ep. 026 • Let’s Talk Essential Oil Safety

Chelsea: As henna artists, we're so used to adding essential oils that many of us, whether knowingly or unknowingly, approach essential oils like we would approach sugar or what tea to use in our paste or whatever, and look, using essential oils inside of our henna paste is certainly one of the ways that you can produce rich stains for your clients, but you can't overlook what these products are. An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid that contains volatile chemical compounds from plants, period. That is what it is. And so, if you're using essential oils inside of your paste and using that paste on clients, you need to be super aware of essential oil safety. Yeah let's dive in! We need to chat about this today for sure.

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I'm also a professional henna artist and business strategist who went from barely being able to piece together a fluid design to being the owner of the most celebrated henna boutique in my city.

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Hey, hey, hennapreneurs! So today I want to talk to you guys a little bit about essential oil safety, and the reason why I bring this up to you is that oftentimes there are conversations that are had inside of...Inside of the Hennapreneur community or inside of private messages with me. I'll receive DMs, I'll receive questions, I'll receive emails even, perhaps from new artists or even seasoned artists as well, who are using essential oils or who have questions about using essential oils or of issues with perhaps a client and they're wondering how to troubleshoot their paste. Oftentimes this is what happens: I'll receive a message from someone who has had an issue with a client, who has had a reaction. And so they want to then troubleshoot that problem. They come to me for advice. And then at that point and time, we start to break down what's going into their henna paste and we get to essential oils and I'm finding that they're using those essential oils in a way that's unsafe. And so I want to talk to you guys about this.

I want to open this conversation up here on the podcast as well, because I think that it's super important for you as, as a Hennapreneur to be aware of what you're dealing with when you're working with essential oils. First of all, I really wanted to preface this conversation just by saying: We need to be on the same page, and we need to understand that the use of essential oils can be likened to the use of medicine. So while these are natural products, they are not in their natural state. Okay.

An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid that contains volatile chemical compounds from plants. Like sure, it's from plants. Doesn't change the fact that it's a volatile chemical compound. Okay? And so that for context, because I feel like oftentimes people don't even realize what exactly that can mean, for context, you need to be aware that it can take hundreds and sometimes thousands, right, hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of plant matter to produce essential oils. It can take hundreds, thousands of pounds of plant matter to produce a tiny vial of essential oil, depending on what, what type of essential oil you're working with.

In fact, in the case of lavender, I've read that it can take around 250 pounds of lavender just to produce one pound of essential oil, a lavender essential oil itself. And that's huge, right? There's no way that we could consume that much lavender. Lavender is safe in and of itself, sure. But as an essential oil, ah, that's a little bit different, right? You could not safely consume that much quantity, right? Of lavender and still be okay. There would be issues.

And so we forget that essential oils are being applied to the skin. The skin is an organ. It is an organ. And so we cannot just mix the paste and add in a bunch of essential oil and then act as though it doesn't matter. No. You have to be mindful of the quantities that you're using and you have to be mindful of what is and what is not safe. So just as we're thinking about how we approach essential oils and in the context of this conversation, I want to just like state this very clearly: We cannot afford to approach essential oils lackadaisically in our business. Like you cannot be nonchalant about how much essential oil you're using in your paste, period. This is a safety issue, and it can result in serious liability gaps for yourself and for your business. Okay.

Obviously, you need to know the industry standards. There is a very common understanding that you can use up to 30 milliliters, which that's about an ounce, one ounce of essential oil for every hundred grams of henna powder , okay, of raw henna powder. This quantity is accounting for maximum potency, right? Personally? Personally, I don't use that much essential oil in my paste. I use about half. I use around 15 milliliters of essential oil to every a hundred grams of henna powder. And that works for me. I do it that way so that I have a more gentle paste and my stains have never suffered, okay? Because I use great quality ingredients. Otherwise, I don't feel the need to take my paste to the “max”. Keeping my paste more gentle allows for reduced opportunity for adverse reactions and, hello Hennapreneurs, it also results in reduced costs for me as wel! Think about the investment in terms of quality ingredients, right? Because of course, you're going to want to mix your henna paste using the best ingredients possible.

So when you're investing in those ingredients, what is the most expensive ingredient that you're purchasing for your henna paste? Ding, ding! Essential oil! Okay. So you want to get a great quality of essential oil? Sure, absolutely. But also, you don't need to max out your paste in order to have an effective stain. You can use up to that max, but I happily sit right in the middle and my paste has worked just fine. And for me, not only does that again, it allows for me to have a more gentle paste, which means that I can serve my clients more confidently without having to worry about, if someone has sensitive skin, what is this going to do, and Blah blah blah. No. I keep it much more gentle, from that perspective, but also there's a cost component here. The reduced costs means something to me inside of my business as well. And so I just, I don't find it by chance, I don't find it to be by chance at all, that the same supply brands marketing essential oil blends to henna artists would be the exact same ones who are suggesting that using the maximum amount of what is considered safe would also be like the requirement for good paste. I'm just saying I've happily used half of the industry standard in my paste for years and I have zero regrets. I said what I said, okay?

There's that, but beyond that, I want you to, if nothing else, if you take nothing else away from what I'm sharing with you here today, I want you to be inquisitive about your essential oils. Okay. There are a number of essential oils that we all perhaps we don't all know, but that are well-known for their use in henna. So essential oils like lavender, like tea tree, like eucalyptus. All of these are very well known for being used in paste, but did you know that there are many more also that can provide you with beautiful quality stains? Because there are. Like those top few that you hear, they're not the only ones that provide the capacity or the ability for you to terp your paste. And if you're not aware of what those others are, like now would be a great time to perhaps invest the time in educating yourself around this.

