The Many Uses of Tea Tree Oil in Aromatherapy

December 23rd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

tea tree oil is perhaps the most versatile of the essential oils. Its uses range from everything to disinfecting your home and laundry, caring for skin and hair and removing ticks. While most essential oils have a single property that makes it beneficial, tea tree oil has many beneficial properties, meaning that it can effectively be used in a variety of different situations, with completely different reasons for using it, and be effective in most cases. Here you will find a run-down of some of the most common reasons to use tea tree oil.

In rural areas of America, tea tree oil is best known for its properties of repelling insects and relieving swelling and redness associated with insect bites. Again, tea tree oil is versatile; in terms of insects, it is used before going outdoors as an insect repellent all over the body. It is then used topically on any bites (mosquito bites in particular) to relieve itching and to stop the bite from swelling and becoming red and irritated. Both of these properties are well-known in areas of the country where mosquitoes are not just a nuisance but a fact of everyday life. In addition to mosquitoes, tea tree oil can be used to help extract a tick who is busy imbedding himself in your skin. In this case as well, tea tree oil has multiple functions. The first function is to deter the tick with its insect-repellent properties. In addition to this property, tea tree oil acts as a disinfectant and has antibacterial properties. Thus, while coaxing the tick out, you are already starting to heal the wound.

All of the uses of tea tree oil mentioned above should be used with caution when you are new to using tea tree oil. It is possible for people to have allergies to tea tree oil, as can be the case with any essential oil, so if you are going to use tea tree oil in any of the manners listed above, especially to treat open skin, you should do a skin test days before you start using it extensively in order to ensure that you are not allergic to the oil. If you are allergic, putting it on mosquito bites or other open areas of skin will cause even more irritation than a simple topical application will cause. Essential oils should always be treated with care because of their enormous potency level; their potency is what makes them so wonderfully effective, but it also means that they have to be used with care in order to keep their use safe.

tea tree oil also has many known uses in the home, such as deodorizing and keeping laundry fresh. tea tree oil is one of the few oils that has a truly ‘medicinal’ property, in that it is not only medically disinfecting but also anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. This makes this oil a popular choice for treating things like athlete’s foot and open sores. The best way to apply tea tree oil for these purposes is to dilute them in carrier oil and massage them into the affected areas of skin.

You can keep laundry fresh and deodorized by adding a few drops of tea tree to each load of laundry. Although tea tree has a quite unpleasant smell right out of the bottle, this is because of its concentration in essential oil form. Once it is diluted in a carrier oil, or if only a few drops are used in a load of laundry, a bath, or in a room spray, the effect is quite refreshing and not at all unpleasant.

If your interested in learning more about Aromatherapy have a look at Learn the Power of Aromatherapy