The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood

The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood is a book about two of my favorite subjects – essential oils and aromatherapy. I’m an Independent Distributor for Young Living Essential Oils and wanted to check out another reference book besides the ones written specifically for Young Living oils, so I thought this would be an excellent resource, was it? Read on to find out!

Book Description

“This encyclopedic book contains, in practical and easy-to-understand form, every conceivable use for essential oils and aromatherapy in everyday life. The author, a practicing aromatherapist for more than twenty years, unlocks the power of essential oils in more than 600 original recipes, most needing only a few essential oils. Unlike over-the-counter products, the recipes you make yourself contain no harmful preservatives. Most basic needs can be covered with just ten essential oils.” – The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy

My Thoughts

The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy is a very complete book about essential oils and aromathereapy. It offers a simple introduction and base information about essential oils, aromatherapy, and how they have been used for so long.

Quality is of the highest concern for me as someone who uses essential oils daily. I only use the 100% pure therapeutic grade oils, which Worwood also suggests doing. The prices are more for some than others, and a lot more for some than others. If you find a “set” of oils claiming to be of this high quality for a cheap price, it is highly unlikely these are what they claim to be. With the author’s clear knowledge of this, I wonder why she didn’t include Young Living Essential Oils in the list of reputable suppliers. She seemed to favor Essentially Yours, which is based in the UK and I couldn’t even find any good information about their essential oils. The book was written in 1991, so maybe that is why – also no websites were listed.

This reference guide is over 400 pages and offers the reader quite a lot of information. You can learn about specific oils, which oils are best to help which condition and areas of the body. She also gives recipes for many different issues, which I like quite a lot.

The only section that I really did like was the section on animals. Especially the portion on cats. I have three cats, and shortly after I bought a lot of the Young Living Essential Oils, I had a flea issue with them. Luckily, they are outside cats, but still, I wanted to get rid of the fleas while also making sure none got on me. Cats are different than dogs in this because cats can not eliminate the oils as well, and you want to make sure not to use the essential oils on cats without much research and concern for which ones you are specifically using. I don’t feel like the author addressed this at all. I can’t really give my opinion on the other animals discussed because I have not done research on those types yet.

Overall, I think this is a good reference with lots of good base information for someone starting out with essential oils.

* Thank you to the publisher of The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy, New World Library, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. All opinions expressed are my own.