Well, hello there and thanks for joining me. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you were

listening to a short and hopefully sweet bonus episode of the Sustainable Minimalist

podcast. Today I am answering a listener question all about

essential oils so I'll let her go ahead and ask her question and then we will get

to my hopefully short and sweet but let's be honest it's going to be a bit long

winded because hello I'm Stephanie long-winded answer so here's the question

my name is natein and I am wondering what your thoughts are on essential oils and how they fit in with sustainable minimalism. Thank you.

So I love this question because essential oils are big business, right? The

essential oils industry is huge and that's because the industry as a whole makes big promises.

Essential oils promise better sleep and reduced anxiety and improved overall well-being.

So who doesn't want better sleep and reduced anxiety

and improved well-being? Sign me up, right? The reality though is that there's a lot of

controversy around essential oils and there's's a lot of controversy around essential oils and there's

also a lot of confusion around them. So we're going to clear all of that up today.

First off is what is an essential oil? Well it's not quite a perfume and it's not quite a medicine.

It's actually a compound that's extracted from a plant and it just so happens to be extremely potent.

Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts

that keep the natural smell

or you could even say the essence, hence the essential part of

essential oils, they keep the essence of their source. Fun facts here, there

are thousands of known essential oils, but only 300 of them are commercially available.

And pure essential oils can be expensive, and that's because it takes an awful lot of plant to create its essence or its essential oil.

...