Toby: Hi everybody, this is Toby at Young Living. I have at my side Marc Schreuder, Director of Product Formulations, and we’re going to get into the nitty-gritty of PanAway and Ortho Ease. Hello Marc!
PanAway…this is a flagship product for Young Living. Why do you think people are so drawn to this essential oil blend?
Marc Schreuder: Well it works! This is what people consistently say works for them.
Toby: Tell me about the blends, the ingredients in PanAway. What makes it special?
Marc Schreuder: Well if you look at the ingredients, first of all you have Wintergreen. We get our Wintergreen from China, it’s from the gulf area procumbens plant. It’s wonderful, wonderful oil; very high in methyl salicylate. Methyl salicylate is similar in its chemical structure to what you will see in acetylsalicylic acid, which is typically in aspirin. So you see that kind of similarity in the structure. Of course this is from a plant; very different. You see the similarities – it’s an essential oil that has this methyl salicylate in it, and it really works on the enzyme cascade in the body to modulate, not just topically but internally, these types of modulation mechanisms.
Toby: Wintergreen is a very important part of PanAway. Why couldn’t a person just put on Wintergreen? Why consider PanAway; is there something else in the blend?
Marc Schreuder: Wintergreen by itself is just one part. The problem is it’s not effective by itself. If you just use Wintergreen by itself you get a very one-sided biological response, and so we found that we needed to combine it and in particular, what else is in PanAway is Clove. Clove oil has been used topically for the numbing of gums by dentists for hundreds of years. So you have that gum-numbing history behind the Clove and the eugenol; and then of particular import is an oil called Helichrysum italicum; we get this from Corsica. It’s grown in Corsica. It’s also grown in the Bosnia area. It’s a beautiful, beautiful oil; rich in alpha- and beta-selinene, very high in beta-caryophyllene, typically 7% to 8% beta-caryophyllene, and beta-caryophyllene has been studied extensively for its properties. Helichrysum is a very unique oil chemically, and really harmonious with a lot of the biochemical pathways of the body, and quite balancing. So when you’re talking about PanAway you’re talking about a biochemical balance where you’re modulating these minor aches in a way that’s harmonious with the body’s chemistry, harmonious with the frequency if you will, of the body, without disturbing the natural rhythm and homeostasis of the body. So when we try to look at the more natural approaches to it you see a more gentle approach, you see an approach that’s more in line with the biochemistry of the body as well as the physiology of the body.
Toby: So Marc you talked about Wintergreen, Clove, Helichrysum. Are there any other oils in there that make it effective?
Marc Schreuder: One of the other oils in PanAway is Peppermint oil. Peppermint by itself has been studied in being able to relax the nerves that can cause tension; facial tension, muscle tension.
Toby: A lot of Young Living members have been using PanAway for years. Just this morning I asked for a few people to give their feedback on Facebook, and Steve in Minnesota says that he is a Zumba instructor, and he says that in Zumba dancing and Zumba exercise they shake their hips a lot, and he was using PanAway. A couple of the dancers came up and asked what he was doing, and he writes here: “I applied the PanAway on their legs and instantly they were saying ‘Ahhh that feels great!’” Can people expect an immediate reaction like that with PanAway?
Marc Schreuder: Some people will, some people won’t; usually they will. It just depends on the individual person, their diet, their emotional state. A lot of athletes rely on this particular blend for these types of issues.
Toby: Another testimonial that came in from Facebook is from Erica, and she swears by PanAway. She says “I use it daily, and occasionally add Frankincense to it.” Have you heard of that before, people adding other oils with PanAway for different effects?
Marc Schreuder: Absolutely. In fact when we created Deep Relief it was an extension of PanAway.
Toby: Just as we wrap up I have one more testimonial. Lisa says on Facebook: “My favorite PanAway story is when my son was just 2 or 3 years old, we used some on one of his hurts and he said ‘These essential oils really work, Mommy!’” She said it was cute, and that is cute. And that’s how you started this conversation, is that PanAway works!
Toby: Now Ortho Ease has been a standard for a lot of Young Living members. Again I’m going to ask a question, what makes Ortho Ease so effective?
Marc Schreuder: Well it’s effective as a massage treatment particularly.
Marc Schreuder: So when would you use PanAway as opposed to Ortho Ease?PanAway is designed to be kind of a spot application if you have a minor ache in a certain location, it could be a finger, it should be a shoulder blade, it could be just a spot on your back; whereas Ortho Ease is designed to be more of a broad application where maybe instead one spot on your back you’ll actually apply it across the entire vertebrae, across the entire spinal column. Similarly, rather than applying it just on your knee as you would with PanAway, you’ll apply the Ortho Ease on the entire leg. It’s a more gentle, more broad action in how it works.
