pinene (are we meaning alpha-pinene?) as a major component, then it is adulterated.

"Tea tree: (sometimes spelled ti tree)"

Another old chestnut. Ti tree is the Cabbage tree Cordyline australis (although other authorites say Cordyline fruticosa).

p83 Valerian Valeriana fauriei

- In fact Valeriana officinalis is the most commonly used oil. There is no universally agreed proof of sedative activity for the oil as is suggested in the text – several published papers on the contrary suggest there is no action here at all. In the herb, valepotriates (not present in the oil) are the primary active constituents.

p84: "Vetiver is mostly vetiverol (alcohol), "vitivone" (- which we are told is a ketone) "and vetivenes" which are suggested to be terpenes.

- In fact alpha- and beta- vetivone and khusimol make up to 35% or so of the oil composition, although the latter is odourless. Vetiverols and vetivenols (bi- and tricyclic primary secondary and tertiary sesquiterpene alcohols) are also present and contribute to the odour quality of the oil.

p85 Ylang ylang: chemical make–up "mostly methyl benzoate, methyl salicylate and benzyl acetate, and linalool, geraniol and eugenol, plus some terpenes such as alpha-pinene.

-In fact Ylang-ylang oils have considerable amounts of sesquiterpenes such as germacrenes B & D, beta-caryophyllene, and oxygenates such as para-cresyl methyl ether and benzyl acetate. Linalol, geranyl acetate and methyl benzoate are also important, as are more minor components like p-cresol, isoeugenol etc. Alpha-pinene

is a minor constituent or is absent.

p107 Photosensitising oils include bergamot, ginger, lemon, mandarin, orange, patchouli.

- Wrong. Ginger and Patchouli are not phototoxic, but others such as tagette, verbena, cumin, angelica, rue etc are photo-toxic.

A complete list of errors in this book would take a long time to construct. Lets hope aromatherapy teachers using this book to teach students have already done this!

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