350: Geranium Essential Oil and Loss of Smell w/ Caron Della Flora
Geranium Essential Oil is one of the most beloved of all scents. A powerful floral that has benefits for both outer and inner health, today you'll hear how it is used, where it comes from, and what makes it so unique. Also, learn how today's guest Caron Della FLora used Geranium Essential Oil to help her regain her sense of smell after an illness.
Caron Della Flora is a wife, homeschooling mother of two, and cosmetic formulator. She is a student at the Tisserand Institute and has taken every certification course that is offered there. She is now currently working on her Diploma in Aromadermatology. Today we are deep diving into geranium essential oil
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Lucky charm latte
From: Joyce Kincses
Ingredients:
Espresso
Milk of choice
Honey
Orange Vitality EO
Directions:
Make espresso, add milk, (or make your coffee as you usually do), add a tsp of honey and a drop of orange vitality essential oil! (to me this reminds me of lucky charms it’s so good!)
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Episode Transcript
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1 (2s): More than anything I must have. Flowers, always, always. Claude Monet,
2 (10s): Empowerment in education. Two powerful elements that will help you break free of convention and transform your passion for wellness tool level beyond the status quo. The essential oil revolution where you're given the tools to supersede an ordinary, everyday lifestyle, inspiring speakers, DIY recipes, healthy living tips, and more. You'll discover it all here. So tune in and get ready for a wellness revolution.
1 (40s): Hello, welcome to the Essential Oil Revolution. I'm your host, Samantha Lee Wright. And today on our show we are deep diving into one of the most beloved essential oils. And since in general, geranium, our guest today, Karen Della Flora, is gonna dive into Geranium and she'll also share her fascinating story of how Geranium helped her regain her sense of smell after an illness. Stay tuned for that and more. But first, let's pull a recipe out of our D I Y dugout. This is the segment of our show where we read a recipe that has been submitted by one of you, our listeners, and once a month we pull a winner out of these submitters.
1 (1m 27s): And congratulations for this month's winner. Joyce consists for her recipe called Lucky Charm Latte. To make Joyce's lucky charm latte, you'll need espresso milk of your choice, honey and orange Vitality, essential oil. First, you'll make your espresso, then add your milk or make your coffee as you usually do, and add a drop of Orange Vitality, essential oil. Joyce says this reminds her of Lucky Charms. It's so good. Congratulations, Joyce, for being our winner. This month you have won a bottle of Orange Essential Oil and our favorite e-book full of Essential Oil recipes.
1 (2m 11s): If you'd like to enter our monthly giveaway, share a recipe with us that you have created that involves essential oils. It can be a simple diffuser combination or something complicated. Just email it to us at diy revolution oils podcast.com. Thank you to Vega Moore for their support of our show. So throughout the years, I have tried every different hair product under the sun, whether it's something super high end and fancy, full of botanicals and free for blah, blah blah, or just cheap stuff from the Dollar Store.
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1 (4m 22s): I am here with Karen de Flora, who is a wife homeschooling mother of two and cosmetic formulator. She is a student at the Tisserand Institute and has taken every certification course that is offered there. Amazing. She is now currently working on her diploma in Aroma Dermatology. Today we are deep diving into Geranium Essential Oil with her. But first I just wanna say welcome Karen, how are you?
6 (4m 49s): Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
1 (4m 54s): Well, I'm excited to have you here. I'm, I'm a big fan of the Tiran Institute for sure. We've had a few people from there on the show. Before we deep dive into Geranium, which I'm excited about, I have to ask, what exactly is Aroma Dermatology?
6 (5m 10s): You know, I had never heard of it until I started taking courses at Tisserand. It's basically just a term to talk about the topical use of essential oils for common skin conditions. It's a, it's a little more in depth. So like if you think of aromatherapy massage, you would use an essential oil. It may be like one to 3%. But in aroma dermatology we're talking about higher concentrations for therapeutic uses and local application.
1 (5m 45s): Okay. I imagine geranium might be an oil commonly used with that application, just knowing the, what I know about geranium. Is that a fair assumption?
6 (5m 55s): Oh yes, definitely. Oh, geranium has so many uses.
1 (6m 0s): Is that why you chose this oil in particular because of its sort of, you know, fame in the skin world, the dermatology world?
6 (6m 8s): Yeah, you know, it's, so, geranium was the first essential oil I ever purchased. Ah. I just instantly fell in love with it smelling. It just made me relax just automatically. And I find it such a funny oil. It's so polarizing. People either love it or hate it. And what's funny about that is it's a balancing oil. When you think geranium, you think of balance, it balances your skin, it balances the blend, you put it in y. So I just, I think it's so interesting and doing this deep dive on it just blew my mind.