Toby: You mentioned, Marc, that Ortho Ease is similar to PanAway in its application. What formula differences are there between Ortho Ease and PanAway?
Marc Schreuder: Well the major difference is the addition of Juniper oil in the Ortho Ease; PanAway does not have any of the Juniper oil as it’s designed as a spot application. But the Ortho Ease has the Juniper to help the detoxification processes of the body because a lot of the minor aches, particularly that are more diffused in the body, tend to be related to the poor elimination of toxins, the poor circulation in some areas of the body, and so the Juniper is designed to help promote minor improvement in circulation which is very, very important in more of a diffuse or broad application. So the Ortho Ease is more than just something to relieve minor aches; it’s also part of a detoxification program as well.
Toby: Marc, we have one more oil to talk about, and that’s Australian Blue. What is special about Australian Blue?
Marc Schreuder: Well what makes Australian Blue special for me is the blue cypress. It’s an oil that we get from Australia; we actually have a partner in Northern Australia, Northern Territory they call it, who actually distills this out of the branches of the Callitris intratropica tree. It’s harvested sustainably as a side note; this guy actually culls his trees and then re-grows them or replants them in selected areas of the Northern Territory.
But for me the blue cypress is a fantastic oil. It’s one of our hidden treasures. It has a unique chemistry that’s unshared by any other oil; it’s a very heavy oil, it’s a very thick oil, and it’s very very rich in something called guaiol. Guaiol is almost a crystal at room temperature and we actually have to strain some of these crystals out of this blue cypress oil so that it can remain an oil; otherwise it will become almost solid at room temperature. So how is guaiol and how is blue cypress used? Well traditionally it’s been used for skin issues. Of course they are looking at modern verification of these today; a lot of these are just traditional usages coming from Australia, coming from these local people who swear by this oil, they revere this oil as something that they would use in any kind of skin issue. So we’re talking about something that people regard as near-miraculous for dry, flaking skin and there’s no oil we have that even comes close to this. In fact for me blue cypress is such a special oil; a lot of people say that Lavender oil is like the Swiss Army knife of essential oils but I would say that blue cypress shares that role as the Swiss Army knife. They actually did studies in Australia on the toxicology of this oil along with its traditional uses, and they found that it’s one of the most gentle and safe oils, at least according to their testing, so it’s a fantastic oil.
Now if you look at the chemistry of the oil you find alpha- and beta-selinene. Now what on earth are those? These are the principal ingredients in Helichrysum. Helichrysum italicum has alpha and beta-selinene, and you find these in higher concentrations in blue cypress! So some of the properties that people find so valuable in Helichrysum are actually accentuated in the blue cypress — an undiscovered treasure, honestly, for this oil.
Toby: You talked about blue cypress in Australian Blue being effective for the skin. A lot of people have had testimonials of blue cypress helping with their emotions. And along with blue cypress, what emotional effects can people expect when they diffuse Australian Blue or when they apply it?
Marc Schreuder: It’s able to be very very calming and emotionally dampening. You’re able to react to stressful situations so much more effectively because it enables the mind to reorient itself properly. In fact there are indications that this might have the most powerful frequency for the entire body of any essential oil known. Some other ingredients in essential oil, particularly along the emotional front, when you’re looking at why it works for emotions, why it’s able to modulate emotions in a stressful situation — if you look at eudesmol they have something called alpha-, beta-, and gamma-eudesmols in these, and these are constituents particularly of Myrrh oil. You’ll find these types of ingredients in the oils of the Bible. So it has a unique chemistry that is related to the Biblical oils, it’s related to Lavender in functionality, it’s really one of the great oils of all time that we have.
Toby: So let’s hear a testimonial from one of our Facebook commentators. Rachel says she loves Australian Blue. Personally she has used it for deep anger issues and it’s very calming, and she also puts Australian Blue on her animals, specifically her horses. Have you seen that before, using essential oils on horses?
Marc Schreuder: No I haven’t, and that’s a wonderful testimonial. We know that it’s effective for jumpy humans! It modulates our own emotions. This is one of the benefits of the natural products in the sense that typically if you find that they’re effective emotionally for humans, if often times translates to the animals as well.
Toby: Marc you talked about blue cypress as an important element in this blend. What other oil in Australian Blue makes it special?
Marc Schreuder: Well you have Cedarwood oil in this blend and that’s a really special oil for helping to calm emotions. There was actually a study done in Japan where it talked about cedrol, which is the chief component of Cedarwood oil, and its ability to really modulate anger, reduce feelings of stress, of nervous tension; very, very powerful emotionally, one of the most powerful emotional oils. This is one of the reasons it’s in the Stress Away blend as well.
Toby: Thank you so much, Marc, for joining me today.