When buying essential oils, it is important to understand the difference in grades and quality of essential oils.
The existing problem is that there are no standards the companies are obliged to adhere to. In other words, there is no mandatory testing, and labels are often false.
This is why Gary Young created his own grade - therapeutic grade.
Depending on the essential oil composition, its healing potential is different.
From the personal experience, using other essential oils before Young Living, did not help, if not made it worse.
Following are my notes from Aromatherapy course by Kurt Schnaubelt
Purity - Adulterations
Essential oils may be diluted with alcohol or vegetable oils.
If essential oils are water soluble, then emulsifiers like in hand creams and lotions, or surfactants (as in detergents) are used.
Essential oils may be adulterated, which means, mixed with another cheap essential oil of similar composition, which is hard to detect.
Analysis
Composition of essential oils varies with climate, soil condition, organic cultivation, and time of harvest.
Gas chromatography is used for essential oils used for medical purposes.
Identifies:
compounds
concentration
Each oil has a "fingerprint", which is unique to that one botanical species.
3 simple tests to detect adulteration
greasy feel
drop on a plain white sheet of paper will evaporate without a residue (vs. oily stain)
If essential oil does not float on top, there could be emulsifies and surfactants, which produce milky or opaque solution
rancid odor (veggetable oil)
ethyl alcohol - you'll smell it
Essential oil being extended means "added to".
Pure, natural and complete
no additives
may or may not be re-distilled
Genuine and authentic
pure, natural and complete, and never re-distilled
Produced in Australia and Madagascar (water and steam distillation), and France (water and water and steam
distillation)
French Insur. companies pay for essential oils for med. purposes!
When the oil evaporates, complex high quality ess. oil will change its smell.
Natural vs. synthetic
Usually, synthetic oils smell very nice, and are sometimes even closer to the fragrance of the actual flower than the true essence.
Synthetics do not have the properties of true essential oils - the chemicals used to compose an imitation fragrance are entirely different from those found in the plant of the essential oil.
Eucalyptus is available and is inexpensive. Synthetic is more expensive to make.
However, it takes 2,000 lbs of Rose petals to distill 1 lb of essential oil (same as Melissa).
For John's wort - 4,000 of wild herbs to distill 1 lbs of essential oil
1 oz of Morocco rose (solvent extract) = $300
Optimum environment for every plant.
French Basil is 10 times the price of exotic Basil.
Cistus- ladaniferus from French Esterel mountains, multiple the price of Spanish Cystus
Myrtaceae family - best in Australia (Eucalyptus species) and on the islands of New caledonia (Melaleuca species)
Laurel Species - in Madagascar
Pesticides
Oils from wild or organically grown plants have more valuable composition
Citrus peel oils should always be from organically grown
Production of genuine and authentic (g & a)
Finding g& a is not all that easy
not too many distillers who have the knowledge
suppliers of healthy wild plants are too costly
A truly g & a guarantee:
the plant
the distillation
the essential oil itself
Harvesting and distillation
Plants need to be harvested at the peak of their ripeness (eg. wild thyme - in the later afternoon)
3.5 ton of petals from 2.5 acres of rose bushes to yield 2 lbs of essential oils
Low distillation temperature protects the essences from being oxidized - takes longer.
Lavender distills fast in the first 25 minutes, accounting for 3/4 of the total yield. However, the bulk of the natural coumarin takes 50-80 minutes.
Common Thyme, which grows wild extensively in Provence, is picked by experienced Moroccan and Spanish laborers at a rate of 100 kg per day (1 ton in 10 days)
1 ton = 700 g (1 1/2 lbs of essence)
vs.
Spanish Thyme (Thymus Zygis) commercially grown:
= 3,500 g (X5)
= 7,000g (14 lbs) extraction
= 15,000g (30 lbs) after readjustment with natural turpentine essence. Result - "White Thyme" oil (natural)
Labeling
100% natural should mean absence of commonly permitted (and mostly safe) substances as synthetic esters, emulsifying agents such as TWEEN and Octoxynol-1 and petroleum-based dilutants such as mineral oil
100% pure should mean absence of similar essential oils.
True Lavender is often extended. Lavandin
Turpentine, called "passe-partart" by commercial manufactures, is found in many commercial essences.
Some rare oils are ounly found in "reconstituted form", such as Niaouli, Rose, and especially Melissa
Blending, stretching, diluting and extending essential oils is known in the industry as "preparing a sauce"
From producer to consumer, essential oils go through so many intermediaries that the assumption of fair amount of adulteration is realistic
100% complete should mean essential oils that are not decolorized, recolored or deterpenated.. In the perfumery and food industries (citrus juice concentrates) the use of deterpenated essences is very common.
Deterpenating Thyme makes it more toxic, and deterpenating Lavender, which is very low in terpenes to begin with, takes away from its catalyst values.
Deterpenating essences for aromatherapy results in lower bioactivity.
“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." From The Great Law Of The Iroquois Confederacy