Are All Essential Oils Created Equally?

In a word, no.

Wait, what?

Many of the essential oils being sold in stores have chemicals, fillers, or synthetics added to them and are labeled "Pure, and/or Therapeutic". Wait, what?

"About 98% of essential oils produced in the world today are not intended for serious, therapeutic use. Most are produced for the perfume, cosmetics, and food industries. Therefore, criteria like purity, potency, organic, etc. are not important for these uses. Because the raw materials and the extraction process for Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils are so expensive, many oils on the market have been cut, diluted and adulterated in various ways. Sad to say, some marketers bottle these poor quality oils and sell them for therapeutic purposes to unsuspecting consumers." (Taken from the Bio/Tech News newsletter).

This is where being an informed consumer comes into play. Let's begin with the defining what essential oils are. "Essential Oils are aromatic, volatile liquids distilled from shrubs, flowers, trees, roots, bushes, and seeds." (Quoted from the Essential Oils Desk Reference compiled by Essential Science Publishing).

"One of the factors that determines the purity of an oil is its chemical constituents. These constituents can be affected by a vast number of variables, including: the part (s) of the plant from which the oil was produced, soil condition, fertilizer (organic or chemical), geographical region, climate, altitude, harvesting methods, and distillation processes." (Quoted from the Essential Oils Desk Reference compiled by Essential Science Publishing.)

So you see, there are so many facets that affect the actual quality of essential oils. In fact, scientists have been able to to recreate fragrances and main components of some essential oils in a lab. "Inferior quality or adulterated oils are most likely not to produce therapeutic results and could possibly be toxic." (Essential Oils Desk Reference compiled by Essential Science Publishing). Some companies label their essential oils as being pure and then add fillers. A really good giveaway is the size of the bottle.

100% Pure Therapeutic grade essential oils come in a 5 ml or 15 ml dark bottles and are more expensive than essential oils. Why the difference is price? "Producing pure, Therapeutic Grade Essential oils is a costly venture. The methods required are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it often requires several hundred, sometimes even thousands of pounds of raw plant material to produce a single pound of essential oil. For example, it takes 5,000 pounds of rose petals to produce one pound of rose oil.” (Bio/Tech News newsletter) The old adage you get what you pay for is certainly true in this case. Quality costs more.

We use 100% Pure, Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils in our products and will not settle for anything less. Our products may cost a little more, because quality, clean and simple ingredients are important to us.

Want to read more?

Please check out the article "What is 'Therapeutic Grade?" by Common Scents Mom