Talk:Essential oil

Myths before reliable written records are not history, fails?

Dear User:Zefr, I know that my writing is not perfect. And it needs other contributors to improve it, not nearly completely deleted like this.

"promotional content, quackery and dubious refs from alt-med; myths before reliable written records are not history, fails":

- Huangdi Neijing is not a myth, it is "the fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia." A book that has been influenced eastern culture for millennia is not "history"? And what is inside that book is still in research, not all of them were wrong.

- Ayurveda: I agreed it is an alternative medicine system and pseudoscientific. However, it is heavily practiced over more than two millennia in the Indian subcontinent, larger than China. And you called it is not "history"?

- Vedas, a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India, have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE, can not be called "history"?

Please remember that history is history, it is not right or wrong. It is just the event, point of view,... of our ancestors. If you wanna make it clearer, you could just edit it like this: "Ayurveda, an alternative medicine system,...". Right?

Moreover, what I mainly mentioned was just statistical information from them, not medical advice. For example: "massively recorded the properties of essential oils and their medical uses", "described a wide range of essential oils with over 700 curative herbs",... So what is wrong with them?

As your qualifications, the Hippocrates part should be deleted too. What he said is just his idea, not scientifically proven. However, you improved it for me. I really appreciate it. Promotional, misleading, vandalism,... content should be deleted. I agree. If it is a not-perfect (or so good) contribution, it should be improved by our community. I wish that my part can be improved as you do with my Hippocrates part.Sideduck (talk) 04:21, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Editing is dynamic and can be changed if supported by WP:SCIRS sources, not by questionable independent books or hearsay. An essential oil is the result of multistep manufacturing, introduced in the lede with the statement, "Essential oils are generally extracted by distillation, often by using steam. Other processes include expression, solvent extraction, sfumatura, absolute oil extraction, resin tapping, wax embedding, and cold pressing." It is highly doubtful such methods were used millennia ago, and no reputable, peer-critiqued review discusses such practices. It is more likely that the sources you used were conjecture or exaggerations about extracted essential oils, and more likely concerned resins or dried materials (not manufactured essential oils). Your edits and sources gave specific information from periods long before written documents existed, so are not WP:V. Some of your content and references, like this one, are just spam. Everything else you provided was perpetuating myths or quackery, including Huangdi Neijing, Ayurveda, and Vedas. Zefr (talk) 06:21, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Dear User:Zefr,

1) "Some of your content and references are just spam.":

I gave citations for every piece of information I provided. Please tell me there is anything else that could be considered spam? We can just delete this ref. Don't remove all the edits because of a piece of information that did not look really good.

2) An essential oil is the result of multistep manufacturing, introduced in the lede with the statement, "Essential oils are generally extracted by distillation, often by using steam. Other processes include expression, solvent extraction, sfumatura, absolute oil extraction, resin tapping, wax embedding, and cold pressing." - You said: "It is highly doubtful such methods were used millennia ago, and no reputable, peer-critiqued review discusses such practices." And then you assumed that all information in ancient texts like Huangdi Neijing is a myth? Now you just applied your thought without any evidence to the topic.

For your information: "The history of production of essential oils dates back to ca. 3500 bc when the oldest known water distillation equipment for essential oils was employed, and may be seen today in the Texila museum in Pakistan. Ancient India, China, and Egypt were the locations where essential oils were produced and widely used as medicaments, flavors, and fragrances."

"no reputable, peer-critiqued review discusses such practices." - It is just your own statement, Mister. You could do your own small research to see what scientists have been researching about how ancient Chinese and Indian produced and used essential oils. It is not too rare for you to see. For example: "For a long time, essential oils were well-known for their therapeutic importance. They were used as perfumes and flavors for foods and beverages or to heal both the body and mind for many years. They were used in ancient civilizations as Chinese, Indian, and ancient Egyptian and show their uses in many treatments in different forms. The ancient Chinese were the first culture to use aromatherapy in folk medicine, and then the ancient Egyptians created undeveloped distillation machine that is used for the crude extraction. Greece learned a large deal from the ancient Egyptians, and they also learned the therapeutic and aromatic advantages of the aromatic plants." and here: https://academic.oup.com/jee/article/106/1/513/846507?login=true - Please do not forget that usage of essential oils was not only medical but also pest control (like in ancient Egypt) and religious purposes.

The Egyptians used essential oils - 4000 years ago: You believed.

Hippocrates used essential oils - nearly 2500 years ago: You believed.

But Chinese and Indian used essential oils you did not believe because you thought "It is highly doubtful such methods were used millennia ago"?! Did you contradict yourself? Please tell me that it was just your lack of cultural understanding, there was not anything racism.

I just want my contribution back with good edits from you (I appreciate that).Sideduck (talk) 09:05, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

References

I remain unconvinced about your arguments, sources and content suggested. There are no rigorous WP:SCIRS reviews to support this section. Overall, the whole history section lacks credibility specifically about essential oils and the good sourcing to support it. With this and the following edit, I trimmed it further and moved History to the end of the article until we have stronger sources. Zefr (talk) 17:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your response.

Firstly, I agreed that we should improve the whole history section.

Secondly, moving this section to the bottom and forgetting about it is not a solution.

Thirdly, I am willing to discuss with you what information we can bring back. I am doing my small essay about Essential oil, that is why I am interested in this and I have time to do the research.

Thank you again for your time.Sideduck (talk) 05:23, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Good content on this topic will come from reputable sources, especially reviews per WP:RS. Using the search terms, essential oils-history-review on Google Scholar and PubMed, I didn't find any source worth using here. Zefr (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Florasols extraction sources

This revert - originally against editing by a now-blocked user - is justified because the source for it is not a WP:SCIRS review, but rather a non-science blog. Further, the content is promotional of a supposed method having "big fans" (lol). Nonsense like this has no place in an encyclopedia. The reverted edit was also justified by one source copying Wikipedia content and another claiming "healing" properties of essential oils, a property for which there is no WP:MEDRS source. IP user 51.6.235.68 is warned for re-inserting content not supported by reliable sources. Zefr (talk) 17:39, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Evaluation

The history section could be improved with more sources. There are some claims that are not backed up. Katiemeow2 (talk) 00:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SP24 - Sect 201 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 March 2024 and 4 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jrxijown (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jrxijown (talk) 20:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)