Value = Quality Oils
| Why Quality Essential Oils Cost So Much and Why Cheaper Oils are Not a Better Value
Or, why you should insist on therapeutic-grade oils: Because aromatherapy is about more than just the smell Essential oils are very complex substances, some containing more than 200 different chemicals, joined in an intricate aromatic mosaic. And, for an essential oil to have the properties needed for medicinal aromatherapy, each of those chemical constituents must be present in the proper proportion. (See the articles on AFNOR standards and essential oil chemistry.) But, one thing that complicates the process of producing a quality oil is that these aromatic chemicals are very fragile and volatile. If great care is not taken in the distillation of the oil, the delicate structure of the oil will be fractured, leaving you with an oil that has a poor chemical profile and/or is essentially inert — dead. Unfortunately, in today’s market, most producers of essential oils are more concerned about the cost than the quality. They take shortcuts in the distillation process or add chemicals into the mix — or simply whip up a synthetic, Franken-oil — to produce oils that may smell okay, but lack any of an true essential oil’s therapeutic value. They may work well enough for recreational fragrancing, but they are not at all suitable for true aromatherapy. Producing a pure, therapeutic-grade essential oil is very costly. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it often requires several hundred — or even thousands — of pounds of raw plant material to produce a single pound of essential oil. For example: * It takes three tons (as in 6,000 pounds) of melissa leaves and flowers to produce one pound of melissa oil. Its extremely low yield explains why it sells for $9,000 to $15,000 per kilo. For medicinal aromatherapy, the quality of the oil is the key The challenge to find quality essential oils gets even greater when you consider the prevalence of synthetic or adulterated oils. Besides the solvents commonly used in the distillation process — solvents that remain in the oil and are readily absorbed into your system if applied to your body — many essential oils are cut with petrochemical “extenders”, like propylene glycol, or are “tweaked” with synthetic chemicals to enhance their fragrance. Some oils are manufactured entirely from synthetic chemicals. At best, you are left with an oil that is lifeless. At worst, you could be the victim of a toxic brew that can have profoundly adverse effects on your health. When looking for essential oils to use in true aromatherapy, always go with an oil that is tested in an AFNOR-certified lab, from a producer you know and trust. There is a vast difference in the quality of oils on the market today. Most essential oils (about 98% of them) are produced for the perfume industry, where the main considerations are the oil’s aromatic qualities (how it smells) and producing it at as low a cost as possible. And that is fine, for that purpose. These distillers have found that they can produce more oil at a higher speed if they extract the oil at high pressure and high temperatures, and add chemical solvents during the distillation process. In so doing, they lose many of the therapeutic chemical compounds of the oil (they are either flashed off with the high heat or are never released from the plant material), but most people still think these oils have an exquisite fragrance. The problem arises when these oils are marketed for aromatherapy purposes. You see, in terms of essential oils, aromatherapy is about more than just the smell. You need the whole range of chemical constituents in the oils to achieve safe and effective therapeutic results. And, although the fragrance might be pleasing enough with these cheaper oils, the delicate chemical balance of the oil necessary to produce therapeutic results has been altered. Even worse, these cheaper oils can be quite toxic, as one powerful chemical constituent of the oil loses the balancing influence of the chemicals lost in the distillation process |