Let’s face it; the economy is not getting any better. The food cost and household items are getting more expensive every week. People are looking for ways to save money. The Complete Guide to Creating Oils, Soaps, Creams, and Herbal Gels for Your Mind and Body contains over 101 natural body care recipes that you can make at home.

 The book gives a brief history of aromatherapy, an overview of essential oils and how to handle the oils. There is a long list of common carriers and base oils, like - cranberry seed oil, grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, and many others. Then you  learn about the common essential oils, like - balsam of Peru, cedarwood, lavender, lemongrass, tea tree, and etc. You learn about the 30 uncommon essentials oils and what oils to avoid. From there you’ll get a brief 101 on soap making. The recipes range from household cleaners, to bathroom soaps and shampoos, beauty and wellness treatments, and other oils.

 Wow! I didn’t know there were so many different kinds of oils! I like the concept of making soaps and cleaners at home, but I wonder if some of these ingredients can be found outside of big cities, like - geranium oil, apricot kernel oil, and many others. The book also includes simple home remedies, backache blend, cold and flu blend, and my favorite - cold sore blend, but I have no idea where to find tea tree oil or geranium oil. The recipes look simple if you can find the ingredients. I enjoyed reading about the different oils.

Reviewed on 07/12/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Billy Burgess

Making your own creams, soaps and gels can be an overwhelming and confusing process.  Thank you Marlene Jones for putting together a guide to make it simple.  “The Complete Guide to Creating Oils, Soaps, Creams, and Herbal Gels For Your Mind and Body”, is a wonderful resource for someone who likes to do-it-yourself.  I care about what I put on my body and what I put in the environment, this guide gave me the confidence to make my own products.  My favorite so far is the Aloe Vera Mask for dry and sensitive skin.  Wow, 3 Tbsp aloe vera juice, 1 Tbsp. aloe vera gel and 3 drops of essential oil of my choice and I just saved $20 bucks. In this economy it’s important to save wherever you can, offsetting the high cost of beauty products is a great benefit.  Now with this guide I don’t have to compromise on quality.

After reading the history of essential oils, I decided what to make first, compiled a shopping list and I was on my way to making my own.  I found that I already had some of the common ingredients at home.  I was surprised a how easy it was to make my own products.  Marlene Jones guides us through the making of oils, salts, shampoo, soaps, creams, gels, and other beauty products.  Each oil is defined, their characteristics are listed plus their benefits and uses are described in an A to Z format. I especially enjoyed chapter 14 titled, Quick Guide of Conditions and Essential Oils Used for Treatments. In this chapter you will find help for whatever ails you, arthritis, eczema, headaches, and even the flu, plus many more.

This is a guide that you will use for many, many years. Not only will you be able to make beauty products for yourself but you will also be able to make gifts for friends. This guide is a must have beauty product.

Reviewed on 03/01/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Michelle Poe

Journalist Marlene Jones releases her first full-length book titled, “The Complete Guide to Creating Oils, Soaps, Creams, and Herbal Gels for your Mind and Body”.  Within its pages, she introduces the concept of aromatherapy, a little of its history, the different ways essential oils can be created, and how they can be used safely and effectively.  She also discusses the creation of soaps, creams, salts, gels, and other health and beauty products that can be made from the comfort of your own home.

“The Complete Guide to Creating Oils, Soaps, Creams, and Herbal Gels for your Mind and Body” includes a section on essential oils to avoid, something that I don’t usually see as separate in typical aromatherapy books.  Usually, these books lump all oils together – typically just in alphabetical order - and run through description after description, making it seem like ‘information overload’ to the beginner.  Jones’ separate chapter ensures that these potentially harmful substances are set apart and stand out.  A good show of responsible writing on the author’s part. 

While I found the book to be a good but very basic introduction to the subject of aromatherapy, I did see some problems.  First, most in the aromatherapy field consider Robert Tisserand to be the father of modern aromatherapy and his book, “The Art of Aromatherapy:  The Healing and Beautifying Properties of the Essential Oils of Flowers and Herbs” is considered to be the ‘aromatherapy bible’ of sorts.  Yet Jones doesn’t mention Tisserand or his book even once in her work, not as a reference or included in her further reading section.  Second, she doesn’t even tackle the important distinction between essential and fragrance oils until the very end of chapter 10, almost 200 pages into the book.  This distinction makes or breaks whether certain oils can be considered ‘aromatherapy’ in the first place; readers should have to get 2/3s of the way though the book before learning this.  Third, I did like the idea of adding color pictures to the book but the single color section in the middle didn’t really add to a better understanding of the subject matter.  It was more of a little visual interlude, pretty and more pictures of wet rocks than I would have cared to look at but that’s about it.  Fourth, the bath salt chapter was unusually short – only 4 pages.  I would have either completely left this chapter out since it isn’t mentioned in the title or added quite a bit more information.  A basic bath bomb recipe is offered but no mention of the types of salts that can be used, their different mineral contents, mixing of various salts, and the purpose or reasons each would be included for various ailments.  Further, mica was noted as a colorant but not the fact that it is an eye and skin irritant and should be used with caution.  Similarly, the perfume section, located at the end of chapter 12, only mentions ingredients for making your own perfume but has no recipe or ratio to follow; this section is located at the end of a chapter chock full of recipes for other concoctions.  Finally, the book has some contradicting information.  For example, she notes on page 34 that it takes more than eight million Jasmine flowers to make two pounds of essential oil but on page 86, the ratio is 3.6 million flowers to make one pound of oil.  Doubling the latter figure only gets you 7.2 million, but not ‘over eight million’.  Even a minor discrepancy such as this can lower the book’s credibility. 

I did like Jones’ writing style and the book was very well organized and edited; I found no noticeable spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors.  She’s obviously passionate about her subject and has a good knowledge bank to back up her information.  However, it’s definitely not an authoritative source on the subject of aromatherapy.

Reviewed on 02/09/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Vicki Landes

Reviewed on 01/20/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Kathleen Albertson

In the past week I've had the best smelling kitchen in my neighborhood!  I had so much fun creating  soaps and creams.

After getting through the history and understanding essential oils I quickly started perusing the rest of the book to see which combinations I'm going to create.  It was difficult to choose but decided to make the ones that I had ingredients at hand for first.

Because I have fine hair I decided to try the "Aloe Vera Hair Gel" to see if it really would add volume to my hair. It certainly did!  I'm so pleased I can have manageable hair now without using harsh products.  It was also time for me to have a good facial cleanse so I used the simple "Oatmeal Cleanser."  It's amazing what a little oatmeal and heavy cream can do to your skin.  I loved it.

I've used  Castile Soap for years but never considered making my own until I saw the recipe and how easy it was to make.  The recipe is large and rather than adding one essential oil to the batch I divided it into 4 containers and added a different scent to each one.  I will never be buying this soap again.

I feel that Marlene Jones is offering us an alternative that shouldn't be passed by.  Using essential oils and homemade products not only is healthier for our bodies but our environment as well.  I encourage you to consider making your own products; I can guarantee you'll have fun and the satisfaction of having healthy products as an end result.

Reviewed on 01/04/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Irene Watson