Infused oils are not actually extremely concentrated as opposed to distilled oils, however, some plants are strong enough to elicit a strong reaction in whatever form they are prepared. There’s a big difference between Wintergreen and Calendula and Aconite and the levels of toxicity therein. But there’s also a big difference between Wintergreen essential oil and Wintergreen infused oil…. One is an extracted constituent of the plant the other is a product of the whole plant (or at least the bits soluble in oil).

Just take a look at any good modern Western herbal (Michael Moore springs to mind, or even Rosemary Gladstar) or herbal website, and you’ll see what Kate is talking about.

OK, now I’m just confused again. If you fill a jar with plant chopped plant material, and then fill the jar again with olive oil, let it sit for 6 weeks, then you will have a very safe oil that can be used lavishly and freely in many situations.

Have you ever actually done that? You get an extremely concentrated form of the herb, so a few drops could have the same impact as a few pounds of fresh leaves. If a single leaf will make you a little queazy, a few drops of such an infused oil will kill you. I would hardly call that “very safe.”

Did you make the citronella oil, the cedar oil, the wintergreen oil, the eucalyptus oil yourselves?

At the class, the instructor brought them. I made some infused oil of wintergreen before that, and accidentally got a few drops on my hand. I didn’t think I’d still have my hand after that, but it turned out all right, just felt like it would burn off for a while.

It’s not ‘my’ terminololgy, it’s the terms and concepts used by every herbalist I’ve ever heard say anything on the topic.

See the above links to Susun Weed.

I don’t know how much I trust Susun Weed–that link seems to mix in a lot of hokey New Agey stuff that really makes me uncomfortable. Our material mostly comes from students of Dr. Christopher. Most of our books currently sit in boxes, though, so I can’t really go get them and quote stuff.

Just in case this is going to boil down to semantics, my impression is that the term ‘infused oil’ has come about to make the distinction from EOs clear. Most herbalists traditionally would have known a herbal oil as an infusion of whole herbs in oil or fat, not a strong extraction of the volatile oils only.

Huh, I can see the value of the distinction (infusion differs from distillation, after all), but if it popped up recently to make a distinction, maybe it hasn’t popped up everywhere? It sounds like you keep pretty closely to the “wise woman” circles, which we rather assiduously avoid for the most part because of our deep skepticism of anything smacking too much of New Age stuff, so perhaps this comes down to little more than two branching traditions in modern American herbalism?

A personal anecdote to illustrate: I love wood sorrel. Had some for breakfast. Found out they act as a diuretic. Spent the morning in the bathroom, because I ignored the most important rule of herbalism: to treat these plants as people, and keep in mind what they can do.

Infused oils concentrate the effects many hundreds of times more than the herbs themselves, so very small errors can have the same impact as, say, ingesting a few pounds of the herb. I’ve spilled a few drops of wintergreen “infused oil” on my skin and it felt almost like burning. So please, never assume that because it grows “naturally” that herbs can’t hurt you, particularly when dealing with extremely concentrated forms, as the commenters above call “infused oils.”

The upper safety level for Wintergreen EO is 0.7% in ointment. There are free toxicology research articles about wintergreen online. You have published 6.0% of Wintergreen EO in this recipe.
The total EO concentration in this recipe is 25%! Aromatherapists generally speaking do not go over 5% total EO for an ointments. This is not very safe to go 5 times higher than the upper safety level for EO.

http://www.susunweed.com/weedforum/viewtopic.php?p=144180

“I don’t know if we really want to adopt your terminology.”

It’s not ‘my’ terminololgy, it’s the terms and concepts used by every herbalist I’ve ever heard say anything on the topic.

See the above links to Susun Weed.

Also wiki (for what that’s worth):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oil

Making EOs:

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/faqs/medi-4-1-distilling.html

Henriette’s recipe for Rose Salve, which starts by making rose infused oil (she doesn’t use the term ‘infused’ she just calls it a herbal oil. But she does distinguish this from EOs). She uses a hot water bath or oven method rather than the 6 week cold infusion I menioned:

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/blog/rose-salve.html

Some other herbal oil recipes from Henriette:

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/blog/pd-herbal-oils-1.html

(btw Henriette uses the term ‘essential oil’ to refer to both the extracted oil and the oil still in the herb. I prefer to call the later a volatile oil so that it’s differentiated from the extracted EO).

A short discussion on using infused oils instead of EOs in chest rubs:

http://herbwifery.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=270

Mountain Rose’s page on herbal oils

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/oils/herbal.html

and essential oils:

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/aroma/ess.html

and their page on EO hazards (the disposal info is interesting):

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/essential_oils_handle_with_care.html