This book gives a full description of the Caddy Profile system, along with Caddy Classic Profiles showing the typical composition of 90 commonly used essential oils along with extensive notes on their theraputic uses.

Review - by Brenda Cooke

This book is rightly described as a brightly coloured gem, and is the most exciting and informative book on aromatherapy that I have yet seen. Rosemary Caddy has developed a logical system of coloured profiles – Caddy Classic Profiles – for each essential oil, each one having its own unique brilliantly coloured ‘pie’ chart which acts as an individual fingerprint.

The author is a qualified clinical aromatherapist and a lecturer in educational research. She is conducting a programme of research into the chemistry of essential oils and is currently investigating synergistic mixes of oils. The clearly structured visual system is designed for the professional and student, and makes it possible for the reader to actually see at a glance the chemical qualities of the essential oils. This approach makes it very easy for the student to understand and link the chemistry to the function.

There is a different colour for each of the chemical families (functional groups), and the colours are ranged in logical order, from shades of blue for the relaxing esters, aliphatic aldehydes and ketones, through green, yellow, to shades of red for the stimulating alcohols and phenols.

There is a page for each essential oil, with its pie chart. The percentage of each chemical family is listed alongside the matched colour boxes beside the pie chart for quick and easy reference. The colour boxes are repeated under the body systems, and property/uses are given. Specific chemical constituents are given at the bottom of the page.

The book contains 90 oils including 5 types of Eucalyptus. The differences in the coloured pie charts of these are immediately obvious and quite striking – it is very interesting to compare them all. As one who has studied Aromatic Medicine, I think the Caddy Classic Profile is a great advance in enabling the student to understand the properties and subtle variations of the essential oils.