Ep. 7 - Ashlie Pappas: Essential Oils 101

Do you feel as healthy as you think you should?

Ashlie Pappas is the Founder of Naturally Ashlie, a company dedicated to helping others to live a more fulfilled life through creating shifts in the areas of eating, fitness, stress management, and living more naturally.

She also hosts a great podcast, Stress Free Naturally, which features short, guided meditations to help reduce stress in your everyday life.

Ashlie wasn’t always as healthy as she wanted to be. In her late 20s, Ashlie was working in a gym, teaching yoga classes and really happy with the direction her life was going… except she should have been at peak healthiness.

Ashlie was active, but she wasn’t healthy. She experienced her...

• nervous system shutting down.
• digestive system malfunctioning.
• body stop regulating its own temperature.
• skin changing to “fun” colors.

Doctor visits led to prescriptions – medication led to more side effects. Ashlie started looking at alternative methods of addressing her health. She improved her diet, but her diet was already pretty good… then she looked at her skin care products.

Ashlie was buying dollar store skin care and cleaning products, and they were poisoning her.

“I was learning that essential oils had additional and therapeutic benefits and so I started using them to support my health, in addition to cleaning out the toxins from my lifestyle. What I experienced was really amazing.”

She started making her own skin care and cleaning products using essential oils.

What are essential oils?

• They’re not technically an oil. They’re fat soluble, but they aren’t greasy.
• “They’re essentially a plant’s way of communicating with the world around it.” The oils may ward of predators or operate as an immune system. It’s basically the lifeblood of a plant.
• Genetically, at our building blocks, we aren’t that different from plants so essential oils have a similar effect on humans.
• Common essential oils include lavender, tea tree oil (melaleuca), patchouli oil, cinnamon, and peppermint.

How do you use essential oils?

• Diffusion – Essential oil diffusers use ultrasonic means to disperse oil particles through the air.
• Topical – Before using a topical essential oil, it is good practice to mix it with a carrier oil (like fractionated coconut oil or jojoba oil).
• Ingestion – Make sure you are using an essential oil that is safe for internal use. If it is safe to ingest, you can mix the oil with a fat-based oil...