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Date: 4/7/2020
CHICOPEE – Jonathan Evans, owner and information specialist for the Herbarium, recently raised an alarm about information circulating regarding the use of essential oils of cinnamon and cloves to combat COVID-19.
“People are using essential oils in a dangerous fashion,” Evans told Reminder Publishing, indicating a customer had called his shop to ask how many teaspoons of the oils would be correct to use. The caller said the information about using these oils to help combat the coronavirus had come from a church group’s website, suggesting these were oils used for health during biblical times.
Evans said the suggested use of these oils as they are produced today – in very concentrated forms – can irritate, even burn the skin if applied directly. If used incorrectly in a diffuser, those oils can irritate the lungs. Ingesting them in something like tea can also be dangerous to health. “The chemical structure of these oils is very irritating,” he said, citing the skin irritation an employee once experienced simply being exposed to fumes during a decanting process with one of these products.
“Distillation wasn’t discovered until the 14th century,” Evans stated, adding that in biblical times, something like clove oil was created by “dropping cloves into a container of olive oil and letting it stand for a few weeks” to infuse the oil, not through the highly concentrating process used to create today’s essential oils.
“I tried to explain to the caller that the information isn’t true,” Evans said. “My wife, Kathleen Duffy, has been a certified aromatherapist and educator for 20 years, teaching medical professionals how to use these products safely. You don’t do [what’s suggested] with these oils.”