This week’s aromatherapy book review focuses on an aromatherapy book that I found very useful when I was just starting to learn about aromatherapy. Want an introduction to the history of plant oils? Need to understand, in simple terms, the basics of the chemistry of essential oils? Or perhaps you are just wanting to know a little bit about aromatic plant families? These topics, and more, are covered in Aromatherapy Workbook by Shirley Price.
About Shirley Price
Shirley Price is a British aromatherapist with decades of experience in the practice of aromatherapy. She founded Shirley Price Aromatherapy which was, at the time, the largest specialist aromatherapy training school in the world. Although she no longer owns and operates Shirley Price Aromatherapy, her daughter, Penny Price, has continued the family tradition by opening her own aromatherapy training school in the UK, with satellite academies around the world. Shirley Price also developed her own range of skin care products and has authored several books, in addition to Aromatherapy Workbook.
About Aromatherapy Workbook
The sub-title to Aromatherapy Workbook is A complete Guide to Understanding and Using Essential Oils and this more or less describes the contents of the book. As a beginner to the subject, I found the book helped me to understand, in simple terms, the complex subject of essential oils. To give you an idea of what subject matter you will find in the book, sample chapter titles include:
- Extraction methods
- Aromachemistry – the Chemistry of Essential Oils
- Plant Families
- Safety of Essential Oils
- Carrier Oils
- The Holistic Approach
- Women’s and Children’s Problems
- Oils at Work in the Home.
The small book is approximately 300 pages long and is packed full of some very useful information; I still refer to it today on a regular basis. Needless to say, my copy of Aromatherapy Workbook is well-worn with scribbled notes in the columns from my initial learning (notes which I still find useful!)
It seems difficult to find a new copy of this book at a reasonable price in the United States but you can pick up a used copy from about $12 by using my bookstore link here. I would highly recommend purchasing Aromatherapy Workbook, particularly if you are just starting out in aromatherapy!
For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be writing about a couple of different subject areas that have recently been in the spotlight or are often “hot” topics in the world of aromatherapy…
NB, I will get back to aromatherapy book reviews and professional aromatherapist interviews after that…
