Things You Should Know Before Selecting Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils
by Melodie Kantner
Does your Essential Oil Supplier use Any of These 9 Dirty Tricks and Adulterations Commonly Used to Extend Profits?
Unfortunately not all essential oils are created equal. In fact many, if not all the oils on the market are what is called "perfume quality" or "4th & 5th quality oils.
These are over-processed, chemical laden, highly adulterated and de-natured products that, in reality, are little more than cheap perfume made from various odorous plants. This includes oils found in health food stores. Many people think that when they buy an oil that is labeled as "100% pure" they are getting good oils. This is far from true.
Pure unadulterated essential oil is very hard to come by & can be very expensive. One reason for this is because it can take as many as 500 to 2,000 pounds or more of raw plant material to produce just a pound of pure essential oil.
Fact - The words "Pure" or "100% Pure" on the label can mean nothing more than the oil has not been diluted with a carrier oil or another cheaper essential oil.
Fact - In the U.S., a company can have the word Pure on the label with as little as 5% essential oil in the bottle. This just means that they have some of the real oil in the bottle.
Fact - Chemical additives can be included in some so called Pure Essential Oils.
Fact - Chemical additives fracture the molecular structure of essential oils, altering their chemical constituents, thus destroying their therapeutic properties. And, of course, the chemicals themselves may present a health risk.
9 Dirty Tricks Essential Oil Suppliers use to Increase Profits:
1. A common way to extend the volume of an oil is to simply add alcohol, propylene glycol, or acetate to the distilled essential oil.
2. Some oil producers add synthetic oils to the so called "Pure" oil.
3. Some oil producers do not actually add chemicals to their oils. Instead, they inject chemical solvents into the water in their boilers during the distillation process, increasing output by about 18%.
Imagine what happens to essential oils when chemicals are added to water, which is boiled into steam and then forced into plants to extract their oil. It is impossible for an essential oil extracted through this method to avoid containing at least SOME of these chemical additives.
4. Many essential oils are produced by solvent extraction & can wear the label "pure" essential oils. With the solvent extraction process essential oils are extracted by immersing plants in chemical solvents, such as hexane, petroleum benzine, ether, or carbon tetrachloride.
These extraction processes both destroy essential oil's therapeutic properties and bring their own health risks from the residual chemical additives which remain in the essential oils they produce.
5. Redistilling Plant Material: Essential oil producers often increase profits by redistilling plant material in as many as 5 or 6 distillations. They save the first distillation for true therapeutic grade essential oils, then selling the second, third and so on to the unsuspecting public.
Imagine if you are using a teabag over and over. . . The first cup of tea tastes good but the second is not nearly as good, let alone 3rd, 4th 5th . . .
6. High Pressure, Heat Distilling: Distillation at lower temperatures and low pressure is the preferred method for producing high quality, pure essential oils.
Imagine pressure cooking a salad: Nutritionists tell us not to boil our vegetables because the hot water removes the vitamins and nutrients. Similarly, "boiling" plants to extract their essence destroys many of a plant's fragile constituents, which gives essential oils their therapeutic properties.
Keeping the distiller's temperature low is a must.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Essential oils MUST be distilled for the proper length of time to release all their active constituents.
For example, cypress must be distilled for 24 hours to release all the chemical constituents. Most distilling operations, throughout the world, only distill cypress one hour and 15 minutes.
Similarly, lavender does not produce all its therapeutically effective substances unless it is distilled for one hour and 30 minutes; but most lavender is distilled for only 15 minutes! Three-quarters of the volume is extracted during the first quarter of the distillation process.
Many producers end the process there because the increased time does not significantly increase the volume. Time is "only" a crucial factor to extracting the plant's therapeutic properties.
-----SIDEBAR-----
7. Soil Quality/ Pesticides: Another factor in the purity of the oils is the land on which the plants are grown. Inexpensive essential oils are usually produced by large farm operations that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Pesticides are oil-soluble and residue remains in essential oils extracted from pesticide-treated plants.
Some of the lavendin grown in Russia and China (used to make much of the so-called lavender oil sold around the world) actually contains radioactive isotopes because of the nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Imagine using an essential oil extracted from plants containing radioactive isotopes AND to which chemicals have been added to extend the oil -- synthetic linolol acetate to improve the fragrance, and propylene glycol to increase the volume!
8. Passing Off Hybrids as Therapeutic Grade: Some unscrupulous brokers market an engineered hybrid "lavendin" as true Lavandula officinalis. Lavendin can be adulterated by flashing off (burning off) the camphor and adding synthetic linalyl acetate. These brokers hope to represent lavendin as true lavender to increase profits.
9. In addition, some bottles do not contain the oil stated on the label. Oils marked as "clove" may be distilled from the leaf instead of the bud. Clove leaf oil is less expensive but does not have the same chemistry or therapeutic properties as clove bud oil. Many times, essential oils marked "cinnamon" are actually "cassia."
Fact - According to an independent laboratory in California, Flora Research, MOST essential oils sold are either synthetic or adulterated with chemical additives.
You will want to listen to the audio of James Kababick, Director of Flora Research. He is speaking at a past Young Living convention where he was invited to speak about the independent testing they do for Young Living. http://tinyurl.com/3yv39n
Listen to this audio 14 minute audio. It is a really powerful talk on oil quality and testing to insure Young Living's oils are the highest quality possible.
Fact - Young Living is the largest grower of essential oil plants in the world.
View some pictures from my visit to Young Living Farms: http://young-living-oils.net/guide/young-living-farms.html
I don't know about you but, I get really angry about all the money I spent on "junk oils." I had come to the conclusion that aromatherapy doesn't work because I tried oils for a variety of things but I got no results.
My very first experience with Young Living Essential Oils was a miracle. I was suffering from suicidal depression at the time I was introduced to the oils. My mother, had just ordered some oils to try. She knew I was suffering from depression but had no clue I was wishing I could end my life. The only thing that kept me from doing that was I would not want to leave my family to deal with the aftermath of a suicide.
Mom brought over some oils and I tried the oil blend Abundance. Wow! It took just a couple of minutes and I was lifted out of depression to the point I was singing and dancing around the house. At the time my son was still living with us and he didn't know about the oil and he asked if I was "on something."
That was over 10 years ago. Since then I have seen many miracles with Young Living's oils. Some are so powerful I can't even mention them for fear of getting in trouble.
If you haven't tried Young Living Essential Oils yet, I urge you to invest in your family's health.
To your health, Melodie Kantner
