This video is part of our Educational Series at Trailhead Health, where our community of amazing Doctors and Practitioners share their experiences to help answer your health related questions.
The aromatherapy patch is a new delivery system that we really needed in aromatherapy. It was invented by a Minneapolis man who is a biochemist. He developed a patented material that the essential oil is placed onto that's inert and it does not interact with the purity of the essential oil in any way. It holds it and essential oil molecules are volatile. They dissipate and evaporate quickly. And the patent hold that he has on this product is that it allows the molecules to disperse much more slowly and so now that one drop of essential oil is available for up to 8 hours depending on the oils used.
It's a simple delivery method delivering one drop. It's a little bit more than one drop. Technically it is 55 microliters of essential oil. It might be a mixture of mandarin and geranium and frankincense blend. I have 10 different blends on the patches. Its inhalation only.
A lot of times when we say patches people think it's a dermal application. No essential oils touch the skin. It has FDA approved medical glue on the backside and that is affixed to the collarbone area. The essential oil reservoir then, you open up the patch you peel away a layer that has kept it hermetically sealed so no oxygen touches the patch or the oil. Because oxygen is what would degrade the therapeutic value.
The patch is just applied to the upper sternum area and then the patient or the person receiving the aromatherapy has that available to them without having to remember to use an inhaler. That's why it's become such an important delivery system for fast paced medical environments. They used to tape a cotton ball to the shirt and actually that's why the creator of it really brought it into use in the medical environment. He was in the hospital and he got a cotton ball with lavender. He said, "Well that's nice but we can make that look a lot better?" And so that's how the patches were started. I've been a distributor of them so I've worked with him and I put my oils, my formulas, under my own label. I'm using his technology.
That's great Jodi. Thanks!