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Owwwww! I did the dumbest thing today. I was handling an essential oil – thyme essential oil, I believe – and after I was done, I didn’t immediately wash my hands like I usually do.

Then, in a moment of distraction, I rubbed my eye. Shriek! Ouch! What was I thinking??

Fortunately, I didn’t get any thyme essential oil on my eyeball. It just got rubbed on the corner of my eye. I immediately rubbed some olive oil on the skin to dilute the thyme oil, and that worked pretty quickly to get rid of the burning sensation. By the way, never use water on skin that is burning from exposure to essential oil. The water just spreads the oil around to more places, just like an oil slick gets bigger and bigger as it floats along the coastline. At least I knew that much.

So, for safe handling of essential oils, always wash your hands with soap and water after you handle any essential oil, even the safer essential oils, like lavender and tea tree. If you can tolerate it, you can try working with exam gloves on, but I find that to be a bit clumsy. If you do that, don’t use latex exam gloves. The oil will break down the latex and you’ll have a hole-y glove!