Therapeutic-Grade Essential Oils

Did you know that there are important differences between a therapeutic-grade essential oil and a perfume grade essential oil? Every part of the process, from seed to the final bottling of the product, affects the quality of the essential oil.

Historically, essential oils were used to cover up industrial odors. This practice has continued through today, where most essential oils on the market are created only for smell. When the goal for a product is uniformity in smell, there isn't a concern for the therapeutic benefits of the product.

Many manufactures want to produce oils that will smell exactly the same from the bottle you buy this year, to the bottle you buy next year. Kind of like McDonald's wanting your burger to taste the same no matter where or when you buy it. That works well for McDonald's but does not work for essential oils.

You may also find food grade essential oil "flavoring" in cough drops and the like. These products are usually USP grade which are not distilled under the strict standards that therapeutic-grade oils are. In fact these flavorings may be entirely synthetic and created, as with perfume grade, only for uniformity in taste.

When you are working with a natural product, the aroma of the plant will not be exactly the same from harvest to harvest. There are many factors that cause variations in smell such as days of sunlight, mean tempurature, and soil conditions.

One easy way to tell if an oil has been adulturated to retain consistency in smell is what I call...well....the smell test!

Hold an open bottle of essential oil about the height of your belly button. Slowly bring it up towards your nose, moving your wrist in a small circle as you bring the bottle up. Let the fragrance come to you slowly, inhaling from one nostril to the next. Feel what the smell is like and make a mental note of it. I like to do this with my eyes closed so that I can fully concentrate.

The smell should have slight variations as you bring it up towards your nose. Imagine smelling a bouquet of flowers. That bouquet is rich with vibrant aroma. This is how a therapeutic-grade essential oil should smell. The scent should be an everchanging bouquet of the richness of the underlying plant.

Therapeutic-grade essential oils are also:

*Tested for purity , because essential oils may be adulterated with synthetics or distilled with solvents that will only show up in testing. These adulterations render the product unable to deliver therapeutic benefits and may also cause rashes, burn the skin, or create other problems.

*Distilled with low pressure and low temperature so that most all of the healing properties of the plant are retained. In addition, pure water during the distillation process must be used. Ideally, the time between harvesting and distillation should be close to one another.

*Organically grown, watered with pure water and grown in a pristine enviornment. These protections contribute to the finished product being free of harmful environmental contaminates.

*Ingestible when the plant, such as peppermint or lavender, is GRAS (generally regarded as safe for ingestion).

One can see why knowing the entire process used by a producer of essential oils, from seed to final product, is an important component of establishing that an essential oil is therapeutic-grade.