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["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

Dianne,  You know, Ghandi used to eat neem leaves every day, and there are toothpastes with neem in them.  How toxic could it be?  It smells fantastic to me, so I assume my liver thinks it's just fine.  Things my liver can't break down, my nose tells me to stay away.  A friend recently got into playing with essential oils, and let me sniff a mix called "Peace and Calm".  It smelled ok just sniffing the bottle, because the limonene from the orange and tangerine are good for me, but there is something in there that I don't break down well.  When I got some on me, the limonene was gone in a short while, but that other smell lingered for hours.  I don't need calming down, so I assume something one of the other herbs in it is either clogging a pathway that doesn't work too well in me anyway, or it's speeding up something that works altogether too well in me. (Like there are people who make excess MAOs.)   If neem smells good to you, I don't think it will hurt you.  If it smells bad, look for something else to use.  Chemical sprays smell really, really bad to me.  A lot of it is the petrochemical carriers and solvents.  I don't do so well around diesal fumes either.    Donna