Did you know, for example, did you know that not all eucalyptus is equal in terms of quality or safety? If you are unaware of that, then definitely you shouldn't be using eucalyptus essential oil then, because there are certainly eucalyptus essential oils out there on the market that are not, are not safe for use on skin. Did you know that there are some essential oils that also carry contra-indications and can't be used on clients with certain physiological conditions? If you didn't know that if you weren't aware of that, then these are the things that you need to dig into before working with essential oils in your paste.

And honestly, before you ever start charging money for your services: this is a safety issue. This now, at that point, it becomes an ethics issue. If you're willing to take money for a service, but you're going to render that service with a product that you don't know enough about? That to me speaks to an integrity problem, and I will never encourage henna artists to work on clients, to work on anyone else's body, without having mastered, or at the very least, without having a solid understanding around the chemistry of henna.

You need to know these things. Because if you're going to be offering this service and placing this paste on someone else's skin, especially if you're getting paid for it, you need to have a solid handle, right? This is, it is a liability, it's a liability issue.

And I think that oftentimes people, we gloss over it because we live in a society and an environment where you can find essential oils just about anywhere. You can walk into any big box store, you can find them at any drug store. You can find them, if you're lucky, you can find them at the local convenience store, at the gas station. And it's wild to me that this is the way that we here, at least in the US, approach essential oils. Because if you look at essential oils and the use of essential oils in other countries, there are countries that require that you complete, there are countries that require that you complete a program that you acquire a, a certificate to be able to even work with essential oils, because it is just like medicine. You're dealing with dosages, right? This is not something that is, it's not, we should not be approaching it as nonchalantly as we do.

And so I could harp on that all day, but here's the thing: As you're learning what, which essential oils you want to use, as you're learning how to craft and perfect your paste, obviously you want to have the best ingredients. You want to have the best quality ingredients for your clients and for yourself and you, you want to feel proud and feel really good about the paste that you're creating. So great suppliers will gladly provide you with their MSDS. Or if you're not familiar, MSDS is your material safety data sheets. Okay. They will happily provide you with MSDS for their essential oils so that you can be aware of what's in them from a chemical perspective, and you can be more informed about them as it relates to contraindications. Now, when I talk, when I say, being aware of, of what's in them from that chemical perspective, I'm talking chemical as in chemistry, right, not like chemical as in toxic henna cones. Though sometimes the two of those do overlap (like eucalyptus essential oil, I'm looking at you).

So this is something for you to have in mind. If you aren't already reviewing or in the habit of reviewing MSDS forms, sheets, for the products, for the essential oils that you're using inside of your henna paste, I want to encourage you to do that. If you don't have an MSDS for the essential oils that you are working with right now, go back to your supplier and request those, but know what's in the products that you're using and essential oil being the most volatile ingredient that you're using inside of henna paste. And because it is the single ingredient inside of henna paste that’s most likely to cause a reaction with clients, that is the one ingredient that you definitely need to have a handle on. So if you're just getting started with henna, whether you're a hobbyist or just considering working on client skin for the first time for money, then getting super familiar with information like this needs to be one of your priorities for sure. And if you're a seasoned artist who perhaps needs to brush up on these things, like I want to encourage you to do so too, we have got to keep our client's wellbeing at the forefront of our minds. Right now we are in a position where our industry is unregulated here in the US and in most countries abroad. And because of that, there's, there's a lot of leniency and there's a lot of loophole. But we need to do better, right?

Like we, as Hennapreneurs, we want to be the leaders inside of our industry, leaders inside of our spaces, and working with integrity. And we're working with solid ethics and working responsibly is, that’s a non-negotiable. That is what we do, okay? And keeping our client's wellbeing at the forefront of our minds, as we're making decisions around the products that we're using, how we're using them, how much we're using of them, and all of the above, like that has to be, that has to be point #1, okay?

So I want to encourage you if you're not already super familiar with essential oils, as they relate to your specific paste, here's your homework: Go do that (laughs) go do that. Do some reading on essential oil. I would encourage you to check out, there's a lot of resources that you can find, by way of the Robert Tisserand Institute. He teaches all about essential oils. You can find a lot there. Or as, jeez, even as you are touching base with your suppliers, ask questions of your suppliers! Ask them about the, can you obtain a copy of the MSDS for the oils that you're purchasing? What can they tell you about Contraindications? What can they tell you about the use of this particular essential oil on skin? What can they tell you about dilution of that essential oil? Like these are questions that are legitimate questions that you should ask, and can ask. And if they're unwilling to engage you in that sort of conversation, then I would suggest looking for a new supplier period. This is not something, it's not a game, and it's not something that you can brush off. Because you know what, in the instance that someone has a reaction, they're not going to look at your supplier. They're going to look at you period. And you don't want to open yourself up to unnecessary liability when taking a little bit of time to educate yourself first could save you a whole world of hurt.

And like I said, again, ultimately we want to make sure that we're taking care of our clients and keeping their wellbeing at the forefront of our minds. And that's it. That's what responsible Hennapreneurs do.

So that's me getting off of my soap box. So thanks for listening! Thanks for listening to my rant. But this is something that's very important, and it's something that I don't think is talked about enough, at least from a perspective of, really it's low key, like a call-out to our industry. Like we have to do better. But at the same time, it really is a reminder, or if nothing else a big “hello, be aware of this”, for those new artists who are coming in, who perhaps did not have never been exposed to this, these types of ideals. I want to be sure that you are aware of this prior to going to working on clients, because I want to see you win. And part of that is making sure that you are doing the right things to take care of, to take care of your clients of course, but then also to protect your business in the process.

All right, so, I will wrap this up for now and I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye.

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