Book Review: Australian Tea Tree Oil First Aid Handbook-By Cynthia Olsen

101 Plus Ways to Use Tea Tree Oil

"Australian Tea Tree Oil First Aid Handbook-101 Plus Ways to Use Tea Tree Oil" by Cybthia Olsen is published by Lotus Press out of Twin Lakes Wisconsin.

It's an 84-page book that I got for $7, plus tax, from my friends at 911Earth in Sayre Pennsylvania. But just in case you're not in the area, it can also be ordered from your favorite bookstore with ISBN 13: 978-1-8909-4102-4 and ISBN 10: 1-8909-4102-6. The price mentioned is in US Dollars.

I picked up the Second Edition. It's what seems to be the available copy today. I had no luck finding the first edition anywhere. I'm sure it's probably somewhere on eBay.com or maybe Amazon.com. I just didn't have the time to search exhaustively for something I had no desire to purchase.

Ms. Olsen's book covers the different uses of Australian Tea Tree Oil. There are thirteen chapters that lay out the various uses for Tea Tree Oil, in regards to the head, face, teeth, throat and chest, body, legs and feet, personal hygiene, beauty care, home care and on the road, aromatherapy, baby and child care, outdoors and camping, and then there's the appendix with additional information on how to make salves as well as miscible solvents.

Ms Olsen seems, at first sight, to have put together a handy little reference guide. She tells how you can use Tea Tree Oil for the variety of uses mentioned previously.

But it's what's missing that I noticed first. For starters, in the section on uses for the surface of the head she describes dandruff as dry flaky skin. Nope. That's just dry flaky skin. Dandruff is actually a condition of the scalp that is a hygiene influenced condition. It's just common to mis-label dry scalp as dandruff. Most might say I'm just nit-picking. When it comes to medical information, though, isn't that one area that you want to nit-pick?

The book also doesn't cover the active agent of Tea Tree Oil. Since it's "natural" it's assumed to be safe for everybody. While that may be true for the majority of people, if you've an allergy to any sort of turpines, then you most definitely want to avoid using Tea Tree Oil.