People like you make people like me look dangerous!

From the highly NOT recommended website Herbal Supplements For You "Home Remedies for Anxiety" article.

It's an herbal supplements store with a seemingly wise but anonymous author.

What's wrong with this passage?

Essential oils are some of the best home remedies for anxiety or reducing tension. Use them in a carrier oil to massage the body or throw a few drops into a warm bath. The following are those most frequently recommended to relieve tension and stress; basil, marjoram, fennel, hyssop, rosemary, thyme, tarragon and sage. If the hormonal balance is affected both drinking sage tea and massaging with essential oil of sage are particularly effective. All of these herbs should be taken in tea and used lavishly in cooking too. Bergamot, chamomile, juniper, lavender, vervain and orange can also be used as essential oils in bath and massage and the herbs used in tea as a mild sedative and digestive. Coriander, geranium, neroli, cedarwood and frankincense are spicy healing oils which are particularly calming when used in the bath.

Essential oils are some of the best home remedies for anxiety or reducing tension. Use them in a carrier oil to massage the body or throw a few drops into a warm bath.

True. Good start.

The following are those most frequently recommended to relieve tension and stress; basil, marjoram, fennel, hyssop, rosemary, thyme, tarragon and sage.

Ay Carumba! Hyssop and sage essential oils are purgative and must be used under the direction of a real aromatherapist. You don't want to relieve stress and tension by going into a coma.

If the hormonal balance is affected both drinking sage tea and massaging with essential oil of sage are particularly effective.

How does one know if "the hormone balance is affected"?

Sage tea is great is you want to shut down breast milk production after stillbirth or the death of your nursing baby. But that's probably not why you are feeling tense and stressed!

As for the essential oil of common sage, Salvia officinalis, Robert Tisserand, the most famous authority on essential oil safety, recommends avoiding it completely in aromatherapy work. He emphasizes that it is also more likely to cause skin irritation than other oils. So much for relaxing with some sage essential oil!

With its high thujone content, like wintergreen and sweet birch, it's to be used only in specific situations under the direction of an aromatherapist. Not a weekend MLM aromatherapist - in Canada you need to look for a Certified Natural Health Practitioner CNHP and/or a Registered Aromatherapy Health Practitioner RAHP. In the US, you have no such luck. No one is certified or authorized to perform "wholistic aromatherapy" - the therapeutic use of essential oils administered through the skin. You really have to do your homework to find out how and where your practitioner was trained. One to two years of training in aromatherapy is recommended!

Back to common sage essential oil, Julia Lawless in her classic The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils (Rockport, MA: Element Books, 1995), 212.] suggests its use in very low dilutions and advises "extreme precaution". So much for relaxing with a little massage of essential oil of sage!

What this anonymous supplement flogger probably means is to use clary sage essential oil for relaxation and hormone balance! Salvia sclarea is antidepressant, hypotensive, nervine, sedative, tonic and hormone balancing in menstruating women. It's described on my site here: http://www.anarreshealth.ca/node/79

For a relaxing bath, put 3 to 6 drops (DROPS!) in running water.

For a relaxing massage, add 15 drops MAXIMUM to 15 - 30 ml of cold pressed vegetable oil.

Here comes the one-two! punch of the anonymous bit of quasi medical advice:

All of these herbs should be taken in tea and used lavishly in cooking too.

Really now!?! All of them? All at once? And used lavishly in cooking? The only time I have used sage lavishly in in turkey stuffing! Pity the poor person who, taking this advice to heart, uses sage essential oil "lavishly" in cooking, and poisons herself and her family. Rule #1 of aromatherapy is:
NEVER, EVER treat essential oils, herbs or "fragrances" as equivalents! For aromatherapists, it is crucial to distinguish between the use and effects of the herb from the use and effects of the essential oil!

In my entry of Arborvitae White Cedar essential oil, in which I tell people to use it only for scent, I finish by discussing the hazards of this thujone-rich essential oil:

... officially listed as an abortifacient (a drug or agent causing abortion) and convulsant in overdose. The leaf oil is considered toxic, causing hypo tension (low blood pressure), and convulsions. Fatalities have been reported. Do not use during pregnancy. It is important to note that arborvitae oil is rich in thujone, a neurotoxin substance that must be used wisely.

Finally, the anonymous author gives us more-or-less correct, though possibly irritating, info just to confuse us:

Bergamot, chamomile, juniper, lavender, vervain and orange can also be used as essential oils in bath and massage and the herbs used in tea as a mild sedative and digestive. Coriander, geranium, neroli, cedarwood and frankincense are spicy healing oils which are particularly calming when used in the bath.

Aside from neroli essential oil being unmanageably expensive, this advice won't kill you, and will possibly relax you. Sadly, mixing helpful with harmful advice on a website is far worse than putting out blatantly incorrect information.

Please DO contact me by email if you want to know how to use an essential oil safely and therapeutically. traceytf(at)anarreshealth.ca

Trust Aroma Web for accurate safety information on the use of essential oils. See the Essential Oil Safety Guide here: http://www.aromaweb.com/articles/safety.asp

General Safety Information: Do not take any oils internally without consultation from a qualified aromatherapy practitioner. Do not apply undiluted essential oils, absolutes, CO2s or other concentrated essences onto the skin. If you are pregnant, epileptic, have liver damage, have cancer, or have any other medical problem, use oils only under the proper guidance of a qualified aromatherapy practitioner. Use extreme caution when using oils with children and give children only the gentlest oils at extremely low doses. It is safest to consult a qualified aromatherapy practitioner before using oils with children. A skin patch test should be conducted prior to using an oil that you've never used before. Instructions on conducting a skin patch test and more safety information can be found by visiting the Safety Information page. For very in-depth information on oil safety issues, read Essential Oil Safety by Robert Tisserand.