How to Choose and Apply Essential Oils: An Advanced Holistic Method for Personalized, Whole-Person Therapy

This guide outlines a structured method for choosing and applying essential oils for spa, wellness, and therapeutic use. Using three integrated systems—The Holistic Essential Oil Triad™, Tiered Aromatherapy System™, and Outside–Inside–Out Method™—you’ll learn how to blend oils with precision, clarity, and a true whole-person approach.

Essential Oils are the Best in Holistic Therapy

Essential oils are the most holistic therapy used in spa and wellness. They influence the entire body and its systems, the emotions, and the subtle energetic body. This activity is simultaneous. It’s holistic. To understand this simultaneous activity, I’ve developed systems to help choose and apply essential oils with clarity and precision. A structure. A process.

Therapeutic efficacy comes from choosing oils for the person who has the symptom. Not the symptom alone. You want to know who the oils are for. The whole person. That’s where the work begins. When we start there, essential oil therapy becomes something much more powerful, reliable, and personal.

Know the Person with the Symptom Using the Outside–Inside–Out Method

Knowing the person begins the process. You want to understand how they function, respond, and react to their environment. The goal is to uncover underlying factors that may cause imbalance in the body and mind. This is where the Outside–Inside–OutMethod™ (OIO) becomes essential. It helps identify what’s happening around them, how they’re processing it, and how that’s showing up in their body, their skin, and their behavior.

The goal is to uncover underlying factors that may cause imbalance in the body and mind.

Outside is what surrounds them. Work, environment, relationships, habits. Inside is where that experience is held. How the nervous system responds. How thoughts form. How stress builds. Out is the outward expression. What we see in the skin, mood, physical symptoms, and behavior.

This becomes the lens for understanding the person. The oils you choose will only be as precise as the information you start with. The OIO Method gives you that information. Structured. Observed. Holistic.

Why Essential Oil Therapy Needs a Holistic System

To work with essential oils effectively, we need a broader understanding of how they act and how to work with them. That understanding is holistic. This is why I developed the Tiered Aromatherapy System and the Holistic Essential Oil Triad.

These systems were created in response to the fragmented way essential oils are often taught and used. Focusing on isolated chemical compounds or using oils for one therapeutic feature such as calming or stimulating limits their potential. It also creates inconsistent results. The oils don’t always perform the way we expect. One oil may work beautifully in one case and have little effect in another. It’s not that the oil failed. It’s that the method was incomplete.

Essential oils never work in isolation. They act on the whole person, simultaneously on emotion, chemistry, biology, intention, and behavior.

The Tiered Aromatherapy System for Whole-Person Essential Oil Therapy

The Tiered Aromatherapy System™ expands essential oil use into seven overlapping layers. These tiers include olfactory science, intuitive qualities, chemical activity, nature’s healing, and more. They create a full-spectrum view of what the person needs and the layers of essential oil therapy.

The Holistic Essential Oil Triad: Olfactory, Pharmacological, Metaphysical

The Holistic Essential Oil Triad™ brings this into practical structure. It organizes oil selection through three core functions: olfactory, pharmacological, and metaphysical. These three categories help ensure that the oils selected address the nervous system, the body, and the subtle field. These three categories happen simultaneously every time you use an oil. The Triad helps you to work with the synergistic activity of the oils. This provides purpose and precision.

This is the model that supports the 8-step essential oil blending process.

Essential Oil Selection Example Using OIO, Tiered, and Triad Systems

You first define the function or therapeutic goal you want from your blend. It’s important to have a well-defined goal in order to select the most effective essential oil combination. This is determined through a client evaluation using the Outside–Inside–Out Method. The final therapeutic outcome could be to relieve neck and shoulder pain. An OIO analysis may determine that the pain is stress related. Further evaluation reveals that the stress is coming from a heavy business workload and challenges at home.

In this case, our example is a woman who was raised outside of urban areas and has a positive relationship with fields and flowers. Tier 1, olfactory signaling, would direct us to select essential oils that evoke that environment. The goal is to trigger positive olfactory emotional memory to reduce anxiety. Tier 3 brings in the biophilic effect. This connection to nature supports emotional wellness and strengthens her inner sense of stability. Tier 2 guides the application. Topical use on the back of the neck would provide anti-inflammatory receptor activity. Smelling the oils would also engage the olfactory nerves and limbic system response. This approach eases nervous system tension while directly supporting the symptom of pain. The tier layering system guides essential oil selection and application for truly holistic wellness.

The Holistic Essential Oil Triad brings structure to the selection. An oil such as Cape chamomile could be used related to the olfactory category, calming the nervous system and reducing emotional stress. Vetiver could be selected regarding its pharmacological function, diminishing inflammation and calming muscle tension.

Vetiver would also provide grounding and energetic support, aligning it with the metaphysical category. Oils would continue to be selected across each category of the Triad to support the emotional, physical, and energetic needs of the client. Application and selection based on the Triad coincides and synergistically harmonizes with the tier system.

The 8-Step Essential Oil Blending Process for Precision Formulation

This is the process that brings everything together—goal, evaluation, selection, and formulation—all structured into eight clear steps.

Step 1: What’s your goal?

Define what you want to achieve. Think symptom, cause, and outcome.

Step 2: What properties will resolve your goal?

Identify the therapeutic properties needed to match the goal.

Step 3: What chemical compounds will solve the conditions?

Choose compounds or functional groups known to support the outcome.

Step 4: List the potential essential oils for the goal.

Build a working list of oils based on properties and chemistry.

Step 5: Select an application and carrier, or base, best suited to the therapeutic goal.

The application determines how the oils will perform.

Step 6: Select your final oils and formulate your blend.

Refine the list and create a blend with purpose and precision.

Step 7: Decide what percentage of essential oil is best.

Dilution is based on the application. Most often 1 to 3 percent.

Step 8: Formulate.

Write the formula. Keep a record. This is how your work grows. More importantly, you won't lose any of your great recipes.

Let's go beyond picking oils from symptom charts.

In this recorded session you’ll learn how to choose and apply essential oils using a personalized, layered method for the person with the symptom—not just the symptom.

This is evolved aromatherapy.

Click the button to view the Recorded Livestream”

“How to Choose and Apply Essential Oils: An Advanced Holistic Method”