Handling incidents

Print this page and keep it in your medicine cabinet. When you need it, you will not have time to look things up.

Numbers to call in Vietnam: emergency 115. Poisoning advice: the Poison Control Centre at Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi, +84 24 3869 3731. If you are travelling, your hotel reception can call for you and help with the language.

Four lines to remember

In the eye — rinse with clean water continuously for fifteen minutes, do not rub, then go to a medical facility.

On the skin — wipe with a carrier oil first, then wash with mild soap.

Swallowed — do not induce vomiting, give nothing to drink, call 115 and go at once.

Too much inhaled — get to fresh air, stop diffusing, open the windows.

Take the bottle with you in all four cases. Each situation is explained in more detail below.

In the eye

Rinse immediately with clean water, continuously, for at least fifteen minutes. This is the most important step, and the sooner the better.

Tilt your head towards the affected side so the water does not run into the other eye. Hold the eyelids open and let the water run gently from the inner corner to the outer corner. Blink while rinsing. Do not rub — rubbing pushes the oil in further.

If you wear contact lenses, take them out if they come out easily, but do not stop rinsing to struggle with them.

When you have finished rinsing, go to a medical facility even if it feels better, and take the bottle.

One thing needs saying clearly because you will meet the opposite advice. Much of the aromatherapy literature recommends putting a carrier oil into the eye instead of rinsing with water, on the grounds that essential oils repel water. We do not follow that advice: the guidance of the Poison Control Centre and of eye hospitals is to rinse with water, because the first fifteen minutes decide most of the outcome, and because cooking oil is not sterile.

Skin irritation

Stop at once. Apply a carrier oil to the area to dilute and absorb some of the essential oil, wipe it off, then wash with mild soap.

On the skin it makes sense to use carrier oil first: essential oils dissolve in oil, not in water, so a carrier oil draws them off the skin more effectively. This is where skin differs from the eye — for the eye, rinse with water straight away.

If the redness spreads, blisters, or comes with difficulty breathing, it is an emergency.

Swallowed

Do not induce vomiting. Some essential oils cause further damage if they come back up through the airways.

Do not give anything else to drink — not even milk or water — unless medical staff tell you to. Rinsing the mouth and spitting out is fine.

Call 115 or the Poison Control Centre, keep the bottle, and go to a medical facility at once. Take the bottle so they know what the substance is and how concentrated it was.

With children this is always an emergency, however little was swallowed.

Too much inhaled

Get into fresh air. Stop diffusing and open the windows.

Headache, nausea or dizziness after diffusing for a long time are signs that the concentration was too high or the time too long. Next time use fewer drops and run the diffuser in intervals.

If there is difficulty breathing, or the symptoms do not ease once outside, go to a medical facility.

What to have ready when you call for help

Bring the bottle, or take a photo of its label. Medical staff need to know what it was, how concentrated, how much, and how long ago — those four facts decide how it is treated.

It is one more reason to buy oils whose labels give the full botanical name and a lot number.