Once you really get into essential oils and aromatherapy, blending will be something you will want to look into. This is when you combine different oils to get a certain result. You can mix different types of essential oils, herbs, absolutes, carrier oils and CO2’s for an endless array of aromatic healing concoctions.

Blending isn’t really that hard, you just need to understand a few things before you start blending on your own. If you prefer, you can buy certain blends at the store, but there’s nothing like coming up with your own blend for personal satisfaction as well as being able to mix up a blend that suits your exact needs.

There are two different types of aromatherapy blending - aromatic and therapeutic. Aromatic blending is blending simply for the smells. Therapeutic blending is blending with the goal of healing an ailment like curing a headache or soothing sore muscles or joint pain. With both, the smell is important, but the therapeutic blending also takes the healing effects of the herbs into consideration.

One of the first things you will learn is not every blend of oils will come out good. Not all essential oils compliment one another so you need to think about what you are mixing together. If you are mixing a very strong scent with a mild one, you won’t want to use to much of the strong one or it can overpower the other scent. You can do some research to find out which oils usually go good together and which do not.

When you start off with your blending experiments, make sure you have a notebook handy so you can jot down any notes and buy labels so you can label your bottles which hold successful blends - that way you’ll easily know what is in them as well as be able to recreate them. Also, you want to be sure to use glass bottles in amber or blue -sterilize them first and they can be used over and over again.

Keep your labeled aromatherapy blends in a cool dark place and make sure your pets and children cannot get at them. Also, keep in mind that some oils can induce allergic reactions so if you make a blend with a nut oil, you don’t want to use it on someone who has an allergy to nuts. There are also certain herbs that should be avoided under certain conditions like pregnancy so you’ll need to read up on this before trying out any blends on your friends.