Talk:Aromatherapy

Article name

Would it not make sense to change the article name to "Essential Oil Therapy" or something similar? It seems to me that some of the criticism of the validity of aromatherapy stems from the name "aroma," since the implication may be that just a scent can make a significant impact on health, whether the limited aspect mentioned is true or not. The article encompasses much more than just "aroma," in that it contains descriptions of treatments using essential oils to treat skin problems, using the oils in medicine and to repel insects.

I find it a bit ironic that the same people that call plant therapies "pseudoscience" speak of mainstream medicine as being so much more valid, when in 1994 alone, and just only in hospitals in the U.S., 106,000 people died from and 2.1 million were seriously injured by adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals administered there (American Medical Association [1]). I would say, as a scientist, that looking at plant medicine makes a whole lot more sense than many people realize.

Thank you to all who are working on the article. WriterHound (talk) 19:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The name was confused in translation from the French, a better description would be Aromatic Therapy as it uses aromatic oils... Merlin-UK (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

That's your POV, and you are welcome to it. I think we can all agree that the mainstream of expert medical opinion disagrees with you on this. There appears to be much in aromatherapy which is strongly associated with other clearly pseudoscentific topics (e.g. Homoeopathy), and there seems to be almost no research which demonstrates a useful therapeutic effect for essential-oils other than some in-vitro studies which have little relevance to actual aromatherapy practice. --Salimfadhley (talk) 19:48, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

No criticisms?

I find it odd that criticism is missing. Frankly, I usually get a headache when someone enters a room wearing this stuff. I want to be in a room with someone wearing this stuff about as much as I would want to be sprayed by a skunk or take a bath in cat urine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.51.136.5 (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Try reading the article again, close to 1/3 of the text is "criticism" Hardyplants (talk) 20:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

"Popular use" section somewhat problematic

The "Popular use" section doesn't have any citations/references. Other than that, it's OK, the statements therein are correct albeit incomplete. Blind cyclist (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Section Pharmacological effects attributed to essential oils is irrelivant to article

This section appears to be broadly irrelevant to the article since it consists only of references to in-vitro studies of essential oils rather than any studies which address in-vivo efficacy. Furthermore, none of these studies seem to pertain directly to use of the essential-oils as aromatherapy. I suggest that this entire section should be removed, and possibly added to an article on essential oils. --Salimfadhley (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Mis-categorization?

Can somebody explain the basis for putting Aromatherapy under Psychotherapy? From what I can tell, aromatherapy is not a technique used in mainstream psychotherapy. It's better thought of as a fringe-theory or alternative medicine? I can find no evidence that it is widely accepted by any authoritative psychotherapy body. --Salimfadhley (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Links are mostly spam

I've been checking the external links section of this article. They mainly seem to be from non-authoritative sources (e.g. personal blogs or companies advertising proprietary aromatherapy products). I suggest that we need to tidy this up a lot! --Salimfadhley (talk) 23:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The list needs cleanup, so I've tagged it for the time being. --Ronz (talk) 16:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you really cure gangrene with lavender oil? (no)

Did you notice that a recently reverted edit re-added the claim that one of the original aromatherapists managed to cure his own gas-gangrene with essence of lavendar? As implausible as it sounds I'd like to find a way to include it since it appears to be one of the most widely reported founding myths of aromatherapy. The trouble is even though there are hundreds of sites which report this story I've yet to find one which is WP:N, they all seem to be repeating the same legend. Any ideas how we might proceed? --Salimfadhley (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC) I think they were probably referring to Gattefosse (can't do accents) though it wasn't gas gangrene - his arm was damaged in an explosion at the perfume factory he worked in (so presumably the injuries would be burns and maybe lacerations from flying debris). He put the arm in a nearby vat of lavender oil, the pain lessened and (longer term) the wound healed well and without scarring. I imagine the episode will be in one of his books. I can try to trace the source, though I don't have very much time. The Old Trout (talk) 21:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Of interest

People here might be interested in this, though I don't know if it could be used in the article. Becritical (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Author's credibility

The aromatherapy section is not well written. I find it hard to believe that the author was familar with the sources he cited. Given the number of sources, I think it is logical to expect to see a much larger volume of text. It resembles a research paper that is reluctantly written, utilizing a few sources but because of course requirements or appearances, the author cites sources that were never read. It is obvious that his presupposition is that essential oils do not work. This is clearly shown by the authors habit of offering unsupported negitive points as the opening sentence of a section. The sections should first offer information explaining aroma therapy, different oppinions for, and then critisim and disent. The sources cited have a weatlth of information that could have easily doubled the content, giving readers a much broader knowledge base. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaminona1 (talk • contribs) 23:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is mostly fringe content. Please help by editing it. --Salimfadhley (talk) 12:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with OP but I am not a native English speaker, so I'd rather not edit this article. I will say, that clove oil for example, is widely used by dentists. Just to give you an idea of where to look for information. --86.60.203.164 (talk) 13:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

See Oil_of_cloves. --Salimfadhley (talk) 13:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep. That information alone is against what this article says. Does the English wikipedia have a "monthly" article that everyone improves? If you can suggest this to be one, it'd be great. --86.60.203.164 (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any policy like that. People are free to improve whatever articles they want. Most likely the reason this article is in poor state is that few people consider this an important subject. --Salimfadhley (talk) 14:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah ok. In Finnish one we have something like that, where everyone works on one subject monthly to improve the article. The problem is that only interesting subjects get chosen as the one we work on, so topics like aromatherapy never really get any attention, thus the article is in bad shape. --86.60.203.164 (talk) 14:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Alternative or Complimentary

Why is aromatherapy described as 'alternative medicine'? As a practising therapist, I'd call it a complementary treatment, not alternative, as would my colleagues. The Old Trout (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we just use the same kind of language that the most reliable secondary sources use. I suppose if we could find a reference that showed that one usage was more appropriate than another we could change it. --Salimfadhley (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Choice and purchase

I have considerably changed this section as the comments regarding 'therapeutic quality' were grossly inaccurate. I have an honours degree in Biochemistry, experience using Gas Liquid Chromatography, 40 years as an Industrial Chemist and 18 years running my own business selling essential oils. I have therefore ammended this section to be scientifically accurate. I have to say that this whole page does not do justice to aromatherapy, and includes many contributions and comments that are clearly prejudice rather than factual. I started supplying the industry as a sceptic, but changed by view when learning something about it. The phamaceutical industry takes a great interest in the pharmacological properties of plants oils, but is only interest in marketing synthetic versions because it can get a patent on these but not on natural mixtures. Please discuss with me before replacing my scientific contribution with more grafitti. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cjsunbird (talk • contribs) 12:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome CJ Sunbird, since you are an expert in this field could I urge you to read Wikipedia's guidance on how to be an efeective expert-editor: Wikipedia:Expert editors. --Salimfadhley (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Salimfadhley. I made a quick revision because I was so appalled by the quality of what was written. I didn't really have time to do the subject justice, but I will follow your advice, read the guidance, and return when I have time to edit properly. I am reticent to call myself an expert, but if I'm not I have certainly learnt from many in recent years. I used Wikipedia a great deal in 2010 when writing profiles of essential oils, and signed up then as an editor to correct many of the pages that I consulted. I guess I'm now feeling it's time to return and continue that work for the more general related pages... Cjsunbird (talk) 21:30, 6 May 2012 (UTC)