Essential oils are becoming super popular, but there are certain risks that can happen while using one.
Emily Smith recently experienced the risks of diffusing essential oils. Smith recently suffered a chemical burn on her face from her oil diffuser.
She shared her story on Facebook and shared photos of her burn. “If reading this post prevents one person from experiencing the pain that I have, then my accident won’t have been in vain,” she wrote.
Smith explains how she was unaware of the dangers of diffusing oil. Smith was using an electric diffuser one night while watching movies with her boyfriend. They stayed in, lit a fire in their fireplace and diffused oil.
When she went to turn off the diffuser by holding a button down for a few seconds. “In the process of turning the appliance off, some of the vapor from the diffuser must have sprayed onto my face.”
Smith didn’t think anything of it because she was “unaware that the vaporized ‘diluted’ oil from my diffuser could also be dangerous.” When Smith went to put another log into the fire a few hours later she felt her face getting hot. She didn’t connect that the diluted oil water and the heat were the culprit.
“The burning sensation increased, and I realized that I had been burned, although extremely confused and unsure about how it could have happened,” Smith called for medical help and they said she had a first-degree burn and told her how to treat it at home.
The next morning she woke up with her face swollen so much that she was unrecognizable. She went to the hospital where eventually she was diagnosed with chemical burns.
Smith’s story is very much a freak accident of getting spray with vapor oil water and then being in contact with intense heat. But it is a cautionary tale to make sure oil diffusers are being used properly.
