When I really decided that I am going through with Dropsmith, the biggest question was how to get the research. There is a lot of research out there and it is very expensive. Also, I am not qualified to evaluate the research, nor have the money to buy it. Lucky, I began a collaboration with colleagues from the University of Pharmacy, with whom I started a project on essential oil research. I really did not have to ask them, they simply saw the value of the project and wanted to contribute to science. On the other hand, my job was to provide as many different essential oils as possible for them to analyse. In order to attract as many donors as possible, I suggested that they get free GC/MS analysis for the donated oils. The faculty was pleased with my suggestion and I started connecting distillers to the faculty. This way the faculty gets as many free oils as possible to make as many analysis as possible to finally get as much research on essential oils as possible. To make it beneficial for everyone, the donators of essential oils got free GC/MS analysis, which are quite expensive. This is how we started.
I would also like to emphasise that all the essential oils in the final Dropsmith platform truly exist. They show the actual batch number and are linked to an existing seller registered in Dropsmith. This is the only way to be authentic and to have accurate information. That being said I genuinely believe that we cannot box nature into binary numbers, but we can at least have all the relevant information in one place.
Dropsmith already highlights the essential oil diversity. For example, you frequently hear about yarrow in the context of chamazulene (the chemical component that gives it the blue colour along with many of its properties). But now via Dropsmith, you can clearly see that that is not necessarily true because some yarrow essential oils don’t contain chamazulene at all. Furthermore, when looking at the essential oil chemistry, oils such as Immortelle are very different from batch to batch. Naturally, you would think you would use them quite different, right? Another matter I was very curious about was how similar or different are the properties of the essential oil as a synergy of chemical components, as opposed to the sum of the properties of the chemical components themselves. I am happy to announce, this is one query that Dropsmith can provide a solution to. I not only wish to provide answers with Dropsmith, I also wish to raise more questions that will influence further research and help aromatherapy community go to the next level. I wanted to create a platform that would inspire people to use and view essential oils in new light whether they are using them for three days or thirty years. That is my big idea. I dream big.
