Good morning! My name is Adryan
Dupre, I’m a stay at home mom for my two BEAUTIFUL girls, and I’m a very strong
advocate for and educator on Essential Oils and their place in our personal health care
system. My background is in Chemical
Engineering, which I studied at University of Texas at Austin (go horns!) and
which has helped me quite a bit in understanding the science behind why essential oils are so effective at
treating our common ailments, and cleansing our environment. But most of all, I
just want to do what’s best for my family, and even without understanding the
chemistry, I see the effectiveness
with my own two eyes every time I turn to my oils as a first line of defense.
I’ve found I almost never need my old standby pharmaceuticals anymore, and our
visits to the pediatricians office are very few, and far between.
Lemon, Lavender, and Peppermint are
arguably the three most versatile essential oils available to us as natural
alternatives to the current synthetic
norm. They also happen to be three of my personal favorites. For my daughters,
2 years old and 9 months, at least one of these oils makes its way out of the
box to come to our rescue on a daily basis. Setting a goal of incorporating
these three oils into your daily routine is both a GREAT way for newcomers to
get started with essential oils, and for seasoned natural remedy veterans to recommit to a more natural lifestyle. So
let’s talk a little bit about how each of these oils can be used on a daily
basis to improve the health and wellness of our families.
Lavender:
Lavender has innumerable applications, and therapeutic. That said, for the purposes of this blog I’m going to focus on some practical application, rather than the somewhat dry details about the chemical constituents that make each oil so beneficial. So! Here are my favorite everyday uses of Lavender:
·
Bath time with my girls. I put a few drops in
the bathwater to help them start winding down for bed. Lavender is very
calming, and has a sedative and soothing effect, which is especially good for
children when they need their rest.
·
Massages for any and all of my family. For the
same reason that I put it in the bath water, we also apply it directly to the
skin to relieve tension, stress, as well as pain from sore muscles. Great to
use for a couples massage when you and your husband just need a little
one-on-one time after the kiddos have gone to bed.
·
A sleep aid. I put a drop or so on my children’s
lovies and blankets that they sleep with. Not only does the aroma therapy of
the lavender help them sleep, I’m also creating a conditioned response for them
by associating the smell of lavender with safety, security, and rest. My hope
is that as adults, they will have a tool to help them battle nights of insomnia
or restlessness and stress both biochemically, and emotionally.
·
Lastly, I love lavender for sunburns. It has
pain killing properties, as well as great skin healing properties that are a
great combination when it comes to pesky sunburns. I put about 10 drops in a 4
oz. glass spray bottle, and fill the rest with water. When I need to apply, I
shake it up and spray it on my girls skin where they got a little too much sun.
Be careful with all essential oils not to get it in your or your children’s
eyes!
Lemon:
Once again,
the therapeutic properties of lemon are astonishing, but focusing on more
specific application, here are my favorite uses for lemon!
·
Digestive aid. A drop of lemon in a cup of cold
water in the morning is a great way to kick start your digestive tract for the
day in a healthy, beneficial way.
·
Foot odor. My husband is a runner. A runner who
often can’t find a pair of socks, for some baffling reason, and leaves the
house with just his tennis shoes on to sweat profusely in the 100+ degree
Houston summer heat. You can see where I’m going with this. A couple drops of
lemon in his shoes works WONDERS against persistent foot odor.
·
Goo-be-gone. Lemon oil works amazingly well to
get pesky stickers and gluey substances off of hard surfaces. I use it
regularly for this purpose, and I can vouch for its effectiveness!
·
Fruit/Veggie freshness extender. You can put a
drop of lemon in a LARGE bowl of water, and rinse your apple slices, or other
fruits and veggies in it to help prolong their edibility. A little goes a long
way for this!
Last but
not least, we come to peppermint. My essential oil brand of choice is doTERRA®, for many reasons. One of
which deals with the fact that they source their oils from the parts of the
plant with the most therapeutic value, and ONLY those parts of the plant.
Peppermint oil, therefore, is extracted from the LEAVES of the peppermint plant
only, rather than the entire plant. For that reason, doTERRA® peppermint oil
smells and tastes very sweet, rather than earthy as you find with many other
brands. This makes their peppermint oil unique, and useful in even more ways.
·
Headaches. You will be AMAZED at how effective
peppermint can be on a headache. Apply a drop to your fingers, and rub it into
your temples, and you’ll feel instant cooling, and almost immediately start to
feel your headache pain diminishing. This is my first medicine I reach for when
I feel a headache coming on.
·
Cooling mist. A few drops in a spray bottle with
water makes a great cooling mist for the summers. It has a very cooling effect
on skin, similar to the Icy Hot type muscle relievers. For my children in the
summertime, this is a great tool to have in my purse for when they start to get
overheated running around like little hellions. J
·
Breath Freshener. You won’t get much fresher
than this, and there’s no sugar to worry about rotting your teeth like with
breath mints. That same cooling mist bottle I use for my kids, is perfect for
this purpose as well. Just remember, once again, to make sure that the oil
doesn’t get in to you or your children’s eyes! Also make sure that the brand of
oil you choose is safe to be taken internally, like doTERRA®.
·
Baking. I’m a big baker J I mean, I bake a lot, not
that I’m severely overweight… though the baking I’m sure isn’t helping me with
this stubborn post-pregnancy weight. sigh. Anyway, because the doTERRA®
peppermint is so sweet, it makes a great addition to candy, and chocolate in
the kitchen. Not too much, as one drop of their peppermint oil is equivalent to
28 cups of herbal tea. It’s VERY potent. But very tasty as well.
There are so many other reasons to use these three oils, and
countless other ways to incorporate them into your daily routine, but I hope
that this will at least give you a starting point! Don’t be intimidated to jump
right in, you’ll be so happy you did. And I’m always available to offer any information
or help I have with questions or concerns. My fondness for these oils led me to
decide to pursue an opportunity to educate and spread the word about essential
oil use and application, and for that reason I decided to start supporting my
favorite brand, and if you have any questions for me as to WHY I chose doTERRA®,
I’d be more than happy to answer them. To contact me, my email address is Adryan.dupre@doterragoodness.com.
If you are interested in purchasing any oils, my website is www.mydoterra.com/adupre. Finally, I
offer classes at the Katy Birth Center in Katy, TX every 2nd
Thursday of the month. All are welcome to join, the more the merrier! Hope I’ll
see you there J
Adryan Dupre