1 (6m 47s): Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that balancing principle. When you say, you know, you put it in a blended balances, what do you mean by that?
6 (6m 55s): So it's one of the few oils that you can add, even in small amounts. And it balances with the other scents. It compliments woody scent, citrus sense, herbal scent, obviously other florals. It's just a really well-rounded essential oil.
1 (7m 14s): Yeah. Now, now that I think about it, I feel like a lot of the blends that I gravitate towards that have a long list of oils in it, they'll usually, it usually contains geranium somewhere. And I'm usually surprised when I see it on this. I'm like, oh, this has geranium. Like, oh, I, you know, I don't really pick up on that much, but perhaps it's because it's in there in a pretty low quantity and it's less about getting that geranium scent in there and more just about balancing those other oils that are in there. So that makes a lot of sense. For those that have never smelled geranium before, how would you describe the scent?
6 (7m 51s): So, I would describe it obviously rosy, it's very well known for having a rosy sort of scent, but it's also sort of green and herbaceous. The main constituents in it are citronella and ol, and those are what give it that signature rosy scent. But they can happen kind of in varying degrees, depending on the region you get it from. It's, it's really interesting. It'll always have that signature rosy scent, but it'll be a little bit different depending on where it comes from, what, what variety of plant it comes from.
1 (8m 31s): Hmm. Tell us more about the plant itself. I didn't realize there was different varieties of geranium plants either. Oh
6 (8m 37s): My gosh, this is what just blew my mind. So when you look up geranium essential oil, and I looked at several suppliers, most of them listed as Pelargonium Grava lens, but there are over 250 varieties of pegon. Wow. And they all readily hybridize when they're near each other. So it's kind of funny, the more research I did, the more I found that nobody is actually very sure of what you're getting. They have a vague idea. But until more research is done by, I don't know, a botanist, I don't think anyone really has a firm grasp on exactly what they're getting.
1 (9m 26s): Like as they're growing theum bush, or even like after it's flowered, they're like, oh, I'm pretty sure this is a blah, blah, blah geranium. But it could have mixed with this other guy over here and yes, not really sure what to call it now.
6 (9m 38s): So they, they continue to grow it through clippings from the previous growth. There have been so many articles done on this, and even other aroma therapists agree that it's kind of unsure, like nobody knows exactly. But the good thing is, is that they all smell pretty similar. There are some varieties that can have a little bit of a minty dry down at the end, but they all have that rosy scent. And the, the most common one is usually referred to, this is the other confusing part. They refer to all of them kind of synonymously.
6 (10m 19s): So you'll see like two or three different varieties named like Plarium Rom or Grava Lens Orum. And they're, they could all potentially be referring to the same thing, even though they're obviously not the same thing.
1 (10m 38s): Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So is there anything particularly interesting about the way that this oil is distilled or cultivated? I assume it comes from the flower of the plant, is that correct?
6 (10m 52s): You would assume that, but actually it comes from the leaves.
1 (10m 56s): Ah, interesting.
6 (10m 58s): Yeah. So on the surface of each leaf, there are thousands of tiny hairs. And at the end of each hair is something called a trichome, which is this tiny minute sack that's filled with essential oil. And only like 20 to 30% of all plants have this. Some other plants with essential oils that have trichomes or lavender, peppermint helichrysum. I thought that was really interesting. You would assume it's a flower, so you're getting the oil from the flower, but it's on the leaves.
1 (11m 34s): Yeah. That is really interesting. Well, let's move into the oil itself and the different ways that people are, are using it. Are there any interesting stories you could share about this oil?
6 (11m 48s): I personally had an experience with it in the last year. I lost my sense of smell back in January after I got sick. And I was discussing it with actually my teacher from Tesser and Lisa Anderson, who's become a very dear friend. And I was telling her what happened, and she sent me an article from her blog about a protocol that somebody did when they lost their sense of smell. And it involved smelling four different essential oils every day. So you would smell geranium, lemon, clove, and eucalyptus, like for so many minutes, several times a day, and essentially retrain your olfactory nerves.
6 (12m 41s): It was pretty amazing actually. Yeah, when I started it.
1 (12m 44s): How long did you do that for?
6 (12m 46s): I did it for a couple of weeks because when I started I could not smell anything. I could not smell eucalyptus.
1 (12m 54s): Wow.
6 (12m 55s): And I was like terrified, you know? I mean that's such a strong
1 (12m 60s): Smell as an aromatherapist, I'm sure. Especially you were a little
6 (13m 4s): Scared. What was so odd about it? As I could feel the sensation of the eucalyptus when I inhaled it, but I couldn't smell it. But I did that protocol for two weeks and I could not believe how my sense of smell came back. Wow. And I swear it's stronger than ever now.
1 (13m 21s): Yeah. Interesting.
