[.ca] Encyclopedia of Essential Oils (ISBN 0007145187)

Recommended standard text for Aromatherapy education:
This book is recommended or required reading for almost every aromatherapy educational course, home use workshop, or personal study bibliography I have ever seen produced by leaders in the aromatherapy field in the United States, Canada, or Great Britain. Application guidelines and chemistry overview are located at the front of the book. To throughly learn a subject, whether by reading or class work, more than one source of information is necessary. I recommend at least 4 different sources of information and 7 is better. This text should definately be one of the 4 for aromatherapy.

Not practical for home users:
The first thing you notice about this book is that there's no color in it, which is misleading because the cover is so beautiful. I thought there would be photos of each plant and it's uses. Although it is in alphabetical order, it all sorta runs together. For practical home use, I do not recommend this book. For each plant it gives synonyms, general description, distribution, other species, herbal/folk tradition, actions, extraction, charactistics, principal constituents, safty, and FINALLY aromatherapy and home use. For me half of those catergories are of no interest. Lots of the aromatherapy and home use seems to be the same from plant to plant. It never describes how one should apply or administer these plants and essential oils for therapy. Its just not what I was looking for as far as a practical guide that you can grab and look up a certain symptom or oil...