Can I Use Flower Essences If I Have Allergies?

The short answer is yup. Unless you have a reaction to alcohol or latex you can use any essence. 

Long Answer

When you're looking at the different flowers that make up a blend, and you know that you're allergic to Goldenrod, and Goldenrod is listed as an ingredient, what that actually means is that the frequency of Goldenrod is in there. Not actual Goldenrod plant parts. Nobody is allergic to frequencies, just things of an organic or chemical nature. Your immune system has to have an actual substance to go to war on. 

Flower essences are more akin to homeopathy than herbal tinctures or essential oils. In both homeopathy and flower essences, healing is done on a vibrational level rather than a biochemical one. There's nothing of the original substance to cause an allergic or toxic reaction, nothing to interact with medications, nothing to overdose on. 

Alcohol and latex allergies

We use brandy as a preservative, so you get a very minute dose of alcohol, details about how minute over here, but some sensitive people do flush a bit. You can still use essences externally or you can pay a bit more for us to custom make you one with vinegar instead. 

The latex is in some of our droppers, and both alcohol and vinegar are solvents. If you've ever made herbal tinctures, you've probably used one of those two to extract the properties of the herbs. In this case it's extracting latex which is plant based so it works just like any herb.

Our number 1 supplier uses latex droppers. Our number 2 supplier does not, but is also unreliable. It is a crap shoot as to which you're going to get unless you write in the order note that you need latex free. We will then put standard caps on the bottles for you so you can source your own latex-free droppers to use. 

I think I'm having a reaction!

Ok, it's either the alcohol, latex, or a healing crisis. Here are some ways that an alcohol reaction can present. If you've had alcohol before with no reaction,  it's not very likely that you're sensitive to it although allergies can come on at any time in life. 

Here are some symptoms of latex allergies. Again, latex is pretty common and you've probably reacted before this if you're allergic, but you can build a sensitivity over time. 

A more common senario with flower essence reactions is the healing crisis. While people are all over the map in how they react, sometimes rashes or stuffiness are a part of it. It's not an allergy, but it is your body responding to the emotional shifting and releasing that you're doing. If this is the case, it passes in a day or two, and you won't have the same experience on every essence like you would an alcohol or latex allergy. Cut back or stop dosing if it's hard to deal with. Most of the time, people can start back up after stopping and not have a reaction.

It's hard to find anything safer for healing than essences, and even among people with lots of allergies, they are rarely ever an issue. 

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