6 (13m 23s): Yes.
1 (13m 24s): Oh, that's so wonderful. I've been waiting to meet someone with this success story because I've heard this, like I've heard it in books, but I've never actually met someone who could prove it. So I'm very excited to, to hear that. I'm gonna start sharing. Oh my gosh. Sharing that around more. Yeah. Walk us through just so we can hear it again. Walk us through that protocol. Exactly. Again, for that loss
6 (13m 47s): Of smell. So you take geranium, lemon, clove, and eucalyptus and I smelled them just directly from the bottle,
1 (13m 58s): Like one at a time. You don't blend them all
6 (14m 0s): Together. Yeah. No one at a time. Cuz you're training your nose to smell floral citrus spicy. And they consider eucalyptus woodsy. Yeah. So you do that like three times a day, I think it was.
1 (14m 15s): Yeah. And you're just sitting there and you're just inhaling it through your nose, even though you're not smelling it. You're just sniffing. You're sniffing for, you know. How long would you say for each bottle?
6 (14m 26s): I don't like, maybe 10 seconds or something. I can give you the links to the articles. Hannah to Syringe actually did another article about the same thing. A similar protocol. Yeah. But very cool. I did that like three times a day and I, it was amazing to have my sense of smell gradually return. I remember being really excited when I could smell geranium again.
1 (14m 50s): Yeah, I bet. Aw, that's exciting. What, what was that experience like? When you smell geranium now, where, what does that take you to? How does that feel?
6 (14m 60s): I mean, it's just, it's so weird, but it's just this relaxation sensation. Like I can breathe when I smell it, you know, my whole body just eases up. The tension is released. It has a profound effect on your nervous system. It could actually be sedative, but it can also be uplifting. And it, it's so rare. I mean, the only other essential oil I've heard that does that is bergamot. Yeah.
1 (15m 29s): And they're not very, they don't smell very similar, but I,
6 (15m 32s): They don't, they
1 (15m 33s): Smell
6 (15m 33s): Wonderful together, similar
1 (15m 35s): Properties. Oh, I bet. Yeah, absolutely. Well walk us through some formulations or some recipes. What are some common ways people use Rainium oil at home?
6 (15m 46s): Well, it's really well known for being kind of a women's balancing oil for balancing your hormones. So a lot of women use it during PMs or menopause for balancing their hormones. So I have a blend that I add to a bottle. You can add it to an inhaler, like a blank inhaler. But I put it in a little bottle filled with pink Himalayan salt. Because you also get benefits from the salt itself. It can be very detoxifying and it promotes health and your mucus membranes.
6 (16m 27s): So I mixed up a blend of six drops of geranium, seven drops of bergamot, and three drops of lavender.
1 (16m 36s): And you put it, you mix it with the salt. Walk me through what you do with it exactly.
6 (16m 40s): I add the drops to the bottle with the salt in it. So I just get sort of medium to coarse grain pink Himalayan salt and put it in a little 10 milliliter bottle. This will be a really good use for old essential oil bottles. Like maybe when you finish the bottle of geranium.
1 (16m 58s): Yeah.
6 (16m 59s): And just drop the essential oils on it and then use it the same way you would use, you know, an inhaler tube.
1 (17m 7s): Okay. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. What are some ways people use geranium with facial care? We had talked about it being a really amazing oil for skin. What are, yeah, what are some recipes or just methods for using geranium for, for skincare?
6 (17m 26s): Well, I like to add it to a facial oil or moisturizer. I actually just added this blend that I created to a facial oil I made with cranberry seed oil, which I don't know if you've ever smelled before, but it has a really,
1 (17m 41s): Oh, it sounds amazing.
6 (17m 43s): It has a really beautiful fruity smell and it's, it's quick to absorb, it doesn't leave your skin greasy. So it went really, it really complimented the sense of this blend. So for your face, you never wanna put more than like one and a half percent essential oil in a blend on a formulation for your face. So I would mix up this blend separately and then add it to my facial oil.
1 (18m 11s): Okay. And you would just use that like you would any sort of moisturizer? Yeah. Face moisturizer.
6 (18m 18s): Yeah. So this blend is nine drops of geranium, five drops of posa, five drops of ho wood, three drops of orange and five drops of lavender.
1 (18m 31s): Its yummy. I feel like I could
6 (18m 33s): Eat that. It smells amazing.
1 (18m 35s): Are there any safety precautions people should know about when using uranium essential oil?
6 (18m 43s): Not really. This actually has grass status generally recognized as safe in the essential oil safety book from Robert Tisserand. He actually says you can use it at a dermal limit of 17 and a 5%. So what does that, obviously you would never use it at a percentage that high, but what it means is it's very safe to use without the risk of an adverse reaction. Like obviously there are some people that could potentially be sensitive to it, but generally it's, it's very, very safe to use on your skin.
1 (19m 25s): Great. And is, and pregnancy medications, any of those cats? Dogs, babies,
6 (19m 33s): All those things. Safe? Yeah, safe for pregnant women, babies. It, well, to a certain extent. Obviously you're diluting very low for children. I did not notice the safety issues for pets. I would have to look at that again. But yeah, it's, it's incredibly safe, very well rounded. The only concern was if anyone is on diabetes medication. But I think honestly it was referring more to, if you take uranium internally, not necessarily topically, but it would definitely be something to be aware
1 (20m 13s): Of. Well, wonderful. Well I think that that gives a really good deep dive into geranium essential oil. Are, are there any last tips or stories you wanna share around geranium oil before we go to our closing questions?
6 (20m 27s): Well, I do have one story that I came across. It was more about the geranium plant than the oil. But in Victorian homes they would place potted geraniums on the sides of staircases so that women's long skirts would brush against them and release the perfume. I just thought that was such a lovely story.
1 (20m 47s): Aw, those, those brilliant women. Yeah. Well, Karen, this has been great. I, I love this oil personally. I just, when I think the first time I used it, I wasn't a huge fan of the smell. I think it's one of those oils you kind of have to go a little bit slow on. Right? Yeah. Low and slow. Yes. Cause it can be quite overwhelming. But it is such an uplifting oil and really unique in its in its sense. So thanks for deep diving on that with us today. Before you go, we always love to ask our guests a couple closing questions. And the first is, what's just one or two self-care practices you try to do every day to stay healthy?
6 (21m 31s): So every morning when I get up I have hot lemon water and I add chia seeds to it.
1 (21m 37s): Wow. Never heard that one. I love it. Yeah,
6 (21m 41s): It's hydrating. It gives you a burst of vitamin C and the chia helps with blood sugar balance.
1 (21m 47s): And you put that in your lemon water cold and then you let the chia seeds like get jelly.
6 (21m 54s): Yeah. They kinda gel by the end, but
1 (21m 56s): Okay.
6 (21m 57s): But I enjoyed,
1 (21m 58s): Like you just, you just add 'em and you just drink 'em straight, straight up like, yep. I love chia. I became a little obsessed with it after reading Born to Run, which is a book about kind of a case for how humans were really, our bodies are designed so perfectly for, for running and like long distance running in particular, like we as humans can outrun a deer. We can outrun a cheetah even because cheetahs, they can sprint, but then they're exhausted because they're, you know, they're four, their front legs, they have four legs on the ground. So their rib cages, their lungs are smaller and so they have to just stop after a while and kind of collapse and and regroup.
1 (22m 42s): So if humans are able to track it, you know, they can catch up with that cheetah eventually, cuz that cheetah will be just exhausted because we're able to run for just miles and miles and miles without stopping. Anyway. It's a really fascinating book that they, they talk a lot about chia seeds in it. Yes. As one of those super foods that like ke, you know, kept the long distance hunters going on those trips. Like that's all they would take with them is like a bag of chia.
6 (23m 7s): Yeah. It was actually in the book that I was reading too, about Aztecs doing the same thing that they could survive with chia because it keeps them hydrated and satiated.
1 (23m 21s): So yeah. Fascinating. Well, that's a great tip for today. Well, finally, what's just one thing that we should all ditch completely and replace with something healthier today?
6 (23m 31s): Something that I've been working on and I've been trying to work on with my kids is to replace complaining with gratitude.
1 (23m 40s): Oh, such a good one. And
6 (23m 42s): We have started something where we write down whatever we're grateful for, for the day, we write it down and we put it in a jar so that later on we're gonna go back and look at things that we were grateful for over the last year. So I thought that this time around Thanksgiving would be perfect to really think about what we're grateful for.
1 (24m 5s): I love that. That's so sweet. That's gonna be a great activity. How old are your kids?
6 (24m 10s): Six and three.
1 (24m 11s): Oh, what a great age to start that at. Well, awesome. Can replace complaining with gratitude. Can't go wrong there. Thank you so much, Karen. This has been so much fun. We'll have to have you back on sometime, do some more essential oil deep dives. This has been a lot of fun. So thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom with us here on the Essential Oil Revolution. We appreciate
6 (24m 35s): You. Thanks so much for having me.
1 (24m 38s): The essential oil revolution is created by me, Samantha Lee Wright, thanks so much for tuning in and happy holidays for this season as we get ready for the new year. We'll be here next week with a holiday focus Encore episode, and then new episodes after that in the new year. We'll see you next year. In the meantime, keep on learning, keep on discovering, and most importantly, keep on treating yourself well. You are worth it.